My dear friend Edith - who was also one of my students - died nearly 2 weeks ago, and today I was invited to a celebration of her life.
I'd happily agreed to go, but driving across the beach road to Portland I felt apprehensive. I'm always reminded now that I'm no longer driving to carry out our usual lessons - which were always a challenge, sometimes exasperating and often left me smiling - instead yet again, I wonder if this would be the last time I would be visiting her house, with its view over the amazing beach at Cheasel.
Making the journey I also had to remind myself that she would no longer be there. Except, interestingly that didn't seem to be the case and Edith was very much there and present with use all. Of course she would be.
Her daughter Ananda had hung up reams of old photographs of Edith, and their family life, and at last I met the woman through these beautiful black and white photographs, which showed her as the typically feisty, strong and then glamorous individual. Meeting this younger version, instead of the white-haired 89-year-old, wasn't a surprise. At last I had been introduced to the person I'd come to know. The experience of meeting a person through photographs that covered a long period of time reminded me of the artwork produced by John Bartholomew celebrating his 90 year old mother's life. A lady I had never met, but whose appearance in a series of carefully chosen photos spanning her life had a powerful effect on all who saw them.
In both cases I was struck by how long a life can be, and of course the change in appearance from childhood/ adolescence, young woman/ early motherhood to the elderly woman, who in Edith's case I recognised. All were linked by the character that rested in each version of the person at each stage of their life.
As a young girl I'd been given an O level test paper and the question I was asked to write far too many words on was a comparison between the life of an individual and that of a river. At the time I had been unusually stumped by what now seems like a trite opportunity to easily over labour a metaphor. But looking back I was right to see little comparison between the two. Instead life today seems more like layers of tissue paper over lapping one another. Each layer partially affecting the appearance of the other, until in the end the transparency becomes opaque and all we can see is old age, which culturally hides the something that has always been there.
I'm glad I went today to visit Edith. Yet on this occasion it was me who learnt something, and I will now also remember the young Edith with her long life before her.
