Hommage à un ami perdu

Following our tribute to Dick Joyce in October, we have received a very moving text from one of his beloved friends, Sonja Hunt. I wanted to share it with you to remember how formidable Dick was. Many years ago, he made me realized that my difference was a strength. He gave me the faith to make possible the impossible.
I will always remember our last encounter. He knew, we all knew, that it would be the last time we would see each other. The hug we shared that day was filled with this full consciousness. I will always remember his smile as we both silently acknowledged it.
Catherine Acquadro
 

Hommage à un ami perdu

By Sonja Hunt
Dick Joyce and I had known each other by repute (his more respectable than mine) for some time. Whenever we were together we would reprise the disagreement about where we had first met. He maintained it was in the bar at The Royal Society of Medicine in London, I insisted it was in a restaurant at a UNESCO conference in Paris. He did confess he had an unreliable memory. Regardless of the truth it was a most happy conjunction of minds and hearts, the feeling we both had that we were destined to become friends. We shared a love of language and rhyme, astonishment at human pretensions and a tendency to ridiculous inventions. We once spent an evening constructing a TV programme whereby old people were granted their last, literally, wish. It was totally tasteless and very funny! Until the last few months of his life we exchanged e-mails almost every day and some days I forget and check to see if he has written.
Actually Dick was more than a friend. He was an inspiration, a joy, a dictionary in several languages, a comedian, a tireless supporter, a mine of curiosities, a tease and, as they say in England, “a real gent” with impeccable manners. He brought illumination to tenebrous minds and balm to sore hearts.
For a man of so many accomplishments, academic, artistic and intellectual he was surprisingly humble. He once said, to my astonishment, “All my life I’ve wanted to write something useful”. But that was Dick, always looking, always trying, never quite satisfied when lesser beings would have been pinning virtual medals on their chests.
It was towards poetic perfection that he strove most mightily and even though he had won several distinguished prizes he was never quite satisfied, even if sometimes gratified for the recognition. I was flattered to be appointed, with his daughter, Cressida, a major critic and editor. More than any of his other writing his poetry reflected the essence of the dear man, his erudition, breadth of thought, love of word play, humour and a certain roguishness.
He was a devoted husband and even after fifty years of marriage he and his wife, Ismene, carried on the most interesting, playful and ping pong conversations to which I loved to listen. He adored and worried about his children, Cressida and Nicholas and his grandson Ayman/Eamonn who was blessed with a name sounding both Irish and Arabic. Another source of delight was his cat, Emily Pushkin on which he lavished meditative grooming.
He was always kind and patient, at least outwardly, to those he considered misguided or ingenuous but the folly and inhumanity of politicians could provoke him to despair and the occasional, but usually apt, obscenity.
His writing of his autobiography inspired me to emulate a similar act of narcissism for the sake of future generations and we shared pieces with each other, marveling at the differences in our backgrounds, upbringing and what we chose to reveal. His, perforce, was never finished, nor shall be mine. However, at times, Dick was obsessed with the Eternal Return, symbolized by the Ouroboros, the notion that time is cyclical not linear and the same beings in the same bodies would recur an infinite number of times. So perhaps my beloved friend is not lost forever.
To end I include a poem that Dick wrote a couple of years ago when he realised he might have to leave us. It is very him!
 

 FUNERALS ARE FOR SURVIVORS

As someone who’s cool to death’s cold face,

considers ashes out of place

and believes the defunct have no need of flowers,

I leave the arrangements to you and yours.

But please use a smidgin for the pleasure

of those left behind; spend a tad of treasure

on baked meats, champagne, and cakes and ale

(there’s no indigestion beyond the pale).

Above all, promise not to cry too much:

I might enjoy being out of touch…