ABOUT ROGER BEARE
Ursus Chocolatus Rarus
MARCH 17, 1945 - DECEMBER 11, 2004
Irreplaceable Father, Devoted Son, One-of-a-Kind Friend, and Never-to-be-Forgotten Sweetheart Made of Pure Chocolate Fudge
Contributions and whimsical ruminations
by
Poets, Scholars, Musicians, Artists, Gentle Spirits, Friends of Al Gore, Supporters of Médecins Sans Frontières, & Ordinary Citizens
At this site (a cemetery of the imagination), where wistful breezes slip past golden yarrow, quivering poppies, oozing milkweed, & blue-eyed grass,
no bumble-bees sting, no barbs and brambles hurt, no bitterness and suspiciousness overwhelm the spirit.
Stay awhile, Gentle Passerby, and leave in peace.
To contribute or comment, write to Albert, the grave, sage gatekeeper, or Rena, the playful, loyal gardener, at onterrainfirma@live.com.
Your words will be the wild flowers that grow here.
Last updated on December 11, 2014; ten years have past and the sadness lingers.
Roger - Many a Heated Discussion
They say there is no child-like innocence,
but they never saw his face,
they never heard him speak,
with wit and simple grace.
They say gone are the songbirds,
but they never heard his cry,
calling forth the singlest birds,
grasping beauty with a sigh.
They say times are dreary
and true friends no more,
but they never called his name;
caring, loving life, simple things,
in these rest his fame.
February 10, 2006
Claude Desmarais is a writer and an expert on Elias Canetti.
He has a doctorate from the University of Toronto and is a faculty member at Mount Allison University.
WATERING THE TARMAC
John and I pretty much knew Roger only from within the confines of our own backyard - a mutual backyard we share with Rena. It’s essentially a tarmac strip that we have all been trying to reclaim with foliage since our arrival on Howland Avenue.
Roger was not a gardener. But Rena would try. She’d plant him out there with the hose while she carted wheelbarrow loads of top soil and manure and shared her visions of transforming the space into a lush tropical paradise reminiscent of India.
But Roger was not fooled. He was like the secretary who knows not to make the coffee: you do it well, they praise you and you get put in charge of the coffee forever. So Roger would get "distracted" and wind up watering the tarmac.
And Roger was good at distractions. He knew a lot about a lot. One day he more than impressed John and me with his knowledge of birds, and the fact that he was a bird watcher. He kept his own "life list." John and I had, years ago, been avid birders, until distractions of our own came along in the form of two kids. But Roger brought back memories of wonderful birds we had spotted-pileated woodpeckers, Bohemian waxwings, indigo buntings. Like everything in life he touched, like music, like politics, like Rena, he was wild-eyed with enthusiasm and passion. In his big, round spectacles, one hand in his pocket, his other one gesticulating, or holding a very nice vintage of Australian Shiraz or, very occasionally, in limp command of the garden hose, he would hold his conversations with the world.
So the backyard, this past summer, seemed smaller, quieter, less vibrant. It seemed as if the tarmac was winning, that Roger’s watering was perhaps, the thing that was keeping it at bay. If, like Candide says, everything you need is in your own backyard, why did the backyard have to seem so empty?
One day in early fall, I went out back to deliver the compost and I spotted him. I had a sighting. There he was, bespectacled and skulking in the underbrush around Rena’s back porch. He had a speckled breast and buff cheeks (yes!) and a large bright eye ring. I raced into the house and got John and the binoculars and Peterson’s Guide and we both looked.
A Swainson’s Thrush, we decided.
But we really weren’t sure. We hadn’t birded in twenty years, the old birder knowledge was rusty and this bird was uncommon and unique.
We both began to say it at the same time: “If only Roger were here...”
And then it occurred to us that he was.
That was Roger, well, the spirit of Roger. Returned, on his fall migration. Passing through, checking to see if the tarmac had been watered, looking in on Rena, letting her know, through us (because her birding skills were not even up to ours) that he was OK. And that he wanted her to be too.
He hung around for about a week. I spotted him occasionally, as I was getting out my bike, once when I planted some bulbs, and toyed with the idea of watering the tarmac.
And then he was gone. South, I expect, if I know anything about birds at all.
But he’ll be back, we’ve got a backyard he seems to like, with everything you need to know right there in it.
Roger. One unique and uncommon bird.
He’s got to be on everyone's life list.
Florence Gibson
December 11, 2005
Florence is a Canadian playwright, who once was a doctor. John is a doctor who appreciates the arts. Both love birds.
THE HUMMINGBIRD ON YOUR BED
See, I told you that the hummingbird was perhaps Roger visiting you. Or a message to say he was fine and sleeping even though you thought he was dead. What chance is there that one of his Life Birds (in fact, his very last one) shows up in our apartment in Costa Rica, on Roger's death anniversary and decides to sleep with his beak pointed upwards, on the bed on which he is not supposed to? And then flies off for the night after he appears to be quite dead?
Neeta
December 19, 2005
Inimitable and on the Life List of those who respected him . . .
