GIRO FLY



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                                                      Then comes the moment when it all becomes too much, when the nights have taxed her too heavily and the medical staff in the hospital is through with doctoring. A last possibility lies in Hornerheide, health resort near Roermond. Maybe that way we can both have a moment to breathe – painfully odd choice of words.
                                      She’s so brave, every weekend I drive there to pick her up and spend the weekend at home, mondays I bring her back and I visit her there twice a week. Each time
                                      this involves 120 kilometers of driving. For just about two months this is the routine, she seems to get a little bit better. Home alone, I think of her in her small room in the house under the pinetrees, and I’m out of words.
                
                                                                  In the Academic Hospital in Maastricht where she spent so much time,  there is, in the entrancehall, hanging from the heigh ceiling, a beautiful work of art, made by Panamarenko, famous belgian engineer and sculptor, it’s a manpowered helicopter with two large rotors, the pilot has to sit in the middle and move the rotors with bicycle pedals. It ‘flew’ once, a belgian athlete managed to get it hovering a few decimeters above the ground, so you have to see this work of art as a splendid joke that works!
                                                                Often we looked at it, Annet and I, imagining how the hangar shaped roof would open and the fabulous contraption would take off, to the stars. While Annet was in Hornerheide I worked every day on “Giro Fly” to keep up hope; but by and by it dawned on us that  the clinic was an endstation, a last resort, and when she became homesick I took her away from there, she said:”Please, my love, don’t ever send me away again.” Thanks to Eve, nurse from the daycare center , and Eric, physiotherapist, we’ve had a considerable length of time filled with pleasure and music, she liked “Giro Fly”, dreamvehicle bound for the Light, Tom Waits and Nick Drake. Eve became one of the best friends she ever had.
                                                             Dear Panamarenko, half a year later she flew away like a dove, and the beauty surrounding her last trip came partly from you, rest assured of that.
                                       “Is it a bird or is it Nick?” It’s true, Nick, sometimes one song can touch one person so that she lives, against all odds, never to be forgotten. “You’re just a tiny speck of brighter Light,” she knew the way to blue, she told me. You touched her, did you see it?

                                                                                                     july 21 2006



                                                                                               MORNINGSNOW

                                                         The evening of the 18th she is overcome by such a pain, my brave one is giving up..No painkiller offers any solace.. We are sitting in the livingroom, we talk, from time to time she passes out, then she comes around again, we talk some more, about nothing, little things, we avoid what we both know: this is the last evening together.
                                                       That’s how the night crawls by, we can’t do anything else but be close to one another, our hands speak their own language, say goodbye, don’t want to let go. Her beautiful eyes extinguished, the stars are being put out one by one, yet she manages to say: “What about you now my love?” and : “You won’ stay alone, will you? Find somebody, there has to be some one whom you can make happy....”
                                                      The breathing device in the utilityroom is still humming that all is ok, the umbilical cord of air still running to her sweet little face, she says :”Sorry my love..”- I wrap my arms around her, she’s sinking into a semi-conscious state, it’s almost six in the morning, I hear her pray: “Please my Sweet Lord, take me with You, I have nothing left –”
                                                      It’s almost seven when she comes around again, her eyes are clear, she says: “The pain is gone, now I can go to sleep!” I see her to bed, tuck her in and say: “I’m going to turn the lights off, I’ll be with you in a minute.” She takes my hand and holds it, little heap of woman in that large bed, we look at each other, a long look, she says: “Goodbye my love, thank you for Everything!” I say :”You too, love, thanks for Everything, where would I have been without you?” Then I make my rounds through the house; through the window I see there is snow, the world is white with untouched, perfect snow, not even a bird’s mark in it , no footprints, no tiretracks, quite, peaceful, beautiful.
                                                    Then I crawl in next to her, close to her sleeping body, and wrap an arm around her. The warmth and silence get to me too, even though I don’t want to fall asleep. Around ten in the morning I feel, vaguely as if in a dream, how she turns until she faces me, she puts her hand on my heart. After a while I think, half asleep :”Your arm is getting heavy –”, I turn towards her, put her heavy arm tenderly in mine,  now I can breathe again, I kiss her forehead and doze off.
                                                    Half past twelve I wake up with a shock and see she has passed away, her face is already feeling cold. I say her name, I say :”Oh God!” and I understand she went the moment she put her hand on my heart.
                                                  A little while before that, while I was fast asleep, she must have been up and about, the oxygendevice is turned off, the “umbilical cord” neatly rolled up next to the bed; also she fastened the cramp-iron, (the burglarlock) , I always release it thursdays, so that Eve, who has her own frontdoorkey, can come in. I can’t take my eyes off Annet’s face, so still and beautiful, no trace of  pain or struggle, she looks so young –
                                      Then I hear Eve’s voice, she can’t get in because of the cramp-iron, she sounds nervous, that sweet friend understands what must have happened. I answer the door to her and say: “Eve, she’s gone.”
                                                              

                                      november 7 2006



                                                                                                 The Long Night​



                                      I told you how beautiful she looked, the years of pain erased from her face; the moment I heard Eve calling I saw that Death can be a king, merciful at will, His Will, I couldn’t avert my eyes.
                                      She looked like a young girl, no trace of struggle – Eve stayed until the undertaker came to take her away,in her finest clothes, long black skirt, silk white blouse (“Made it myself!”) – I went into the bedroom and covered the bed in the flowers I had bought for her that week, roses, white lilies, carnations; I wouldn’t sleep in that bed anymore. Then came the long night, walking to and from the bedroom to the livingroom, sitting down in my chair and all I managed to say was:”Thank you God-” and “Oh love my love-”
                                     All through that first night I sat like that, words pouring out like a river: thank you God, o love my love –thanks ....
                                     He gave and took, she let herself go, left all her cares behind, among the lilies white forgotten....Thank You God, for Everything.

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                                                                                                                                                    It is Done