I haven’t slept, at least not very well; in fact it seems as though I have been awake all night. It wasn’t my cough that kept me awake, although my chest did strike some particularly discordant notes during the night. No, in spite of the comfort of fresh sheets (that had appeared there as if by magic some time before I went to bed), I lay in the darkness with my eyes shut and I kept thinking about my day yesterday – the bad news, the kindnesses, the conversations, the reactions, the loss and the sense of regret that a connection had not been made in time to complete a circle…
Eventually the light of morning seeped through the black of night and sad thoughts, and I made my way here to my studio; and if Chris or Roland (our friend from Australia) should rise and find me at my computer they will be surprised to find me up so early but they will not think it so strange as to be peculiar.
Two days ago a thoughtful lady contacted me through my website. “I am a friend of Joseph Gyorffy…” her email began. We had a long telephone conversation yesterday morning.
At length I asked how she had known my surname, although I had a feeling what her answer would be – of course it was my letters.
“He kept everything,” she said.
Joseph was a letter-man, not a computer-man or a phone-book-man… So I have been mourning quietly to myself and now Chris is up and making me a nice cup of tea.
“Poor girl,” he said, putting his arms around me and giving me a kiss.
Gone, but emphatically not forgotten…..the way it should be, I suspect.
Hi Sally, my husband and me, we were friends of Joseph or as we knew him by his nickname Fifi. They were born in the same town in Slovakia but met here in Australia, in Melbourne in the 80s. When my husband called him about a year and a half ago, I’m not sure, Fifi told him that he could be only called on his mobile but he wasn’t going to call anybody. We tried to contact him after that but the phone was disconnected. This summer when we went on holiday to Europe, heard the sad news. I took photos of him when we visited him in 2010. My husband visited him twice after that. I sent the copies of those photos to his daughter in Canada as Fifi had asked me to. My daughter has fond memories of this visit and of that kind, white-haired, white-bearded friend (he reminded us Dega/Dustin Hoffman from the movie Papillon) of her dad who gave her books. His house was filled with them…I have lots of nice memories too and of all those stories Fifi and my husband had told me. I wish he would have come to visit us in Sydney as he had promised but never did.
Hi Zsuzsa. Thank you so much for your message. It’s good to know that Joseph lives on in fond memories from those who knew and cared for him. I’ll send you an email later.