Roger was a student in a Russian course I taught almost 35 years ago. I felt so close to him that he was often in my mind even though we did not meet again until 1998. This was at a meeting of the University of Toronto Department of Linguistics. When I approached him, he said, "You will not remember me, will you?" I said, "No, I will not remember you, Roger Beare." To me, he was one of the most delightful persons I ever met; indeed, after I had heard about his tragic death, I sat still for nearly an hour with the tears streaming down my face. I do not remember anyone's death touching me so profoundly.
Professor Emeritus David Huntley
Sent in by Ol'ga Floegl-Huntley, also of the University of Toronto and also a connoisseur of what Roger considered the only "great music."
THE GENTLE INTELLECTUAL
In my kitchen hangs a copy of a painting showing a woman deep in thought leaning against a wall. A goose is looking up at her while butterflies flutter about. At least that is what I always saw. But when I had Roger Beare and Rena over for dinner one night, Roger revealed a world behind the painting that I could never have guessed. Roger was a lot like the painting. When I first met him -- at a small get-together at Rena's -- I saw a conservatively dressed man who I assumed would have a personality to match. It didn't take long, however, to realize that like the painting there was a lot more to Roger.
At that first meeting with Roger I wondered what he and I might find to chat about. I didn't have to wonder for long. When I told Roger that I was working on a migratory bird file in my environmental work, he began telling me as much about migratory birds as I had learned in all my research. In fact, Roger turned out to be interested in a multitude of subjects about which he had an impressive depth of knowledge. This knowledge he shared enthusiastically with others with an endearing quality.
We were a cosy little group -- Roger, Rena, Ron, and I -- huddled among the thousands on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on a cold November evening last year to welcome George Bush to Canada. Roger and I were the designated chant-makers in our group. Rena and Ron provided the voice power. When we were not struggling to try to keep our candles lit we focussed on developing and shouting chants. We succeeded in keeping ourselves and perhaps the people close by, amused with our unorthodox choice of slogans.
One theme of the evening's protest was Bush's Star Wars plan to militarize space. This inspired one of our chants: "Send Bush to Mars." This chant provoked a more dubious one: "Send Bush to Uranus." Roger doubted whether the "a" in Uranus was properly pronounced as a hard "a" and diplomatically suggested that it should be soft "a."
Another theme of the evening's protest was George Bush's crimes against humanity, which motivated our chant "Lock him up." Rena is more of a 60s style protester than Roger, or the rest of us for that matter. She tried unsuccessfully to encourage us to continue this chant when after the official protest the four of us walked past a large group of armoured police that were guarding the Chateau Laurier.
I can still see Roger in his somewhat harsh-looking trench coat. It was a weak disguise for this man who was anything but harsh and whose broad and varied interests and passions were anything but conservative.
Albert Koehl
February 7, 2005
Albert Koehl is an environmental lawyer by day, a writer by night, and a world traveller whenever he can plan an escape.
His columns have appeared in newpapers such as
The Globe & Mail, The Toronto Star, and NOW.
A year later on December 1, 2005
Today a singular, dappled cat found in a garbage bin with his brother 17.5 years ago, later christened Dogberry, went to heaven. Dogberry’s mother must have taught him to consider all humans guilty until proven innocent; the old fellow trusted only five or six people in the entire world, all of whom were kind and gentle in their speech and actions. Among this group was Roger Beare, who often claimed irreverently that wild animals were far superior to pets. Ironically, Roger was quite happy to have his picture taken with Dogberry in his arms supposedly before Dogberry went to heaven.
And it was a whole year ago today that the people of Ottawa were cleaning up after the protest on Parliament Hill. Roger Beare stored away his placard, "Drop Bush Not Bombs," in his laundry room for another occasion.
A year later on December 1, 2006
And it was two years ago when I saw Roger last. I asked about the bruit, asynchronous with his breathing; I wish I had asked some more. (My heart had begun to sink late in the afternoon of November 29. Why? How?)
It was two years ago, and yet the day seems like yesterday. The immediacy of such memories is perhaps what marks the divide between one or two or three of us and the others, for whom Roger is probably an occasional memory - like the rain, but only when you forget your umbrella?
November 6, 2006
This is the eve of the day on which the Lower House of the U.S. Congress can start searching for its soul again.
November 8, 2006
And perhaps the Senate as well.
January 12, 2005
I heard someone on CBC today talking about closure. He said that it's probably completely wrong to think that there is a time when grieving suddenly ends due to a certain event, insight, etc. And in fact it is harmful to expect people to achieve this, so all this talk about closure is probably overdone. He said that grieving is a life-long process that gets gradually less painful, but that we can't expect ourselves to get to a stage where the person's death is no longer a tragic event in our consciousness, just a manageable one.
I wondered what you would think of that.
