Death, be not proud

My sister Gael's beloved died April 24, 2025, nearly exactly to the day, two years ago, that Rob took his tragic fall. I am mourning the death of yet another good man. 

Larry was a husband, father, grandfather, brother and friend.

He was also a teacher, a dreamer, an inventor, a storyteller and know-it-all.
To put it simply, this world is left less interesting without him. And for those lucky to have loved him, his passing is incomprehensible.
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Larry was born March 5, 1953, in Calgary, and grew up in small town Alberta. He spent his early days torturing his sisters, making friends with animals and figuring out the man he wanted to be. He left home to learn and adventure in forests and mountains. He eventually made his way to Ontario where he'd stay for over 30 years. Here, Larry found a community and with luck on his side, into his world came a wife, and her two young girls.
Larry's life was full. He spent these years becoming a champion for safety and supporting local
politics. He always made time to lend support to local causes and make the many people in his
life feel important. He nurtured his interest in games and stories and learned to cook and DIY.
He never stopped loving nature and travel and dreaming of his next adventure.
In time, he was gifted with two granddaughters and two grandsons and his role as grandpa may
have been his most cherished.
That Larry's story ends with an inexplicable illness, is not what anyone would have chosen. But
he left as he lived, surrounded by so much love.

My friend Wenda sent me this poem last week and it describes so much of what I've felt since Rob's death but the last stanza, I don't recognize as my tears still flow. I am thinking of my sister whose grief is raw. 

For Grief | John O’Donohue

When you lose someone you love, 
Your life becomes strange, 
The ground beneath you gets fragile, 
Your thoughts make your eyes unsure; 
And some dead echo drags your voice down 
Where words have no confidence. 

Your heart has grown heavy with loss; 
And though this loss has wounded others too, 
No one knows what has been taken from you 
When the silence of absence deepens. 

Flickers of guilt kindle regret 
For all that was left unsaid or undone. 

There are days when you wake up happy; 
Again inside the fullness of life, 
Until the moment breaks 
And you are thrown back 
Onto the black tide of loss. 

Days when you have your heart back, 
You are able to function well 
Until in the middle of work or encounter, 
Suddenly with no warning, 
You are ambushed by grief. 

It becomes hard to trust yourself. 
All you can depend on now is that 
Sorrow will remain faithful to itself. 
More than you, it knows its way 
And will find the right time 
To pull and pull the rope of grief 
Until that coiled hill of tears 
Has reduced to its last drop. 

Gradually, you will learn acquaintance 
With the invisible form of your departed; 
And, when the work of grief is done, 
The wound of loss will heal 
And you will have learned 
To wean your eyes 
From that gap in the air 
And be able to enter the hearth 
In your soul where your loved one 
Has awaited your return 
All the time.

I hope that Rob and Larry are enjoying margaritas together. I hope that they are in some magical place - the place that my grandson Seb described - having a good time.

"My life is a dot lost among thousands of other dots".

From snow monkeys to two little boy monkeys, my Japan adventure has been full to the brim with noise, much movement, culinary delights, sacred temples, a spring festival in Kanazawa and so much more.

My strongest images are of cherry blossoms, wasabi fields, and Japanese architecture. 

I have had two weeks travelling as a group and now everyone has flown home and I am alone. I am alone. No one to lead me to the sights. No Jane and Brendan to lead me to restaurants and interpret menus. What do I want from this trip to Japan? I don't know. 

My first solo adventure took me to Yokohama, a port town, great for people-watching and shopping but it didn't excite me. I returned to Tokyo and again met my friend at his showroom and placed an order for fall for LJ . (Yes, I did think its days were numbered but no more.)

