The following is an excerpt from Beverly Pimsleur’s new memoir ‘Repeat After Me: A Love Affair With Language’, available to buy now.
Born in Tennessee, Beverly had such a pronounced Southern accent as a child that she needed a tutor to help her master “Yankee English” in order to fit in with her Ohio classmates. That challenge sparked a lifelong fascination with language. Her passion is tested when she marries Paul Pimsleur, a rising star French professor. She is expected to master multiple new tongues as they travel to Greece, Germany, France, and Africa to create what became the renowned Pimsleur language programs.
The couple’s life of international work is cut short by her husband’s unexpected and untimely death. But Beverly’s story doesn’t end with loss. As a 38 year-old widow with two young children, she continues to play a pivotal role in the success of the family business and even starts a business of her own. She meets a new romantic partner, moves to France, and returns to New York after her companion’s death to help create a language teaching system for children with her daughter.
‘Repeat After Me’ is the narrative of a woman who turned obstacles into opportunities and never lost her joie de vivre. More than a memoir, this is a behind the scenes look at the making of a global legacy by the woman who helped change the way the world learns languages.
Written with candor and humor against the background of key political events of her day, readers will discover a narrative as captivating as it is inspiring—and one that just might change the way they see their own.
When my husband died suddenly of a heart attack while we were living in Paris, my cousin Sheila, who lived in France , offered to come with me to make the funeral arrangements. A friend of hers had given her an address, which turned out to be in. the 16th arrondissement, the chicest of the city’s neighborhoods.
The building looked as if Louis X1V would have been comfortable riding his horse through its imposing door, but the plaque on the wall said pompe funèbre. English translation: undertaker, a word I never had reason to pronounce before that day.
We were ushered into a room with a black-suited man sitting very erect behind a desk large enough to plan a military campaign. He shuffled a few papers in front of him, probably wondering how these blue jean dressed American women had found their way into his elegant establishment. But his professionalism took precedent. He eyed both of us over his bifocals and asked “Qui est la veuve? (Who is the widow?) I didn’t answer until Sheila touched my hand on the arm of the chair.
It was the first time anyone had used that word for me, and I realized That’s who I am now. I’m the widow. After my reply, two slim manicured fingers pushed a heavy red leather folder toward me and Mr. Undertaker said in French, “These are the coffin choices. Do want one avec ou sans fenêtre (with or without a window)?” That did it. Sheila and I looked at each other and simultaneously burst out laughing, probably a release of all the tension of the last few strained hours.
Much to his credit, Mr. Black Suit didn’t crack a smile. Maybe in his profession he had seen it all, the bizarre reactions of loved ones to death. When I composed myself, I said, as gravely as I could, “I think, without.” Sheila nodded her agreement. We flipped through the book, and I tried to think what Paul would have wanted. Nothing too showy, but classy. He was an elegant man, he should go out in style. It’s astonishing how the brain works when tripped into action, and I finished negotiating our choice and signed the papers offered me.
I now had a new identity, not as someone’s wife, but as someone’s widow. Nothing had prepared me to be in this role at thirty-eight with eight and ten-year old children. I received a lot of conflicting advice about how much grief I should expose them to. My mother thought I should let them see me cry, that would give them permission do so themselves. One of my aunts advised the opposite, saying they shouldn’t see too much sadness. They were kids, and they needed to have a happy, coping mother.
But the problem was I couldn’t always control what would trigger my tears. It could be a jar of blueberry jam. I would be spreading it on toast and notice there was almost no more. Paul was the one in the family who really liked it, so now it didn’t matter if there was no more. He wasn’t there to say, “We’re almost out of blueberry, can you buy some tomorrow?” The absence of his words made me cry.
The shower became my safe place to let the stored tears flow. I reasoned that the running water would drown out my sobs, my children asleep downstairs couldn’t possibly hear me. After putting them to bed and polishing off a nightly bottle of red wine that had become my pre-shower ritual, I staggered up to the second-floor bathroom and sat on the cold, tiled shower stall floor and turned on the tap full blast.
The warm water pounded on my head, matting my hair, streaming rivulets down my back, kneading my tense shoulders like a thousand tiny fingers. My unshackled sobbing competed with the sound of the throbbing water, my own private waterfall where I could cry out my grief to the gods, as if there were any to hear me.
Grief. How much does it weigh? You can’t measure grief on a scale. But you know it is heavy, weighing you down, pressing on your heart, turning your breath into sighs, impeding your steps. If grief had a smell, it would be dank and damp like wet earth. It is with you every minute of every day and every night, preventing sleep to bring relief, invading your dreams, waking you with a start, and in that moment before you fully realize that you are no longer asleep, the first thing that enters your consciousness are the words, “He is gone.” Another day to deal with the aftermath of death.
“How could you do this to me, whoever or wherever you are?” I even accused Paul, “How could you die like that, leaving me with two children to raise on my own? What am I supposed to do?” Of course, I knew it wasn’t Paul’s fault or his choice to die, but then grief obliterates reason.
I sat with my arms wrapped around my knees, as if that would help hold me together. The water pooled between my toes, then spiraled away toward the silver drain, going around and around in small repetitive circles, a mesmerizing, calming process. If only I could stay in this steamy glass chamber, protected.
I don’t know how long those showers lasted or for how many months they were my solace. But one night, I entered the stall and didn’t sit down. I turned on the water and took a shower, like a normal person. The tears, like a tap, turned off. I was returning to a functional state, but, paradoxically, that made me sad. When grief was alive, it kept me connected to Paul. As it waned, he slipped away from me, like the shower water trickling down the drain.
Eventually time did its work and, like the cicada who wiggles out of his old skin before taking flight, I felt a new me emerging.
You can get a copy of ‘Repeat After Me: A Love Affair With Language‘ on Amazon and follow Beverly on Instagram.
