Send in the Clowns

On the way home from Kansas City Sunday evening, a song came over the radio speakers.

Known simply as "Send in the Clowns," this song has been a long-standing personal favorite.

Isn't it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground,
You in mid-air.
Send in the clowns.

Isn't it bliss?
Don't you approve?
One who keeps tearing around,
One who can't move.
Where are the clowns?
Send in the clowns.

Just when I'd stopped opening doors,
Finally knowing the one that I wanted was yours,
Making my entrance again with my usual flair,
Sure of my lines,
No one is there.

Don't you love farce?
My fault I fear.
I thought that you'd want what I want.
Sorry, my dear.
But where are the clowns?
Quick, send in the clowns.
Don't bother, they're here.

Isn't it rich?
Isn't it queer,
Losing my timing this late
In my career?
And where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns.
Well, maybe next year.



The sentiment for me comes from my first memories of this melody.  As a child, we lived in close proximity to my dad's uncle and aunt.  At least once a month, we would drive up to their townhouse to spend time with them.  I loved visiting Aunt Edie.  They had the most amazing home...  a little organ, shelves upon shelves of books, a pool out the back door.  I learned so much sitting with her.  Even after the day she died, she was one of my favorite people.

Aunt Edie gave my family a music box.  Nothing fancy, it was a porcelain, pastel colored, about 9 inches tall and extremely fragile.  With 3 children in the house, it was bound to break, and break it did, but not before I fell in love with the two clowns and their instruments.  I didn't learn the lyrics of the song until much later, after the death of my Aunt Edie.

I remember the night that she passed after a long struggle with cancer.  I wasn't very old, maybe 7 or 8.  I remember being in my bed, and my parents talking in the living room of our home.  She had been in the hospital for several days.  Thinking back, it was probably pretty common knowledge that she was passing soon, but I didn't understand that at the time.  All at once, I knew.  She was gone.  I felt it.

In tears, I walked out to the living room.  Just as I crossed the doorway, the phone rang.  After 10 pm was not a normal time for our phone to ring.  My dad took the call.  He was very grave, and left quickly.  He didn't even say what the phone call was about, just that it was "time."

My mom looked at me and asked what I needed.  I told her Aunt Edie was gone, and she started to cry.

Aunt Edie was the first person I knew closely that passed away.  It was a difficult transition for me.  Obviously, though, her memory lives on.

Even now the lyrics of "Send in the Clowns" remind me of my Aunt Edie.  She was an amazing woman, though not always remembered for such.  Late in her life, with her suffering, she struggled with so much.  She seemed so trapped in her townhouse, in the eyes of a little girl, for that is the only place I knew her.  But she wasn't always thus...

Her career was that of a special education teacher.  She had unending patience and a childlike enjoyment of the simple things.  We shared an interest in toys, and would spend hours talking about our bears and dolls.  She threw me my first tea party, and gave me a tea set we would enjoy together.  We would read books, and I remember borrowing from her shelves book after book, only to return at a later visit and switch them out.

In college, the small organ became mine, but had to be left behind when the girls and I moved.  While I still have a few of the stuffed animals and dolls she left to my care, the haunting melody of "Send in the Clowns" still holds the strongest memories of Aunt Edie.  I think the memories of those moving on are much like the clowns in this song...  They are "already here" and then gone.

"Well, maybe next year."