i wish
for you, now that you no longer need it
My friend has died. She was very courageous and had cancer. She was a photographer, a maker of exquisite works. She was Dutch and chose euthanasia when the pain she was suffering became, after months, too unbearable. Now her partner is left alone to garden.
She was wise and quiet in her mind, an insightful, shrewd, kind, passionate person. I just adored her. The world since I’ve known her has felt illuminated by her presence. The sense of her presence among us: you know, those so rare people.
Tonight we are making a chicken curry very slowly and brewing up a panful of chai masala and my kitchen, where my friend and her partner once sat with me, smells of spices. My throat aches for her. I am crossing to the machinery in the next room to play Gurrumul Yunupingu’s song Bapa four times over; finally my companion without a word gets up and sets it to continuous loop. Thinking of the songwriter, who also could have died this week. Thinking on his experience in the Royal Darwin Hospital and of my friend, can she really be gone utterly, and of how we treat each other, can she really just – be gone, thinking of the Aboriginal belief that our soul goes into the soil, into the stones and trees, into the earth where we got born. Sometimes a mother rubs her newborn child in the red dirt, or in the ashes from the fire, to teach its soul – I think – where to come home to. It seems to me a woman who lived all her life in the one civil, intelligently run, beautiful city might be a beneficiary of this cool, loving, compassionate, scientifically realistic and empathic prophecy.
The dead. Now we outnumber them for the first time it seems to me we must be particularly tender and respectful of the world they have left us, which their bodies have built, which their bones and blood constitute. I miss you, I miss you, I am crying out over the sink for you and you’re gone now and I miss you, I miss your company, your voice and your eyes, your dear creatureliness.
40 comments on “for you, now that you no longer need it”
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I’m sorry for your loss
Thank you, Laura
Good one, Cathoel, you’re shining for her
and Bapa sings for all our eternal friendships
Yes it’s literally haunting.
And very beautiful and releasing. May the tears wash you with the river to the endless sea
Oh! Sandra that is very kind and loving of you. Thank you
A touching, personal eulogy in feelings, translated to words. The gentlest of hugs to you.xx
One day I will share that hug with you. Take care of your heart my lovely friend.xx
I am taking care. Better than I ever used to. Thank you loving friend, I look forward to that day xx
Thank you for responding so tenderly and kindly, Gaz. X
Oh, Cathoel. I hope you’ll be okay.
I keep thinking of her partner now learning to sleep alone.
Sorry for your loss Cathoel. Too much, so much – S Heaney.
Oh, he puts it so well. Thank you Sue for your generosity. Thinking, irresistibly, of her bereaved partner today I keep thinking how grief is love. Or in Heaney:
And here is love
like a tinsmith’s scoop
sunk past its gleam
in the meal-bin.
Oh, yes. Such dignity. Since the recent hype on Ireland’s 1916 Uprising — & the romance of battle– I’ve taken my Heaney collection from the shelf & have been trawling thru his poems They nourish on so many levels but loss & grief are especially present. To be shared. X
This is so sad and poignant but such courage
Thank you, Lara. I too am in awe of my friends’ courage. Incredible women both. They have opened my world just by being in it.
My love to you Cathoel, this was beautiful and makes my heart ache…
Ah thank you dearly Jameela, it is so comforting to hear. Love, back. x
Biggest hugest (((hugs))) and much love…. Beautifully written…
That’s really kind, thanks Wisper xxx
Respects.
Thank you, Timothy. I appreciate it.
You are lucky to have had such a special friend.
Thank you Koruna. I feel so too. She lived in Amsterdam and I live in Berlin, we met through a mutual friend in New York – an amazing grace that brought this cherished friend into my life.
I wish we had that option (legally, painlessly, and easily) here.
Absolutely, Meera. I think here in Germany they’re chary of it because it has a misused (Nazi) history. But when well-regulated and fairly handled, in the person’s own hands, as in the Netherlands – this seems to me a peak of humanity. Why should we be making one another suffer? Hats off to the amazing work Philip Nitschke does in Australia to this end. Great respects, Philip.
I’ve been thinking about Nitschke and Exit lately since my father and I have had a few conversations recently about death (he is a healthy 86-year-old, but should he be incapacitated in any way he wants out pronto) and thanks to your tag discover he and I have 17 mutual friends – who knew?! It looks a way off from being legislated here so I hope, should I or my loved one require it, that it’s fairly easy to sort it on the sly. I’d rather not risk pills not designed for the job or have to go to the Cross to score heroin cut with rubbish.
Yes, indeed. It seems so unkind, somehow emotionally ungenerous, for lawmakers not to be able to imagine themselves or their loved ones into this position and work backwards from there – even if the simple human compassion is missing.
so sorry to hear! may peace find you all!
thank you Jerry, this is generous of you!
So sorry Cathoel.
Thank you for your kindness, Kevin.
Some people leave bigger holes than others.
It’s true, Loni. Strange, but true.
This is gorgeous Cathoel – You made my heart ache, but choice is most definitely everything!
Take it easy x
Thanks very much, Kate x
Isn’t it odd how we will turn our cheeks to the bombing of schools and hospitals but our same governments will not countenance the elective death of a mature and sane person whose quality of life… is intolerable.
“For you, now that you no longer need it” was beautiful, moving….
“Now her partner is left alone to garden.”
“My throat aches for her.”
And your ending sentence….made me cry
I’m sorry but proud to have made you cry. Thank you, Hugh, for honouring the story of my friend.