Today I received word that our South African friend, Lorenzo, had died. The call came in the morning, in the middle of an icy blast of wind that encircled the shivering house, and just as the sun began to climb over Fernwood hill.
His wife and constant companion, Jane, informed me in a controlled, steady voice. He had died at 5am South African time. She didn’t ask for compassion and she certainly didn’t need my tears so I banished them to that waiting place. A part of me already expected that phone call. I new because the day before a large bird had flown into the front porch - a crow.
“Light a candle”, Jane said.
Lorenzo and Jane loved birds and shared their love and enthusiasm with us, the foreigners from Canada who had never seen blue, red, purple and violet birds before: the bronze manikin, the Pine Nut Vulture, the lilac breasted roller, the red bishop. Our most wonderful moments together were watching birds at the magic lagoon near our houses in Mtunzini, Natal.
Several months ago in this same column I wrote to you of Lorenzo’s illness. You responded with cards and letters. They were read, re-read aloud, answered and then posted on an ever growing wall of messages from Canada.
"Canada continues to flow into South Africa", Jane wrote me. "People are amazing. All we hear here these days is of violence and pain, but these letters have reaffirmed what I feel - that people are basically good and decent and do care for one another."
"No tears now," Jane firmly told me this morning. "He’s continuing on his journey and it’s not a cause for mourning. Light a candle.
Thank you readers for sending your positive energy and caring to strangers, at the request of a stranger, and for allowing Canada to pour into Africa in such a positive way.
"Your love lifts us up and onward, dear friends," wrote Lorenzo in his last letter.
One final request, dear readers. Please light a candle.