|
|
|
I will remember the last month of 2004 as both the best and worst of times.
by Jim Gilbert Founder
photography by Franco Pace
|
04/01/2005
|
I will remember the last month of 2004 as both the best and
worst of times.
It started off, auspiciously enough, with a fly-fishing
vacation to the South Island of New Zealand. I was in tiny Kerow, a
village nestled on the banks of the trout-filled Waitaki River, when I got word to call home. Reaching my sister in Washington, D.C., on Kerow’s only public
pay phone, I got the news every son and daughter dreads to hear: "Dad’s failing
fast. If you want to see him before he dies, I suggest you get here as quickly
as you can." Five flights and 40 hours later, I was at my father’s bedside,
holding his hand and, when the haze seemed to clear from his brass-flecked
mahogany eyes, telling him how much I loved him, would miss him, and would
always be thankful for having him as my dad.
Perhaps it was only our presence at his bedside, but an
occasional smile, a rise in his eyebrows or a squeeze of his hand helped assure
the family members and friends, many of whom had traveled to his bedside far
away from home and jobs to say good-bye, that at least some of what we were
trying to say was getting through.
He died peacefully in the wee hours of a snowy night less than
a week later. Adding to my sadness, two days later I received an e-mail message
informing me that Wolter Huisman, the ultimate boat builder of the modern era
and a man whom I admired greatly for his enormous vision, courage and warmth,
also had died. Four days later, in a crowed airport lounge waiting for a flight
home to Seattle, I watched in stunned silence the first images of the terrible
tsunami waves as they swept over defenseless towns and villages bordering the
Indian Ocean. Death, and news of death, seemed to permeate every dimension of my
life, rising over and reshaping my internal landscape like the eerie chocolate
tide of destruction half a world away.
Having spent the majority of my life immersed in an affluent
world that only a tiny fraction of our Creator’s children can fully appreciate,
I have found the world’s response to the tragedy in Southeast Asia profoundly heartwarming. As horrible as the death and
devastation was, the outpouring of compassion, money and support underscores the
shared humanity of every soul on Earth. In recognizing the tragic loss of life
from the tsunamis we – rich or poor, powerful or puny – acknowledge our own
mortality and the immutable cycle of birth, life and death that is the common
denominator of our existence.
My father left me little in the way of material things, but he
bequeathed me an inordinate love of the natural world, and a love for life and
for the people with whom I share it. Reflecting on Wolter’s legacy, what seems
important now is not the size of his company or the abundance of beautiful
yachts he built, but the wonderful family and the extraordinary friendships he
fostered and enjoyed over the years, and the unmeasurable passion for perfection
that will inspire the yachting world even after all those who were fortunate to
know him are long gone.
As I sat alone with my father the night he died, listening to
his labored breathing in the darkened hospice room, I found myself whispering
the phrase "Go in peace," that half-blessing, half-admonition common to every
tongue and culture on Earth. I was saying it to my father, now struggling for
every last breath, but I realized that, were he able, he would be saying the
same to me, my mother and the rest of the family. In the days and weeks that
followed I would find myself crying for my father, whom I knew and loved; crying
for Wolter who, like my father, died peacefully surrounded by those he loved
most; but crying, too, for those countless souls in the Indian Ocean who died
suddenly and violently, leaving behind legions of relatives and friends who
never were blessed with the chance to say goodbye.
Whether expected or not, whether your own or that of someone
you love, death is the most intensely private, and intimate, moment a person can
experience. Perhaps of all the gifts my father gave me, of all the lessons he
taught me, the opportunity to be alone with him in his last moments is what I
will treasure the most. His death taught me more about life and living than all
my previous 57 years. He showed me the precious value of fully sharing ourselves
with those we love by being truly open and present with each of them at every
moment of our lives. To go in peace, I discovered, one must first learn how to
live in peace. The only way to balance the equation of sadness in those we leave
behind is by the equal amount of joy we share together in living. Then death
does not come darkly as a cloaked figure with a haunting visage but as a smiling
angel with schooner wings cruising gently over a clear and fathomless indigo
sea.
|
|
|
|
|
Email This
Printer Friendly Version
Reprints & Permissions
Most Popular Searches