Reviewing 2008

This year I have been almost entirely in the United States, except for about a week in Canada visiting two friends, Seng and Steve, in October. They will be traveling about in Thailand, India and Nepal for 3 months, beginning in January, seeing with their cameras. Seng made a 4-minute video of my visit with them, that can be seen in YouTube.com, searching with the phrase “Vincent in British Columbia“.

For much of January this year, I was in Monett, Missouri, visiting my mother who was seriously incapacitated by pneumonia after an operation on her liver. During the liver operation, cancer was discovered again. Earlier she had had breast surgery for cancer. When I was there in January, she was at a nursing home, about 20 minutes from my sister and brother-in-law’s house, where the three had lived for many years. She and I communicated at the nursing home with short sentences. I took her for brief walks in her wheelchair, inside and outside, sitting with her in the sun, amid leaves on the ground. I would read poetry to her under an outdoor shelter, or sit quietly, talking slowly with her, while her eyes were closed. When I asked her how she was, she usually said ‘fine’, though I knew otherwise. Astri was with us for about a week. She said my mother looked pleased with hugs that I gave her in the wheelchair. Mom died in February.

She enjoyed writing poetry.  One she wrote when she was visiting Astri and me on Long Island, New York, in July, 1991.

I held a thought in my mind today –
It was much like
cradling a small life form
in the palm of my hand,
feeling the pulse beat,
sensing its gathering of it resources
to itself
to make its statement,
to be …
It was exciting to watch
the birth of an idea.

A young friend of mine, Jaa, died in April in Malaysia, 32 years old, maybe of a combination of dengue fever and severe pneumonia. We chatted for about a year before meeting for the first time in 2003, having a little vacation together in Melaka, a famous historic port city in Malaysia. I met him again last year in Malaysia, at a restaurant for about an hour. I knew I liked him. I knew after he died that I liked him more than as just a friend. He was a quiet man, who did not say much by phone, who talked fast when with me in a car, a restaurant, or walking about.

I wrote a poem about him soon after being notified of his death.

Fast talking,
Handsome,
He was a quiet sparkle in my life.
We walked Malaka,
Stood in the Equitorial pool,
Had meals in the sunny dining room,
Traveled to a forest waterfall
Four years ago.

Last summer
Again we were,
That time for an hour
At a mall,
Chatting
About his work,
His friends,
His future.

This year, April 12th,
He stopped chatting,
He silent forever
From pneumonia
At 32 years old.

His name is on my chat room list,
Our pictures in my albums,
His flowing words in my ears,
His perky smile and
Short black hair
With me.

Our conversation is absent,
No more.
That is what hurts,
That we cannot talk again.

I have another friend in Chengdu, China, that was in the news this year after hit by a strong earthquake. He was not injured. He said the earthquake damage was mostly a short distance from Chengdu.

Astri and I enjoyed concerts this year, a few of them choral evenings in which Astri was one of the choral members. She sang in the Berkshire Choral Festival in Massachusetts in July, singing Randall Thompson’s Frostiana and a requiem by composer Mack Wilbert, with her sister Penny and me in the audience applauding. In September she and Penny were near Salzburg, Austria, without me, singing a Beethoven mass in Salzburg Cathedral. During that visit to Europe, Astri also visited her niece in Oslo.

Astri and I subscribe to the New York Youth Symphony. Talented young people, in their early 20s and younger, give 3 symphonic concerts a year, and another group of young musicians sponsored by the same funding organization give jazz concerts 3 or 4 times a year.

My two brothers, 3 of my 4 sisters, their families, and Astri and I met for our family reunion in July. We have a family reunion once each two years, this year in Paducah, Kentucky, a riverside city where the National Quilt Museum is located. My brother John retired to Paducah from the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, where he was an animal control officer. He now lives comfortably in Kentucky with his 4 dogs and a cat.

May the stock market rebound, and may you have many happy days in 2009!

Advertisement