‘Hi, David, it’s Karl. Sadly, I have bad news. Ian Willis died last night, probably from complications from serious surgery.’
There is a little moment when things seem to stop, and belief is suspended. Then reality is back.
’I just spoke to him three of four weeks ago, Karl, and was organising to catch up with him in Canberra in early April. I better ring Carol.’
I ring Carol and after a bit of telephone tag we talk. The hard thing is, what do you say? She is very stoic, but that has always been her nature. We briefly exchange memories going back more than forty-five years; meals together, playing tennis on cold winter nights every Wednesday in Canberra. Carol asks if I will speak at the funeral and I am very happy to say yes.
As I ponder some words for the funeral my mind turns to my loss. Someone I met through work, who became a friend. I left Canberra in 1980, but we kept up a relationship over the years, visiting each other from time to time. Ian was a stalwart: reliable, calm, trustworthy, taking things in his stride, arguing his point of view. We each had a career in the public sector and always had lots to talk about – the good, the bad, the indifferent of the public service and politicians. There will be no more of those moments.
It is not just my loss. I think of Carol, married to Ian more than fifty years, and their three boys and their wives and children. The loss of a treasured husband, father and grandfather. The loss for siblings, cousins and other family, for colleagues and friends. The loss will be different for each person Ian’s life touched.
And all that will be left are the memories.
Burnside Writers Group 