Parlor

Saturday 28 April late afternoon

Amidst problems regarding her oxygen supply - the most sensitive issue to Lara - I had to absent myself and visit a funeral parlor this afternoon, across the street from us. Funerailles Michel. The best in Brussels, says Helene de Merode.

James Joyce once wrote that "Mr Duffy lived a short distance from his body." I couldn't relate to Duffy any better than I did right now. My mind was in a strange way. There were good practical reasons for me to take this step, I know. You don't want to be caught by surprise at the worst possible moment when people around you, including doctors and civil authorities start asking questions. When somebody dies, there are consequences and you need to deal with them in accordance with the deceased's wishes. And the law. If you wish to disperse her ashes in a public place, like a lake in Switzerland, be discrete, the undertaker advised.

Still, sneaking out of the house was somehow tantamount to resignation. As if I were giving up hope that Lara's disease would ever turn around again. Woe betides him who extinguishes the light of hope - a masonic mantra I couldn't get out of my head. It felt a bit like betrayal, as if I were telling my loved-one that our life together would soon be over.

To be truthful: it will be. And I need to respect Lara's wishes as to how she wishes to end this earthly existence. The simplest of coffins, no ornaments, no ceremonies, no flowers no eulogies; hard on herself in death as she was in life. After four days I will receive her ashes in a metal urn, five or six kilograms of them. I have to make Lara sign an authorization today that her body is to be incinerated and that her  ashes are to be turned over to me. Can I really bring myself to ask her that? Will she even be capable to sign? Does it get more awful than this?

Lara and I had a long talk afterwards, reminiscing some. At a certain moment I was able to steer the conversation to funeral arrangements, and do so in a fluent manner. She wants to be clad in a dress. She signed the document without blinking. "Let's get it over with", she said. The lady will never stop to amaze me; perhaps even into the next life.