I Lift My Eyes to the Mountains
Meditations on the conclusion of a long and wonderful journey together
Bastiat’s Window has always oscillated between the universal and the intimate—geopolitics one day, small family stories the next. From the start, my wife, Alanna Siegfried Graboyes, served this blog as artist, editor, advisor, and co-author. In the wee hours of June 9, 2025, Alanna passed away after an astonishingly courageous battle with bone marrow cancer—15 months without tears, self-pity, or complaint, with her final week spent enjoying sumptuous feasts, drinking champagne, telling stories, and cracking the most astonishing jokes right up to the moment she slipped quietly away.
The story of our life together and of her disdainful defiance of Death is told in the eulogy I delivered at graveside on June 12 (video and transcript below). Later in the week, I’ll offer some lessons garnered from her final journey and my role as round-the-clock caregiver.
IN MEMORIAM: 6/12/2025
Around October 1, 1980, I was having breakfast in a cafe by Columbia University in Manhattan. In walked a tiny, 5′0″ beauty who looked quite a bit like Natalie Wood. (If you don’t believe me, look at the program.) She had had a bad commute and looked perturbed. I decided she needed a friend, so I handed her a good line and she joined me for breakfast. She told me that she was a librarian, that she was an artist, and that she had recently written the first book ever written on New York’s SoHo Arts District. She was a bit intense, sizing me up, but by the time we finished, I concluded she was the smartest, most interesting person I had ever met.
A week or so later, we went to lunch at Hunan Garden, near Columbia. When I arrived she smiled with a tiny bit of an overbite that made her look a bit like the actress Gene Tierney. By then, she had decided I was OK. The intensity was gone and she spent the whole meal telling me jokes and funny stories. By the time we finished lunch, I concluded that she was the funniest, most lighthearted person I had ever met.
Not long after, I met her for dinner at Oscar’s Salt of the Sea on the East Side. When I was across the street, I saw her standing in front of the restaurant, illuminated in the twilight by the city lights, and dressed in a subtle, but dazzling outfit. When she saw me, she flashed a smile that made her look this time like Audrey Hepburn. This time, she was soft and gentle and kind of ethereal. I concluded this time she was the most elegant person I had ever met. And after a moment over dinner—a moment of silence in the candlelight—we had our first kiss.
After that night—three times together—I knew everything there was to know about Alanna Siegfried. For nearly 45 years afterwards, I learned lots of details, but after that night, I knew the entirety of her essence, and nothing ever changed my mind. The only big addition was aout six, seven months later, she came to visit my parents, right here in Petersburg. (<pointing to graves> There they are.) I watched silently as she unpacked her bags in a bright sunny bedroom. She wore a striking little white dress. For some reason—don’t know why—the thought swept over me at that moment that this woman would make the single greatest mother in human history. I was correct in that, as well, but I will let my son, Jeremy, elaborate.
Alanna was a woman of powerful opinions, and she was not someone to trifle with. It was very difficult to get on her bad side, but woe unto you if you did. Thankfully, I never did. In 45 years, we had many disagreements, but we did not have one single argument—ever. We could always talk through our differences, and not one time did we ever go to sleep angry with one another. Neither of us ever uttered a single sentence to the other that we later regretted. We traveled the world together. We raised one son and four dogs. Our son is here with his partner, David, and we were extraordinarily proud that Jeremy—and David—seem to exhibit the same serenity that we enjoyed.
Fifteen months ago, active with swimming and yoga and walking, seemingly in superb health, a routine blood test showed that she had myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS)—a cancer of the bone marrow. From the start, we knew she had no more than a year-and-a-half to live, and she said, “I have lived too long a life and too good a life to let this spoil it.” And throughout her remaining months, I never saw her shed a single tear or utter a single word of self-pity. During that time, she did dozens of beautiful paintings. She watched endless movies and TV series with me. She cooked. She went on dreamy walks with me along the Potomac. And she sat on our deck, watching birds and squirrels and rabbits and chipmunks go about their routines in the arboretum below that we had built over 18 years. Especially gratifying for me, she and my brother, Arnold, conducted a long, long, long correspondence on movies and flowers and painting and nature and whatever. (And I think you two grew closer than ever.)
Yesterday, I spoke with one of my life’s dearest friends, Greg Stewart—another fraternity brother from UVa—who lives in deep Southwest Virginia, right on the Kentucky border. He had been an acquaintance of the great bluegrass singer, Dr. Ralph Stanley. I said that over the course of Alanna’s illness, I had thought often of Stanley’s mournful, unaccompanied vocal classic, “O, Death.” For those who don’t know the song, it is a conversation between a young man who is dying and Death Incarnate. For musicians here, the song is generally in pentatonic mode. It is pure Appalachian, but it has always reminded me of a Hebrew synagogue chant. With my poor voice, I’ll give just one line:
“O, Death, O, Death. Won’t you spare me over to another year.”
