Wednesday 20^th January 2010

I heard on Monday that a close friend of friends, working for the UN, met once briefly by me, has died in the Haiti earthquake. His partner, family and friends had been waiting for days, clinging to hope.

Not what you were expecting to hear, perhaps. I hope it is not unseemly to mention it amongst the shopping, over-spending, money-saving and tweeking of the home.

But there it is.  It would be cowardly to leave it out.

Yesterday I was reduced to silence. This person was Italian, from Florence. On Monday, I think, the City Council paid tribute in their meeting and then stood and applauded. It always makes me weep, this bizarre Italian custom of applauding the dead – brave, crazy but somehow true. Every life (well, not every life, speaking of the truth) is some kind of splendid performance, now at an end.

Here, by all accounts, was certainly an exceptional life. This man was bold, determined and, from within an institution, resisted institutionalisation. But only 45 and now his partner, family and friends left, scattered all over the world, denied, in the circumstances presumably, even the comfort of gathering in the place of death. All of that unimaginable. As an outsider, I cannot pretend to know what they are enduring. For Poor Little Rich Gays, all the same, no costly aversion of the eyes from death, no hurling of money into the pit. So I like to think, who has not yet been truly tested. People say, Time heals everything. They speak of Moving On. But every death leaves an indelible mark or ought to.