After V.

Change, time, sudden breaks, new landscapes. Familiar to me; but this now is after a long time of relative stasis.

V.'s death coincided with finishing several things I've been working on for several months, and of course my increasing well-being over the past three months from the new medications; and considering, with increasing definiteness, moving on from northern England. (No, of course, that may not happen soon, because in my work it is hard to change locations quickly: but I have an increasingly sharp eye out for possibilities.)

Having V. missing from my life means: less kindly nagging, less support for getting things done; less pleasure and fun, and less refined education in the arts of self-indulgence. And, above all, less comfortable trust and safety: over the past year, especially, I had become more comfortable with her than most of my friends and acquaintances; she had the great advantage for me in being, in a way, sort of American in her social/emotional outlook – direct, not skittish or difficult, neither too easily wounded nor xenophobically judgmental. But perhaps I can try again to do what I thought I should do after Philip Brett's death: internalize some of what I got from her – push myself forward in work and life, rather than depending on her to do so.

(Not perhaps so hard to construct, psychologically; I was looking vaguely upwards and commenting to her on various things all day yesterday. I don't claim any particular rationality, nor any formal religiosity, in my attitude towards the dead – I'm just happy chatting with them when it occurs to me to do so.)

Then of course there's illness, and sharing its experiences: but that seems to transform into the idea that I need to take better care of myself. Odd, that every time I am tired or have digestive problems I'll want to talk to V. about it – well, I'll probably talk to her about it anyway – for a long time.

And there is the feeling that I need to allow things to change, a lot: and be more assertive in those changes – to move on, not just to anywhere, not just where the wind blows me, but to some place that works better, for me –

to, in fact, create such a place....

Comments

[Ann]

Dear V

and dear Paul, too. The idea that I can lose both of you is hard to bear. Sometimes we have to be the one that stays behind, not the one that moves on. And that can be so very painful to do.

V, my warm, generous, aggravating colleague, so very much alive - I cannot take it in that you have died. I try to describe what you mean to me and I can only come up with clichés, and that you don't deserve - there was nothing trite or mundane about you. So I won't try to describe it. I will just say that I grieve for you and am in pain at losing you, but grief is the price we pay for knowing and loving and being loved by people, and in your case it's a price worth paying.

Ann

[Anahid]

My friendship with V, like my friendship with you, first started in no small part on the terrain of incurable illness and how to live with it. I've been thinking, since V died, of how much such a sharing can matter, and of how great a loss I feel, even though our contact wasn't constant or massive. And I've thought of Philip, too... and of how their departures have left both me and the world diminished.