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Feb. 6th, 2012 11:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnny9fingersSteph died last night. About 11.30pm.
I hadn't seen Steph for more than a week. She had looked far from chipper then, but apparently Ericka said that had been her best, and that her deterioration was rapid.
When I had taken Steph to the Marsden for those months she needed treatment this day seemed avoidable, or at least postponable.
So this came a bit quick, and unnerved me, and I found myself in tears listening to Adele on the nanny's radio. Gods, what mawkishness on my part.
Steph had been my Old Man's nearest good friend in his declining years. That they were neighbours was just a bonus.
Steph was a few months younger than me. Practical, clever, boyish, Feminist-but-not-separatist, craftsperson-like (because she was a craftsperson of great skill and understanding), down-to-earth, and wise. She was a Saxon-Dane-Angle artisan from the Fens. She'd always been what used to be called a tomboy, and according to her testimony she tried kissing a guy once and, honestly, no, 'twasn't for her.
Her widow, Ericka, is a Black Doctor's daughter from Guyana, who went to boarding school in Germany; speaks a hand-full of languages; was a catwalk model for a time; had imaginative affairs with artists, musicians, and intellectuals; and is still (in her mid-fifties) impossibly 'glam' (when she wants to be, of course).
They complimented each other perfectly, and were a delightful couple.
We're all going to miss Steph an awful lot, methinks. My heart goes out to Ericka.
As for the rest of you: go well, do good things. Thank your god; gods; or the gods of chance that your end will probably be more pleasant than Steph's was unless you are very unlucky indeed. Thank the gods for Morphine is what I say.
I hadn't seen Steph for more than a week. She had looked far from chipper then, but apparently Ericka said that had been her best, and that her deterioration was rapid.
When I had taken Steph to the Marsden for those months she needed treatment this day seemed avoidable, or at least postponable.
So this came a bit quick, and unnerved me, and I found myself in tears listening to Adele on the nanny's radio. Gods, what mawkishness on my part.
Steph had been my Old Man's nearest good friend in his declining years. That they were neighbours was just a bonus.
Steph was a few months younger than me. Practical, clever, boyish, Feminist-but-not-separatist, craftsperson-like (because she was a craftsperson of great skill and understanding), down-to-earth, and wise. She was a Saxon-Dane-Angle artisan from the Fens. She'd always been what used to be called a tomboy, and according to her testimony she tried kissing a guy once and, honestly, no, 'twasn't for her.
Her widow, Ericka, is a Black Doctor's daughter from Guyana, who went to boarding school in Germany; speaks a hand-full of languages; was a catwalk model for a time; had imaginative affairs with artists, musicians, and intellectuals; and is still (in her mid-fifties) impossibly 'glam' (when she wants to be, of course).
They complimented each other perfectly, and were a delightful couple.
We're all going to miss Steph an awful lot, methinks. My heart goes out to Ericka.
As for the rest of you: go well, do good things. Thank your god; gods; or the gods of chance that your end will probably be more pleasant than Steph's was unless you are very unlucky indeed. Thank the gods for Morphine is what I say.
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no subject
Date: 2012-02-06 11:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-06 01:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-06 04:19 pm (UTC)Not at all. You're "right 'ard" in my book.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-07 06:06 am (UTC)Strength to you all.