I next caught a train to Matsumoto, the home of Yayoi Kusama, an artist who has stolen a little piece of my heart. (I, Kusama, am the modern Alice in Wonderland.) Yes. There is a craziness, a loveliness and so much  fun and colour in her work. Big bright tulips enhance the exterior entrance to the Matsumoto museum. Inside, there is a circular route to her exhibit. I walk through a room with mirrors, a room with a lit ladder to heaven that magically appears to have no ceiling, a light surrounded heart installation. In its centre is a mirror. I see myself. I am love? Next is a special room where each person or couple are guided and the door is shut for twenty seconds. Bright globes of various colours surround me - flashing, pulsating. They feel as if they will touch me but I'm not allowed to touch. The next room holds Kusma's famous large pumpkin, with black polka dots, in a room painted yellow with more polka dots. After walking through the exhibit, I want more so I walk through it a second time. 

Yayoi once designed a suit for George Cluny, art embracing film. Cluny is almost lost in polka dots.

"Kusama has been open about her mental health and has resided since the 1970s in a mental health facility. She says that art has become her way to express her mental problems... I fight pain, anxiety, and fear every day, and the only method I have found that relieved my illness is to keep creating art". 

Last night I met up with Justin, Susan's eldest son and we wandered the streets looking for somewhere to eat. We finally found an Indian restaurant - not what either of us would have chosen but it was Wednesday and most restaurants were closed. We talked about relationships, his work (he has been teaching English in a university for over thirty years). He is happy enough yet doesn't know if he will stay in Japan when his youngest child leaves home. I am happy that we have had time to talk - a little shyly but still I got to know him a little more. 

In the morning, I took an early train back to Tokyo and am now in one of the smallest hotel rooms that I've seen but it's clean and I need to explore a little. I work again tomorrow and then head to the seaside. 

The Flower of the Cherry Tree

 The flower of the cherry tree has great power. Its prettiness is a mask. With its spirit, its exuberance, it is all ruthless appetite and lust for life, the urge to try or die trying.

But in the end it does die... In the end we all die... so we might as well let life improvise the music we play.

Here I am in a modern art museum in Kanazawa. Light, large spaces, and a room with light bulbs on the ceiling that flash on and off in time with one's heart. I liked this visual display. In another room, a white rabbit lay - apparently an illegal Korean immigrant is inside the costume.

 

I lay down and kept him company. 

Today, we are in Hakuba, up in the mountains. The sun is shining. Seb and Brendan built a snowman. My family and friends have gone further up the mountain to cavort in the snow. I'm taking a breather, time to slow down and think.

I am reading A Single Rose again. The beauty of the writing appeals to me. I read the following couple of sentences and a light bulb came on in my brain:

The hardest thing, it turns out, is not trying to be happy without the person you loved... it's changing, no longer being who you were with that person.

The Book of Grief

I began a writing circle last week led by my most wonderful friend and mentor Marlene. (She encouraged me to attend as she know that I have been having a difficult time and yearn to write but am unable.) So I've attended one class and although I was nervous, I wrote! Before the 25 minutes allocated to writing, she read a poem The Book of the Body by Laura Weaver.

 Here's the beginning:

The library of the body is a revelation.

Today I pull out the book of grief

and find one hundred chapters.

There is the chapter on letting go~

where brilliant leaves, 

tumble down the branches

of the page, veins lined in gold.

I  didn't read what I'd written even though I was paired with a kind woman who read hers and it would have been fine but, when I do this stream of consciousness writing, I don't know what I've written until I read it, so for now I'll keep quiet although I'll copy what I wrote here as only a few friends who I trust read my blog.

"The Book of Grief. Letting go. I cannot let go of my grief over Rob's death. I am afraid. I am filled with rage - angry that Rob died and angry that he left me a lot of shit to deal with. There's more. I question myself. Was I good enough, passionate enough? Could we have been happier ? And then I think that we were happy enough. What does "happy enough" mean? We weren't lovey-dovey. We lived our own lives together or sometimes at a distance. Often I loved him more when we were apart. I would call him on FaceTime and it was a comfort to hear his voice. 

We were a couple. What does being a couple mean? We were not alone. We shared responsibilities.We shared children and grandchildren. We always celebrated Christmas together. We trusted each other. I never felt myself alone even when I was alone. I'm not sure I know how to describe this but now I feel smaller when I go out into the world, more uncertain, more afraid.

