The Eleanor Rigbys

Words attached to music create a reality intended by the songwriter. The resounding echo of the Beatles song ‘Eleanor Rigby’ has haunted me lately. “All the lonely people, where do they all come from? All the lonely people, where do they all belong?”

Wandering about the house in the empty spaces of Coronavirus quarantine, I felt an eeriness as the woeful tune and lyrics rang through my mind. I started to think about Eleanor Rigby. Not unlike her represented image, this isolation from grandchildren, normal activities and even my daily time with my husband in a nursing home has forced me into the perceived illustration of her loneliness.

Every stanza of that song begins by setting the listener up for answers of assumption. From the gallery, we only see Eleanor’s life based upon the view of the author - not based upon what could be, the other side of the tale. Who are we to judge her existence? And how do we know her whole story based upon circumstantial evidence?

Eleanor is in a church, cleaning up rice from a wedding. Does she live in a dream, or is her service her dream? A face in the jar by the door– her cold cream. Could she have just wanted to be ready to assist with the best version of herself in spite of age and adversity?

You get where I’m going. Those deprived of full knowledge prefer to paint a picture of pain and isolation. Imagination is weak when the opinion of how someone chooses to live their life, is not matched by equal estimate of jubilation.  It makes me sad that McCartney and Lennon didn’t even try to see the goodness or value in Eleanor Rigby’s life.

Still, I wondered why that tune was playing in my head. Then I realized I was just like everyone else at this moment. The combination of fear, dread and void lurks in every sound bite of the media. This ‘never before dealt with’ disruption in life, accurately named novel, has removed us from the creature comforts we so often took for granted.

The way of quarantine shouldn’t be strange to me. For the past ten years I have lived in the seclusion of my husband’s Alzheimer’s Disease. But even in this time, I feel tested more than ever before. This time, words not commonly used in my vocabulary have become mine. Isn’t, not, can’t, won’t, doesn’t – wait! I know where those words come from. This is the dark one’s mode of operation. Sowing all that is negative, creating the miserable existence that all we do is for naught. Preventing us from finding the good, is precisely his method to take our eyes off of God.

I thought about the last half of that song. The oppressing lyrics of desolation positions itself to take a direct strike at faith. “Father McKenzie writing a sermon that no one will hear, why does he care.  Wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave, no one was saved.”

Frightened, it’s easy to wallow in the perceived anguish of Eleanor Rigby. There are no weddings to clean up the rice. Gathering is not allowed. No visits, no safe place for us to comfort one another with smiles and human touch. Why, even people like me that discovered the joy of making friends in the nursing home have been banned.  And I’m sure I am not the only one pondering whether it is necessary to dress for the day. Satan has us where he wants us – in the hopeless throws of despair.

Backed into a corner by my mind, I used my mind to fight back. The beginning of this song was penned by McCartney to be put away for another day. It was the rush of suggestion by Pete Shotten, a man who lived in the shadows of the Beatles, for the dark ending and hounding lyrics of loneliness. The truth is, no one ever knew Eleanor Rigby, but in a strange twist, the despondency of Shotten is what made it to paper.

Of course it did. It takes strength of character mixed with a bit of tenacity to ward off dark thoughts such as gloom and misery. I thought how different that song may have turned out, had McCartney been given the chance to answer the questions. Her face in the jar by door could just as easily depicted Eleanor’s hope.

I look at what we are going through now with this Coronavirus quarantine and think of the voices we lend an ear to. When faced with despair, there is a choice to make. We need courage and confidence. Then I thought whenever there is an emptiness, when we choose to let God fill that space, hope appears. Darkness cannot exist where there is a reflection of light.

The tune, so engrained in my head, started sound more like victory.  As the busyness and judgements of life ceased, I began to see the tide of spring emerge from the solitude. Both big and small, love is winning. They have closed our churches, but more prayers are storming heaven than ever before. Working parents, stuck without agendas, are forming the foundation of relationship with their children. Even atheists and agnostics are having second thoughts and purchasing books about God. In the silence, people are picking up the phone and checking on the Eleanor Rigby’s. Autonomy is in the throws of defeat.

Moving with the grace of a servant, Eleanor Rigby picked up the pieces for the lost while most of us had looked and seen nothing. Her hidden life had meaning and her value was not determined by the depiction of absence. She, as we, have found connection in the silence. Tested, she knew how to live in the light.  

Shotten tried to discredit her life. But whose name do we remember?