Monday 25 June 2012

R.I.P. Paul, my dear friend of the last 52 years.

Paul's wife rang me this morning to give me the very sad news of his passing away yesterday. It still hasn't quite sunk in.
   I'd spoken to him only a week ago when I rang his mobile to hear from him that he was in hospital. (He still lived in north-east England where I come from, and where he's been settled since being an immigrant from Canada [Simcoe] when he was 13, the time I got to know him at school). When I spoke to him, as he was under the influence of sedative drugs he was struggling to explain what had happened but he had to terminate the conversation as he was about to receive some more treatment. I asked him to ring me when he was able.
     From what I could gather from his distraught wife, Mary, the principal cause of his demise was liver failure. I'll get more details later.

Paul was the most influential person in my life, outside my own  family. He was 66, one year older than me.
At school I wanted to make friends with him as we were both loners - he because, being a 'foreigner', he didn't know anybody else, and I always finding it difficult to make friends with anyone at all. I found out that he was interested in Astronomy, as I was but, even more important, that he knew a lot about classical music. I was an ignoramus on the latter subject but, because of wanting to be appreciated by him, determined at the age of 13/14 to acquire some knowledge about it, forcing myself to listen to the BBC classical music station night after night. It worked. After my tastes had settled we found we shared the same adulation of the music of J.S.Bach.
Paul was the most intelligent person I've ever known, solving mathematical problems in his head in an instant. He was also widely read in philosophy. What was alarming to me at the time was that he was a professed atheist already while we were still attending the R.C. college. (It was to take me another 10 years to see the falsity of the Church of Rome, and a further 25 years to doubt the very existence of any God, but Paul got there miles in front of me.)
      After leaving school in 1963 we saw each other every week until I left the area 12 years later, maintaining contact mainly through telephone. I've seen him on every one of my annual visits north-eastwards in recent years.
     I've only got a handful of photos of him. I took the above one a year ago, which I had posted in my blog at the time. The following couple were taken around the ages of 20/21.





















2012 is turning out to be possibly the worst year of my life so far - or should that be 'the most challenging'?
It started with my being diagnosed as diabetic last January. More recently I've had the very unwelcome significant hike in the rent I must pay, forcing me to start using sacrosanct savings which had been ring-fenced away - and to be used only after my own departure. In addition the wife of one of my nephews has been diagnosed with breast cancer and is undergoing aggressive and painful radio therapy treatment - and this is bringing my sister (her mother-in-law) down, whom I'll be visiting next week. And now this massive blow of Paul's death. I hardly dare think what is coming down the line next - and the year is only halfway through!  












 .

13 comments:

  1. Sorry to read your sad news. Sounds like you'll have some great memories of the man.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Stephen. Yes, great memories, but also so much left unsaid. I'm missing him terribly already. Especially hard that I know no one to replace him as an intellectual 'sparring partner'. But I've got to soldier on.

      Delete
  2. My sincerest condolences for the loss of your friend, Ray. I know this must be very hard for you. I wish i could be there for you. *hugs*

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm grateful to you too, S/b. I'm afraid I really indulged myself by writing a long blog above about someone whom none of my blog visitors knew. But there was a lot to get off my chest and I've no one else here to talk to about him.
      Your condolences are precious to me, as are your 'hugs' which I can feel and know are truly felt. I send you warm hugs in return, my friend.

      Delete
  3. My sincerest condolences for the loss of your friend, Ray. I wish I could be there for you. *hugs*

    ReplyDelete
  4. I too am saddened for your sorrow and your loss. I hope 2012 Part II is a better one now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Your kind words are deeply felt, Dr Spo. The experience has quite shaken me - but get through it I will.
      Some years ago I started a list of all those in my life whom I wished to reward in some way as a token of my appreciation of them. Paul was, after my own family, at the very top. Sadly I never acquired the material resources to show how I felt towards him. (He never even owned a computer, which he would dearly have loved). That same list has, over the years, now become very short indeed.
      If I was lonely before it's now become even more acute. But deaths of others is part of one's own life's 'learning' experiences - or so I'm led to believe. However, feelings at this moment are too raw to take any comfort in that thought.
      However, thanks so much to you again.

      Delete
  5. Ray,


    When one experiences the loss of someone dear to them, and another dear one is experiencing total agony, I feel completely powerless. All I can say is I totally feel for you, your sister and her daughter-in-law. Know that you're all in my thoughts.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Grateful to you, Paul. 2012 is already being a year to put behind me, with yet another six months of it to go.
      I've just found out this morning that Paul's funeral is to be next Tuesday, my very first full day when I had already booked to go the 300 miles to visit my sister who lives within the locality of Paul and his family. So I'm at least thankful that I'll be able to attend the funeral. At any other time I just wouldn't have been able to afford to go specially for that alone.
      As for all the other current troubles, we'll just have to take it a day at a time, though understandably, my nerves and the nerves of all those close to the problems are pretty frayed.
      Your generous words are valued.

      Delete
  6. I'm very sorry to read this, Ray. Take care.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Cubby. I've only one 'friend in the flesh' left in this country now - and I haven't seen him in 20 years as he lives too far away to visit. Makes one ever more aware of one's own mortality, but what can one do other than try to 'grin and bear it'?

      Delete
  7. So sorry to read this. How blessed you were to have a friend like that. It HAS been a rough year in your world. Hoping this one is much better. The photos are priceless.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Your words move me very deeply, Mitch. Thank you ever so much.
    I'm starting to get guilt feelings that I seem to have neglected blogs like yours, though it's actually not quite true. I am indeed reading them but my mind has been in so much of a whirl that I can't find the right words to comment on them, particularly when the blogs themselves are reflect a happy mood. But it's destructively self-indulgent for me to just sit here and mope, feeling sorry for myself, so I WILL shortly be resuming 'normal' service. Meantime, I send you heartfelt thanks for what you say. Greetings also to the pussies - as well as to your 'other half'.

    ReplyDelete