I call this period in my life, the post-Rob. How long do I have? Rob lived to nearly 77. Will I live to mine? No funeral, I told him. After Fanny died choking on a piece meat, I said that I will not attend another funeral. Long before her tragic death, she asked that if I outlive her, I must check that she is really dead before being lowered into the burning inferno. 

I did not go to the Crematorium for Rob's burning. I couldn't bear seeing his coffin and the lowering. When Brendan picked up his ashes the next day, I embraced it thinking "is this what we are reduced to? This is it? The end. 

I know he had a good life. He did what he pleased. He was happy alone or seemed to be. I live in chaos. Not Rob. He could sit for hours listening to music or reading or playing with his cat, or cooking exotic meals. He wrote a novel too. It's good but he never even self-published it. 

And now, as I clear away his stuff, his clothes and shoes, I wonder what is important. I want to get rid of more and more stuff and have only the essentials in this house but this takes time, I pause and paint the stairs white. I ask friends for quotes and using a paint pen, I write them one by one on each step or I have friends write them so there is no uniformity. I read them as I ascend, hoping that they will tell me how to live my life.  

Go Soft into 2025

Happy Chinese New Year

 

I meant to publish thoughts and quotes on the 1st or 2nd of January but I was in California and a boisterous, bossy, nearly two-year old, with a joie de vivre and engaging personality, stole my attention. It's only now when I am back in France in a too quiet house and the Chinese New Year celebrations are happening that I remembered to return to my blog. 

"I wish you endless dreams and the furious desire to realize some of them. I wish you to love what must be loved, and to forget what must be forgotten. I wish you passions. I wish you silences. I wish you birdsongs as you wake up and children's laughter. I wish you to respect the differences of others, because the worth and virtues of each person often remain to be discovered. I wish you to resist the stagnation, the indifference, and the negative values of our time. I wish you at last to never to give up the search, for adventure, life, love. For life is a wonderful adventure and no reasonable person should give it up without a tough fight. I wish you above all to be yourself, proud of being and happy, for happiness is our true destiny."

~Jacques Brel, sending his best wishes on New Year of 1968, Europe 1 radio

“Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music played out of doors by somebody I do not know.”   ― John Keats

I enter the new year not so much afraid of aging but of losing my mind. 

 "You have to grow old. Don't cry, don't join begging fingers, don't revolt: you have to grow old. Repeat this word to yourself, not as a cry of despair, but as a reminder of a necessary departure... Go away slowly, slowly, without tears; forget nothing! Take your health, your cheerfulness, your flirtiness, the little goodness and justice that made your life less bitter; don't forget! Go ready, go soft, and don't stop along the irresistible road, you'll try it in vain - since you have to grow old! »

Sidonie Gabrielle Colette "Les Vrilles de la Vine"

I know that I must work, think, write, explore new places, as well as find a new passion, to stay mentally dexterous. 

My children's children

Sebastian, Isaac, and Wilder

I know that this isn't the most beautiful picture of Isaac with his raven hair and dark flashing eyes but it shows his aloof attitude towards his two younger cousins. These boys are around four years apart in age as were my three children. I remember Brendan saying, when we were visiting France's western coast and trying to entertain them all - a practically impossible task given their age differences - "I don't appreciate your feeble attempt to make me happy."

To die, to sleep --

Last year two of the closest people to my heart died ~ Rob and Susan. 

I will never be the same.  I feel as if I have lost my talent to alight and write. I've decided - when I remember - to write poems and such in my blog to let my friends know that I am still thinking. 

I am reading "A Single Rose" by French author Muriel Barbery. In it I found this:

"The hardest thing, it turns out, is not trying to be happy without the person you loved... It's changing, no longer being who you were with that person... I feel as if I'm betraying myself"

I feel as if I am treading water or perhaps my head is above ground, flitting around like a butterfly. Recently, Marlene sent me the poem "Summons" that reminds me of Machado's "Last Night as I Was Dreaming" and lastly "To sleep - perchance to dream" springs to mind. 