And then the conversation continues—the young man pleads desperately, but to no avail. Death was not moved by his pleas. When Alanna received her death sentence in March or early April of 2024, we did not think that she would make it to New Year’s, and we certainly feared we would never see our 40th wedding anniversary on March 31, 2025.
But unlike the young man in the song, Alanna did not plead with Death to spare her over to another year. She ignored Death. She paid Death little mind and would not give him so much as the time of day. Her strength and resolve were like nothing I have ever seen before and am unlikely to ever see again. And to be fair, she was greatly bolstered by the fact that even in her final week of life—all fifteen months—she experienced almost no symptoms of the disease. She was doomed, but she felt great.
Unlike the song, Death did spare Alanna over for another year. When New Year’s passed, we felt a great triumph. Still, I feared we wouldn’t make it to our 40th anniversary in March. But, today is June 12. So, in fact, we did get to celebrate that landmark together. I’m also mindful throughout the Bible, that the span of 40 years has enormous significance.
On June 2, Alanna determined that the medical treatments that had granted her an extra year of life were failing and it was just time to fold the tent. She came home to die. And in her final week, her attitude was unchanged. Her appetite was voracious. She had Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Greek, and Jewish meals—with steak as her final meal. After 15 months of no alcohol, she repeatedly called for “CHAMPAGNE!!!” And these gentlemen brought her bottle after bottle of champagne, and we toasted her all week. Still no tears. No self-pity. No complaints.
She held full court, looking at old photos, telling family stories, and telling one joke after another. As she entered her final couple of days, she began to get a bit anxious, not so much about dying, but rather about how it would transpire. So, she started taking Lorazepam and Xanax. She calmed completely down. Her speech became a little slurred, and it sounded a little like she had been spending too much time at the bar. But she was still all there. And she continued with her stories. At one point, maybe two or three days before she died, she looked at me with the most serious face and said:
“Let me tell you something.”
I said, “What’s that, my darling?” She said:
“Wherever I’m going, when you follow me there and join me once again … I want you to know that you can point to anyone else you see there, and I will tell you if that person is an asshole. … I will check them out beforehand.”
I just stared at her and said, “How am I supposed to grieve and feel bad when you keep saying crap like that?” We just laughed and laughed and laughed.
On the final day, she was more heavily drugged and slept peacefully till her breathing slowed … and finally … stopped. The gentlest imaginable way to go. No one has ever left the world in a more pleasant way.
In Ralph Stanley’s song, Death shows no pity on the young man pleading for his life. But Death knew better than to show such arrogance to Alanna Siegfried Graboyes. She, not Death, dictated the terms of her departure. And Death had no choice but to say, “Yes, Ma’am.”
CHANTS OF DEATH: HEBREW AND APPALACHIAN
Here, Cantor Sarah Beck-Berman chants Psalm 121 at the conclusion of Alanna’s funeral. This is one the Songs of Ascent, whose first line is often translated as, “I lift my eyes to the mountains.” Sarah is highly traditional in her approach to liturgical music, and for Alanna and me, her voice always pierced straight to our souls. A few days before Alanna died, I told her that Sarah would preside over her funeral, and that gave her enormous happiness and comfort. Sarah’s father was the rabbi in my hometown for 30 years, we had known Sarah as a small child, and Alanna was the librarian at the high school in Richmond that Sarah and our son attended together. In honor of Alanna, Sarah wore a dress whose pattern is composed of books.
The Jewish Publication Society’s 1985 translation of Psalm 121 reads as follows:
“I turn my eyes to the mountains; from where will my help come?
My help comes from the LORD, maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot give way; your guardian will not slumber;
See, the guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps!
The LORD is your guardian, the LORD is your protection at your right hand.
By day the sun will not strike you, nor the moon by night.
The LORD will guard you from all harm; He will guard your life.
The LORD will guard your going and coming now and forever.”
And here is Dr. Ralph Stanley chanting “O, Death”—the song featured extensively in my eulogy for Alanna. Most often, Stanley didn’t lift his eyes to the mountains, as the Psalmist did. Rather, coming from the high ridges of Dickenson County, Stanley would more often have lowered his eyes down upon the mountains, rolling away toward the distant horizon.
This is both sad and inspiring. And brought tears to a strangers eyes.
Thank you, Robert, for sharing your story of life with Allana. You know what came to mind as I read your words? Moses, when he set before the people life and death, and implored them to "choose life." Allana certainly did. Your eulogy powerfully testifies to her choice, and proves once again just what Moses promised: that it was "not too difficult for you or beyond your reach ... no, the word is in your mouth and in your heart so you can obey it." God bless her. God bless you.