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This year started with the death of my husband on January 17th and is ending with the passing of my father this morning.

When I read in the papers about all the people who died around the Indian Ocean this last week, I feel privileged to have been with him during those last days and to have had the time to say goodbye to him.
He was a very intelligent and cultured man, a gentle human being, discrete and peace loving. He valued justice and fairness. He was an epicurean, enjoying the finer things in life: music, art, good food and drink. He still wanted to listen to Mozart on his diskman yesterday. He had a very sharp sense of humor and one of the last things he managed to tell us through his oxygen mask, was to liken his second dose of morphine to a glass of bubbly.

He loved to travel, and got to see a lot of the world with my mother: Europe of course, but also Asia, Africa, South America, they sailed the Yangse river, the Danube, the Nile, the Scandinavian fjords and to Alaska. A few weeks ago they were in Paris attending concerts and plays, going to museums. So it is a comfort to know he lived the life he loved until the end.

I was startled to discover how blue his eyes were when he was not wearing his glasses. Such kind eyes…
He was loved and he will be missed…