October 5, 2011 – 11:13 am
How do you lose someone?
It is why we can’t take anything for granted, though we do that every minute.
When I heard that Diana, great friend and much admired and adored person, had passed away last night, it had already seemed a long time coming, though she had only been ill three months.
She was a pole star to her family and friends and colleagues; her influence, her soft power, was immense and deep. She was the probity of friendship. She was a legend in the book world, instrumental in creating two Australian beacons of independent publishing: McPhee Gribble, and Text. And so on…
How do you recall someone, now that you must recall them? I felt only empty and dry when the news arrived; but looking through pictures of Diana, I was awash with feelings — pictures are not memories but memorials, or they are fuses. I see the picture and feel … the distance close, as if time had not passed, and things had not come to pass … then recoiling to reality: salt and bitter. As if one could have time again; when what we had is all we have. Why do we take anything for granted?
Loss has no name. Moment by moment I have an odd sense of dislocation — as if I had lost my bearings, as if I had lost my compass.
Footnote:
The Bookman extends his deepest sympathy to Diana's family and colleagues. The book publishing industry, indeed the whole community, is an immeasurably poorer place without her.
It is why we can’t take anything for granted, though we do that every minute.
When I heard that Diana, great friend and much admired and adored person, had passed away last night, it had already seemed a long time coming, though she had only been ill three months.
She was a pole star to her family and friends and colleagues; her influence, her soft power, was immense and deep. She was the probity of friendship. She was a legend in the book world, instrumental in creating two Australian beacons of independent publishing: McPhee Gribble, and Text. And so on…How do you recall someone, now that you must recall them? I felt only empty and dry when the news arrived; but looking through pictures of Diana, I was awash with feelings — pictures are not memories but memorials, or they are fuses. I see the picture and feel … the distance close, as if time had not passed, and things had not come to pass … then recoiling to reality: salt and bitter. As if one could have time again; when what we had is all we have. Why do we take anything for granted?
Loss has no name. Moment by moment I have an odd sense of dislocation — as if I had lost my bearings, as if I had lost my compass.
Footnote:
The Bookman extends his deepest sympathy to Diana's family and colleagues. The book publishing industry, indeed the whole community, is an immeasurably poorer place without her.
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