Visitors

Wednesday 13 June afternoon and evening

The living room, over the past six weeks, has developed into a veritable eyesore. There is a hospitalbed in the midle of it, a Baxter with two pumps and bags of liquid, a chaise percee, a little table doubling as a hospital side car (Lara's cubby hole), and there are endless supplies of medical equipment and medication on the window sill, on the floor and on the dining room table. Three big bottles of oxygen (4200 liters each) stand in the corner, and on the other side a big noisy oxygenator a haute debit.

This morning, whoever was at hand was co-opted into a massive cleaning out job, removing from the living room all possible vestiges remaining of six weeks of medical activity. After a few hours, only the bed remained, put in the highest position, where Lara is resting in horizontal position.

At around 2:30PM the kids came with their spouses and their off-spring. Entering with reverence and nervousness, their voices at a discreet whisper, they created in no-time at all a level of alacrity that - had Lara still been alive - would have been snuffed out by her husband just as fast. Under the present circumstances, once the gawking at the deceased was over, there was hardly any need to keep a lid on it, so a great time was had by all for about two hours straight. Activities included digging into Lara's fair stock of women's accessories, such as bags, scarfs, belts and other apparel. The bodypickers in action, goaded by the quarter master.

Twenty minutes after they left again, my mother came with my older sister and her husband and the same pattern erupted, aided and abetted by sherry, port and scotch. I took them to dinner at a decent Italian restaurant, La Bufala, bien arrose with a bottle of primitivo. We finally had fits of laughter again. Very healthy.