Judith Alapi Higgins was born in Budapest, Hungary and emigrated to the U.S. after the 1956 revolution at the age of 9. She attended the State University of New York, Indiana University, and has a masters degree in psychology from the University of Notre Dame. She also holds a black belt in T'ai Chi Chuan. She has been living in Virginia for more than 20 years where she has raised a son, taught T'ai Chi, and is active in the neo-pagan Goddess centred movement. She has written several short stories and been published in the Antigonish Review, Dog Ear and 63 Channels. She has also written 3 novels, two of which had been accepted for publication and were under contract until her publisher went bankrupt. She is now contemplating a fourth.

SOME IMPORTANT INFLUENCES ON JUDITH’S LIFE AND WRITING:

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ANAIS NIN - her journals and writings

Click image to visit the Thinking of Anais Nin website; for a profile of Nin on the Kirjasto website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here.

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CARL JUNG - his writings and unique view of the human psyche

Click image to visit the CJ Jung Page; for Dr. C. George Boeree's article on Jung on the Personality Theories website, click here or for related music on Amazon, click here

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CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTES - her ability to combine storytelling and Jungian psychology

Click image to visit Maven Productions website for Estes; to read Estes' article 'Words of Encouragement to a Young Activist During Troubled Times' on the K Porterfield website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here.

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ROBERTSON DAVIES - The Deptford Trilogy

Click image to visit the Robertson Davies Web Page; for Raymond H. Thompson's 1992 interview with Davies on the University of Rochester website, click here or for related music on Amazon, click here

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LAWRENCE DURRELL - The Alexandria Quartet - Great short stories from all cultures

Click image to visit the International Lawrence Durrell Society website; for a profile of Durrell on the Books and Writers website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

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JEAN SHINODA BOLEN - The Tao of Psychology: Synchronicity and the Self

Click image to visit Bolen's official website; for an interview with Bolen on the In Context website, click here or for related music on Amazon, click here

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SOME OF JUDITH’S FAVOURITE ACTIVITIES ARE:

GAUDEAMUS IGITUR

by
Judith Alapi Higgins

I grew up as an immigrant child, split between two cultures. While America called to me as the land of my future where the bulk of my life would likely be lived, the land of my birth, Hungary, would not let me go. My father had left his heart and his soul in Hungary and wasn’t interested in adopting America as his new home in any meaningful way. When we entered our small apartment we shut the door on America behind us and became our true selves. Here we spoke Hungarian, read Hungarian books, played games in Hungarian and reminisced about the past. My brother and I didn’t have much of a past yet, so we mainly listened as our father reminisced.

He was a different man when he talked about his youth, before communism tore Hungary apart. The fatigue and hopelessness he put on with his worn suit as he left the house every morning fell away. He stood straighter, his voice became firmer as he gained confidence from what he had been. He grew animated and his eyes shone with a longing that couldn’t be satisfied. Those had been the good days, the days before we were born. He talked about our mother, about when they were young and starting their life together. And he talked about his years at university, studying law and medicine. He had studied in Budapest and Vienna, two of the great cultural centres in Europe before the war. There was a song he liked to mention that they sang in universities at graduation during that period. It was a leftover from the days when Latin was still the language of scholars and students were expected to understand the words. It began with the words:

“Gaudeamus igitur
Juvenes dum sumus….”

(Let us rejoice while we are young.) As our father stood and sang the first verses of this song his spirit seemed to issue forth with the words. He was reliving the days when he could rejoice in his youth, when there were only hopes and plans and eagerness for the future. As he finished singing he seemed to collapse into himself, becoming once again the disillusioned, tired and struggling man with deepening lines in his face and grey in his hair.

I grew to associate this song exclusively with my father. I never heard anyone else sing it and I never heard it played on the radio. It seemed to belong to a bygone era, to a world very different than the one I knew.

When he died we drove the twelve hours to his funeral. He died in Canada, in a land even more foreign than the United States where he had lived the last thirty years of his life. It was a small funeral attended by his children and grandchildren, and very few others. He hardly knew anyone else in Canada. Even the minister was a stranger, and his eulogy was grim and impersonal. I thought of the barriers between my father and myself, the things never said, the emotions that lay hidden, unexpressed. There was regret for what could have been, or should have been. There was anger and pain, and lack of understanding. Amid the confusion only one thing was clear: we had lost our chance to communicate and in this life it would not come again.

The next day we left to begin our long drive home. It was overcast and rainy, and I felt unresolved. We drove in silence for a while, engaged with our thoughts. I wondered what I could have done differently and the answer that kept coming to me was: probably nothing. My father was just one of many, even most people who had left unfinished business behind. I would have to live with that. But I wished that we could have communicated before he died, I wished for a word from him that I could carry with me.

When I turned on the car radio the announcer was explaining something about the coming number. I was about to change the channel when the words “Gaudeamus igitur” stopped me. Within a few seconds the dignified notes of my father’s song filled the car.

I sat listening, spellbound, trying to unravel the message behind the words. And I realized that the message was the song itself. My father was communicating with me, letting me know that he was there, that he cared enough to send me this message. He had “graduated” from this life, to the tune of “Gaudeamus igitur”.

© Judith Alapi Higgins
Reproduced with permission

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