When we arrived in Viana do Castelo we secured a tiny apartment a block off the ocean beach on the south side of the river in a community called Cabedelo. It was the the back-yard cottage of Flora, who is a 70 something year old beauty; timeless beauty with all the hoped-for attributes that seem to stack up on some people…charm, wit, brains, humor, grace and enough English to let us know she appreciated us. Her husband, Jose, was in intensive care in a hospital some fifty kilometres away and had been for months and months. Flora drove to his side nearly every day and she suffered the angst and bewildering sadness of one who will surely lose a spouse…a spouse she revered.
We got to know her over the months, got to know her two boys, daughter and grandchildren as well. They were gladly in our lives and we’ve become fond of them…see them whenever we can, consider them friends.
The months rolled on and Dr. Jose was in his 19th month of dire ill health when, last week he suddenly rallied and there were great cheers that this tough and brave man would emerge from the wearying tunnel he’d been in for over a year and a half.
Yesterday evening he died. In the Portuguese tradition his funeral was today and now, this evening his remains are already in the ground some metres up from the river he lived on for so many years. Neither my wife nor I can recall a person less deserving of ill fortune and grief than Flora, but here it is, heaped upon her in spite of her stalwart vigilance and loving care for Jose.
His funeral was in a big local church that seated about 200 of the 300 or so people who came to pay their respects to Flora and her children. The church was of course ornate and filled with the horrifying accoutrements of the Catholic faith… gold-leafed scenes of an execution, eating flesh, drinking blood, swords, shields, arrows, alcoves, hidden choirs and towering vaulted ceilings twenty metres up…as if already approaching heaven. There was a lovely-sounding call and response in Portuguese, I think, although it could have been Latin, in which none of the consonants could be heard and the result had the same magic as of a Gregorian Chant.
There were no dry eyes today, as this man was loved by his community and he was a substantial member of his community, but the most poignant moment for me was when his granddaughter came toward the alter as the casket was being wheeled out and reached forward and touched the corner of her grandfather’s casket. She then folded into my arms and I told her I was sorry she had lost her grandad.
Thank you, she said said simply…already, at 11 years old, finding a place of grace and strength to take her generation forward.
Linda and I had dinner on the beach this evening at a favourite restaurant and we held hands a little more than usual and toasted more simple pleasures than is our wont. We sat there across from each other with the full knowledge that someday one or the other of us must face the same grief, but with splendid hope that it will not be today and with any luck not tomorrow either.