Dearest Jules,

Golly! Where to begin? You have given me so much to think about…

I think the answer is, I shall pick up this little end of a thread I see on the edge of your missive and give it a tug, and see where it leads me.

Islands – yes, you remind me how much of a pull they have always had on me, too. Childhood memories of the Caledonian MacBrayne ferries rusting their way into harbour, creaking and groaning with their load of cars to be  edged on and off those alarmingly mobile ramps by their optimistic but distinctly nervous drivers. The smell of the sea! The salt air! The seaweed! The rust!! (yes, the rust is a big part of my memory, I think it worried me slightly).

When I came to visit you on Islay and Sanday, particularly the latter, my heart soared as we pulled out to sea. The smell, the buffeting wind, the familiar rust, the reassuringly stuffy bar/cafe inside. Winding through the Orkney Islands, passing the Old Man of Hoy rock pillar, to Sanday was sheer joy. Finding the “hire car” rented to us by your neighbour (the butcher?) on the quayside, asking you by phone where to go for the keys, hearing you say “they’re in the ignition, of course!”, realising that people still lived in these magical places where a child can leave their bike at the end of the track, go to and from school on the bus, and pick it up from its spot leaning against the stone dyke that evening without a thought.

My time on islands has been much less than yours, but fast forward to 2012 approx when we opened a shop on the wonderful Ile de Re on the west coast of France, and you find me spending 4 months working 7 days a week in the port of St. Martin -en-Re, becoming nut-brown over the summer as I sat outside our wee shop endeavouring to charm the locals and, more importantly, the rich Parisians holidaying there. I loved island life so much that when I occasionally, reluctantly, had to cross that graceful modern bridge which now connects the island to La Rochelle, it was only by fighting a visceral desire to resist such an abandonment, however short, of my paradise.

I guess we are all islands, fundamentally. There is a romance and a loneliness to it all. As with you, the departure of our kids to other pastures leaves us in a roaring silence sometimes, but one has to enjoy the positives as well. Freedom to move, freedom from Uni fees (next year after 16 straight years of that caper, I think I really deserve some kind of bonus pension), freedom from so many goods and chattels. 

Since we moved from France to Italy with 2 dogs, 2 cars, 2 bicycles, and 2 Swiss Army canvas trunks of clothing, we have never really looked back in our drive towards minimalism. We tried hard to buy a cheese grater the other day, but really struggled to choose one. Then I looked at Diane, laughing, and said “we can just cut it into little cubes with a paring knife, right?”. We giggled our way out of the horrendously boring home goods store to the bafflement of the nice gay man at the desk. He probably thought we were old stoners.

Someone wrote once that we never really become adults until we lose our own parents. I look back wryly now on the many times I have joked with my kids and friends about how I was still “undecided” about becoming, or not, an adult person. I guess the joke’s on me, as with our mother’s passing this summer I definitely feel the need to step up to the plate – a bizarre thought, really, as a 60 year-old with 4 kids from 21 to 34 years old. About time, I suppose!

You mention the tidiness of our parents’ exits from life. I did find it extraordinary. Remember, we were told one Sunday our 91 year-old father had had a fall and would only last a week. I flew back from France, Jean from Spain, you from Australia, arriving Wed I think. We all had our private and group moments with him, thankful for the oxygen feed which miraculously regressed his dementia so that he could share a few clear thoughts with us (where the hell was the oxygen before?), until on the Thursday evening when we had a confab and said “ what the hell do we do if he DOESN’T pop his clogs this week? Of course, true to form as a stickler for punctuality, he obliged the next morning.

Mother, for goodness sake, who had a list of things to do before dying at 91, 10 years later, including voting in the election. The minister who came to the hospital and gave her communion on the last Sunday of her life, asked our sister if Mother would like her to come back in to the hospital mid-week eliciting a reply of “oh no, thank you, we’ve done all that”. The huge bouquets arriving from cousins in the USA and New Zealand gave her a panic, as she said to our brother “oh no, now I have to write thank you cards”, adding something to that damn list she was trying to get through 2 days before departure. When she had been moved from the hospital to the hospice, her final home, she had said to the examining doctor, “I just need a week to prepare myself for going, and I do hope it won’t be messy in any way, my final demise”. It wasn’t, of course, because she didn’t allow it to be. “No bursting pipes, thank you very much” was what she really meant, I think, no final indignities, as she of course bowed out the following Saturday.

Her own brother, our Uncle Bill, my godfather, was a doctor of great intellect and a wit as dry as get out. I know he was a bit fed up with being 91 and having a bloody annoying little cancer. I know he would never have done such a thing , but when I visited the 2 coffins in the funeral parlour alone, and stood between them looking down at Bill and Gay after the terrible head-on collision which took their lives, I swear he had a tiny, smug smile on his face, as if he were saying “well, if you gotta go, you gotta go, and you might as well do a proper job”.

The leitmotifs of their generation seemed to be tidiness, duty, punctuality, correctness, courtesy, respect. As a newly qualified adult, I can’t help but reflect that we might just have lost a bit of ground in terms of these admirable qualities.

So, I have managed to write almost exclusively about death. Inevitably my thoughts are coloured by the terrible news today that one our 34 year-old daughter’s very best friends has just lost her fight against cancer. As ever one is struck by the swift cruelty of fate, the fragility of life, and the magic of life. It makes one want to grab onto every moment, to celebrate the beauty of the world which 100 Trumps cannot diminish, (although he’s having a good solid go of it through the Environmental PROTECTION Agency).

My dear, let’s make 2018 our Nike year, let’s JUST DO IT.

My love as ever

Jamie