Risotto

Sunday 27 May, Pentecost

Last night marked the closing hours of the visit by Eli and Nick. They returned to New York this morning, through Barcelona. We hung out together from about five, giving Lara enough space for naps in between, while Elisabetta cooked us a risotto in the style of Northern Italy. Wonderful, with a Moroccan rose wine. Lara had some of it as well, sharing the table with the other three of us, but ultimately couldn't keep it down.

We talked and talked, remininiscing some of the time. At around ten in the evening we said our goodbyes. Like all the goodbyes we exchange these days, there is a finite air to it. We would like to believe there will be a sequel, but thoughts about what the odds would be, are instantly quashed under a thick reality check. Tears well up.

This morning Francoise Krill called up, one of Lara's good friends from her Geneva days. Francoise has sent a string of post cards to Lara, replete with encouraging words and sweet wishes. Coming from someone who's lost her own mother to leukemia, Lara can relate to them along a straight line. Both women cry on the phone as they say their farewells. At 7:00PM her brother Gordon talks to his sister through Skype. The two spend precious sibling time together, their two spouses only joining the fray at the tail end of the link time.

It is, of course, hard to bear for Lara in such a moment itself, saying 'adieu' to yet another friend or next of kin. It must feel to her like she's on a departing train and the platform is full of people wishing her well, and a safe arrival. Through the open window she tries to shake as many hands and blow as many kisses as she can. Then it hits her: the crowd is larger then she ever would have imagined during much of her life. She would never have had trust enough in herself to come to that assessment. When she feels how much accumulated love there is rising up from among the well-wishers, it grabs her by the throat every time she takes a look at them. Every time her eyes sweep the crowd, makes her feel rich and fortunate. It comforts her by enhancing a sense of not having lived her life in vain; of having meant something to so many people. Of having accomplished good deeds, enough to leave this earth with her chin up, her eyes on infinity, even though much too soon.

"Go to Vieste and have a good time!" Lara is quite adamant and repeats it. Nick and Eli have had an apartment in the Italian town for over five years now and we spent two summer vacations together, at least overlapping with them for a week. They will be there from 18 July to the beginning of August. I have my mind set on joining them for at least a while, staying in a hotel close to the beach where we normally hang out.

This is the first of any planning I have done for 'afterwards'. Lara, at this point, is having her own thoughts about what will be happening to her after she passes, but I had pretty much repressed any thought of what will happen to me once she will be gone. Thinking about it struck me as accepting the irreversible, as something disloyal bordering on betrayal. It felt like relinquishing something dear that I was not ready to renounce.

Planning for Vieste is breaking away from that, with Lara's full endorsement. In a way I find it uplifting not concentrating on the time between today and  her demise, but instead concentrating on what lies beyond; the time I will be a widower looking at the rest of my life without Lara. In Vieste I will stumble on many footsteps we left behind together in happier days and I will take pleasure in retracing them. It will be good to reminisce and eat through my grief there. At the same time there will be enough distraction to lift me up and out of it, and put me on a path towards a different future than I have ever wished for.