Charlie

Some years ago now, maybe ten, my good friend Charlie Angus died. He was forty-six years old, married to Kate and they were parents to two young boys.

Charlie had been diagnosed with cancer of the jawbone, which was life-threatening in its own right. After an operation and a spell in hospital, however, Charlie was given the all-clear so he went home. The surgery / drugs / trauma ... who knows what ... must have weakened Charlie so that not long after he returned home to convalesce he collapsed. An artery had burst and he bled to death. He died in Kate's arms.

The eulogy for Charlie was delivered by his friend and boss, Jeane (who is also my first, long-divorced wife). While preparing her thoughts for what was always going to be a tough speech Jeane talked to me about her difficulty in finding some idea or image of Charlie to use to frame her words about him. I thought about it for a day or so then hit upon the poem below (by Norman McCaig, who I knew a little when I was a student at Stirling University). Jeane agreed that the poem was a good fit so she used it to end her words, delivered as she stood next to Charlie's coffin.

Shortly after Jeane stopped speaking, Charlie in his coffin was lowered out of sight and into oblivion by some crematorium lift mechanism to the accompaniment of the tune The Northern Lights of Old Aberdeen. We wept and smiled. As ever, Charlie came and went on his terms.

Praise of a man

He went through a company like a lamplighter -
see the dull minds, one after another,
begin to glow, to shed
a beneficent light.

He went through a company like
a knifegrinder - see the dull minds
scattering sparks of themselves,
becoming razory, becoming useful.

He went through a company
as himself. But now he's one
of the multitudinous company of the dead
where are no individuals.

The beneficent lights dim
but don't vanish. The razory edges
dull, but still cut. He's gone: but you can see
his tracks still, in the snow of the world.

I've no idea what brought all this to mind, except that I miss my friend Charlie. That (of course) but also, I guess, because I've been wondering about myself lately, although I can't claim to have reached any conclusions. Silly old fool.