Hi,

I got back last night after visiting John and Vicki in Corvallis for a few days. Vicki’s sister Debbie and her son Grant were there as well.

 

I took the train down from Vancouver last Sunday, and when I got there, I was told to expect a neighborhood gathering that afternoon, as one of the neighbors had recently purchased a used ambulance that he was remodeling to take to ‘Burning Man’ where he’d never been. I’d been charged with giving a little Zen slide show on the Black Rock Desert, which is one of my haunts and where Burning Man is held.

 

The gathering was held in the Buckhouse driveway and the open garage. We got John warm and comfortably seated at a card table which, as friends arrived, became the cocktail bar – plenty of wine and beer, and a lovely bottle of Bushmill’s ‘Black Barrel’ Irish Whiskey. It took some talking to get the ladies comfortable with the word ‘Lovely’ when it comes to Irish Whiskey as in “My that’s lovely!” John was in his element: holding forth on the remote, arid beauty of the Salt Desert Shrub Biome – with a few corrections and editorials from me, of course.

 

That night, after John was rested up, the 5 of us watched the season’s first episode of ‘All Creatures Great and Small’.

 

On Monday, John was in fine fiddle, rehashing yesterday’s driveway gathering. Then he rested until it was time to go to our annual neighborhood gent’s gathering at a local restaurant which John wasn’t about to miss, and didn’t – lots of stories about our past year, and a lot of laughs. We weren’t sure that John would be able to make the whole evening, but he did in, in yeoman form.

 

Our ‘So Longs and Goodbyes’ on Tuesday morning were painful, as I’m sure you can imagine, as the travelers left for their flights and trains, .

 

He and I had a few warm and honest conversations during my visit, but I have to say that while John is prepared and thankful for his wonderful life, we know that there is no light at the end of this tunnel for Vicki. She is going to need all of us in the coming days, weeks, months and years. Vicki and John agreed to forego future Chemotherapy and to enter Hospice.

 

The passing of an era,

 

Hugh