Dear Jean,
I moved to this corner of France about 16 years ago with two French friends from the World Bank, Pierre Mersier and Claude Carlier. Pierre died in December and last Thursday afternoon I learned that Claude, after many years of struggling with Parkinson’s disease had died in his sleep during the previous night. So I went to his home in the next village about 5 PM.
Claude’s wife Violette is 84 years old, very deaf and very blind. The housekeeper had come to the house at 9 AM and as usual found them both in bed, one sleeping and the other not. She called their doctor, their daughter in Brussels and the funeral home. As I sat on the couch with Violette she would sometimes ask me where is Claude. When the two guys from the funeral home showed up about 6:15 I kept her busy in the kitchen while they removed Claude’s body. The housekeeper prepared a light supper for us and left. Violette and I sat on opposite sides of the table, she ate and I tapped my fork on the plate, I had no appetite and anyway she cannot see. We had some very bizarre exchanges, me shouting replies across the table to her questions about where was Claude.
At some point she would start confusing me with Claude insisting that I eat everything on my plate. Then according to her habits at around 7:30 she closed all the shutters, locked the doors, turned out all the lights but one and announced it was time to go to bed. I persuaded her not to turn on the alarm as I would need to go to the bathroom. I turned on some lights and settled in on the couch to read and stay with her until her daughter arrived in the morning.
They keep the house extremely hot 28C according to a thermometer on the wall, and I was reluctant to fiddle with the thermostat so I spent the night in my underwear drinking a glass of very old wine from bottle I found in the kitchen. I looked everywhere but could not find his whiskey. Somewhere in the early hours I remembered that their daughter mentioned to me she had a camera installed in the living room so she could see on her smart phone how her parents were doing, so I stopped scratching where it itched. Their daughter arrived around 0830 the next morning.
Today I went to the funeral home to sit with Claude for 5 minutes in the dimly lit small room where he was laid out, and to reflect on his very interesting life. He was born in Vietnam in 1934 during the French colonial era. When he grew up he joined the French merchant marine, jumped ship in Tahiti, found a job there in a phosphate mine and met and married Violette. A few years later when the mine was exhausted his parents, still living in Saigon bought them the tickets and they travelled to Vietnam with their two young sons on a flying boat, flying only during the day, landing on the water as night approached and taking a boat to their hotel. He found work on a rubber plantation outside Saigon and eventually ended up the plantation director. He told me it was complicated as he had to deal with US army during the day and the Viet Cong communists during the night.
I abruptly stopped my daydreaming when much to my surprise the noisy refrigeration unit built into the underside of his bed started up and scared the sh.t out of me.
His funeral service was at 10:30 on Tuesday in a small Catholic church in another nearby village.
You Only Live Once, But if You Do it Right It Is Enough.
Best wishes from the last man standing.
John
I moved to this corner of France about 16 years ago with two French friends from the World Bank, Pierre Mersier and Claude Carlier. Pierre died in December and last Thursday afternoon I learned that Claude, after many years of struggling with Parkinson’s disease had died in his sleep during the previous night. So I went to his home in the next village about 5 PM.
Claude’s wife Violette is 84 years old, very deaf and very blind. The housekeeper had come to the house at 9 AM and as usual found them both in bed, one sleeping and the other not. She called their doctor, their daughter in Brussels and the funeral home. As I sat on the couch with Violette she would sometimes ask me where is Claude. When the two guys from the funeral home showed up about 6:15 I kept her busy in the kitchen while they removed Claude’s body. The housekeeper prepared a light supper for us and left. Violette and I sat on opposite sides of the table, she ate and I tapped my fork on the plate, I had no appetite and anyway she cannot see. We had some very bizarre exchanges, me shouting replies across the table to her questions about where was Claude.
At some point she would start confusing me with Claude insisting that I eat everything on my plate. Then according to her habits at around 7:30 she closed all the shutters, locked the doors, turned out all the lights but one and announced it was time to go to bed. I persuaded her not to turn on the alarm as I would need to go to the bathroom. I turned on some lights and settled in on the couch to read and stay with her until her daughter arrived in the morning.
They keep the house extremely hot 28C according to a thermometer on the wall, and I was reluctant to fiddle with the thermostat so I spent the night in my underwear drinking a glass of very old wine from bottle I found in the kitchen. I looked everywhere but could not find his whiskey. Somewhere in the early hours I remembered that their daughter mentioned to me she had a camera installed in the living room so she could see on her smart phone how her parents were doing, so I stopped scratching where it itched. Their daughter arrived around 0830 the next morning.
Today I went to the funeral home to sit with Claude for 5 minutes in the dimly lit small room where he was laid out, and to reflect on his very interesting life. He was born in Vietnam in 1934 during the French colonial era. When he grew up he joined the French merchant marine, jumped ship in Tahiti, found a job there in a phosphate mine and met and married Violette. A few years later when the mine was exhausted his parents, still living in Saigon bought them the tickets and they travelled to Vietnam with their two young sons on a flying boat, flying only during the day, landing on the water as night approached and taking a boat to their hotel. He found work on a rubber plantation outside Saigon and eventually ended up the plantation director. He told me it was complicated as he had to deal with US army during the day and the Viet Cong communists during the night.
I abruptly stopped my daydreaming when much to my surprise the noisy refrigeration unit built into the underside of his bed started up and scared the sh.t out of me.
His funeral service was at 10:30 on Tuesday in a small Catholic church in another nearby village.
You Only Live Once, But if You Do it Right It Is Enough.
Best wishes from the last man standing.
John