Hamlet by Shakespeare

To die, to sleep—

No more—and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to. ’tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep—

To sleep—perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub!

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause—there’s the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

Summons by Aurora Levins Morales

Last night I dreamed

ten thousand grandmothers

from the twelve hundred corners of the earth

walked out into the gap

one breath deep

between the bullet and the flesh

between the bomb and the family.

They told me we cannot wait for governments.

There are no peacekeepers boarding planes.

There are no leaders who dare to say

every life is precious, so it will have to be us.

They said we will cup our hands around each heart.

We will sing the earth’s song, the song of water,

a song so beautiful that vengeance will turn to weeping,

the mourners will embrace, and grief replace

every impulse toward harm.  

Ten thousand is not enough, they said,

so, we have sent this dream, like a flock of doves

into the sleep of the world. Wake up. Put on your shoes. 

You who are reading this, I am bringing bandages

and a bag of scented guavas from my trees. I think

I remember the tune. Meet me at the corner.

Let’s go. 

Last Night As I Was Sleeping by Antonio Machado

Last night as I was sleeping,

I dreamt—marvelous error!—

that a spring was breaking

out in my heart.

I said: Along which secret aqueduct,

Oh water, are you coming to me,

water of a new life

that I have never drunk?

Last night as I was sleeping,

I dreamt—marvelous error!—

that I had a beehive

here inside my heart.

And the golden bees

were making white combs

and sweet honey

from my old failures.

Last night as I was sleeping,

I dreamt—marvelous error!—

that a fiery sun was giving

light inside my heart.

It was fiery because I felt

warmth as from a hearth,

and sun because it gave light

and brought tears to my eyes.

Last night as I slept,

I dreamt—marvelous error!—

that it was God I had

here inside my heart.

Worrywart

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And I gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.

~ Mary Oliver

Scattering Rob's Ashes

 

It's been over a year and four months since Rob's stupid tragic fall.  When he died, I read Joan Didion's "The Year of Magical Thinking" three times. She writes, “Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it…  We might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss. We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe their husband is about to return and need his shoes.”

I have not been able to give away Rob's best shoes or the suit he had custom-made in Viet Nam. I never shopped for him. We had different tastes and interests and often travelled alone. It's only now that I realize how much we shared - dinners most evenings with jazz simmering, market and restaurant outings, never-ending discussions about politics, the weather, health issues, and our children and grandsons.

The other day, I was reading old emails from Rob and in one, he was trying to rationalize travelling business class. I responded in three words, "Go for it!" He responded, "I love you." (We often had to give the other "permission" to be extravagant.) 

In practically every birthday card he gave me, he'd write "I really do love you." In every anniversary card, he'd write "30, 40, 50 years of living hell". This always made me smile. For years, I'd pressured him to express his love in words, and forever and a day, he told me that he couldn't. But then, most mornings, he'd wrap me in his arms. I miss his touch. I miss his smell. 

“I did not always think he was right nor did he always think I was right but we were each the person the other trusted.” We seldom fought but one of our arguments was about who would die first. He insisted that it would be him. I insisted it would be me.

I no longer receive a daily news report about all the horrible things happening in the world. Nor do I know if the sun will shine, the rain will fall. I no longer have a sound man, a confidant, a companion. I see older couples holding hands or chatting away and I am still angry. Rob and I thought we'd have more time - at least until we were eighty. The one good thing about his death is that he will not suffer mine. 

Dear Rob, you wanted your ashes spread in this forest. In our wedding ceremony, I refused to promise that I would obey you but in this, I will. On your last birthday, I posted a picture of you in cowboy gear. A friend, a colleague, wrote: "Rob should have been wearing a white cowboy hat in the photo… because that was the way you could tell one of the true good guys in a classic western. And Rob was one of the goodest guys it has ever been my privilege to know."