Ron Smyth, Professor of Linguistics, friend and colleague, and one with a talent for asking the right questions
I felt with Roger that our young friendship was rather like a good red wine which would get even better with age. ... Perhaps I could leave you with a quotation from Thomas Wolfe, not the current famous Tom Wolfe but the 1930s American novelist remembered for such novels as "Look Homeward Angel," "The Web and the Rock," "Of Time and the River," etc. In a letter he wrote to his sister Mabel Wolfe Wheaton on 5 January 1930 he said:
"I know now that people do not die once but many times, and that life of which they were once a part, and which they thought they could never lose, dies too, becomes a ghost, is lost forever. There is nothing to be done about this. We can only love those who are lost, and grieve for their spirits. I must go on into a new world and a new life, with love and sorrow for what I have lost."
Alan Gillmor, Professor of Music, one of those large-hearted, sensitive people who warm up your home (and in terms of like-mindedness and warmth of feeling, the best friend Roger could have)
December 31, 2005
It is probably not a new year for you where you are, Roger Beare; perhaps you are in a universe where time and space are no longer relevant. But we who loved and honoured you are thinking of you at a time that once mattered to you. You will always be loved and honoured by us.
In the world in which you once dwelt and in which we still exist, some losses leave us outwardly serene and, perchance, even braver and truer than before; yet, in essence, we will always be inconsolable.
January 2, 2007
And now Ed Burstynsky, who always had time for Roger, as did Roger for Ed, is gone.
The words of Professor Massam say it all:
"It will take a long time for us to realize Ed's passing, as he meant so much to so many of us. It is particularly sad at this time of year in early January, since, as he would have so much enjoyed reminding us, it is his Christmas now."
St. Patrick's Day, 2006
You loved your birthday, Roger Beare.
Happy Birthday!
St. Patrick's Day, 2007
Some can't celebrate St. Patrick's Day the same way again, Beare.
This birthday brought some news that would have arrived on your birthday last year had you not slipped away before. What a three-fold celebration that would have been. Don't worry - you'll be the chief guest (after a fashion) at this one! Of course ... :)
Easter 2006
There were exquisite birds - some phantasmagoric - and diminutive monkeys around our house in Nicaragua. To you, Roger Beare, this, and the crater lake below, just might have constituted paradise.
The Birds of the Keys: Christmas 2006
They were there again: Roger's Canadian birds in the Keys for the winter, some drying their wings on old, unused bridges. Last year we saw them in Costa Rica - warblers, herons, and cormorants.
August 24, 2006
Roger wanted to live till 2040, partly because he felt that by then there was a likelihood that we'd know a tad more about what transpired during the first millisecond of the Big Bang. (Ah, but the last two digits of 2040 got inverted - perhaps quite by chance in a Hardy-type universe.;) )
Roger also wanted to see Pluto classified as an object of the Kuiper Belt. Alas, this he missed by only a bit.
August 27, 2006
Despite being a relatively innocent and unworldly person, by the end of his life Roger knew exactly which people in his inner circle really loved and honoured him (and without qualification, too). Their reward should be a new-found peace, a serenity of spirit, and a memory of how Roger loved and honoured them in return.
September 15, 2006
They might be in a good place
Can dreams be like magical casement windows that burst upon the other world, slamming shut forever when one’s eyes open? Or are they mere mirrors reflecting back what lies behind the dreamer’s eyes?
In my dream I was waiting for Roger in his mother’s home, speaking not a word to her although she knew I was near. And as I looked out, this house with walls as clear as glass was flooded with white-gold light streaming through sweeping branches of trees with leaves like translucent peach-and-orange marmalade. I left, knowing that this was a place where a heavenly calm prevailed.
Soon after Roger spoke to my father to say that he was at his mother’s home and to talk with him about the greatness of Tommy Douglas and the glories of Canada. Neither spoke to me even though they knew I was in the shadows.
Then, in my dream itself, I was trying earnestly, tediously, to tell a grieving young person in Roger’s family whom he loved very much that he, his mother, and my beloved father were just fine. Why, I had dreamt that they were in this exquisite glass house surrounded by trees with leaves like peach-and-orange marmalade – so beautiful, so tranquil, so unearthly. That they, the dead, spoke to one another but not to me.
But various loud and unthinking people kept interrupting the story of my dream, leaving the young woman distracted and troubled; and I simply gave up trying.
This dream marks my new-found peace.
A hard-earned peace, gathered in miniscule amounts through conscious effort every day. Perhaps the dead only speak to the dead though they know of the presence of the living. Perhaps there is no life after one sheds one’s mortal vestures. Whatever it is, my dream seems to tell me that these Beloved Dead are in peace, if only through non-existence. And if there is disharmony and thoughtless interrupting noise, it lies without.:)
August 28, 2005
Go gently, for all the noise will pass, and the music will remain.
So said Dr. Karl Henning, composer, friend, and fellow wordsmith.
Yes, the vulgar clatter is a distant memory, as are the empty vessels from which it emanated. What endures is harmony and a memory of those who create and cherish it. There is a God - and she is St. Cecilia! The keeper of harmony, a word that is as beautifully polysemous as the concept is powerful.
October 23, 2006
Today was the day for various versions of Dvorak's Serenade for Strings and every rendition of the Larghetto was a reminder of how close to the surface is the ubiquitous grief of losing an adored father or a soulmate that most can't even imagine meeting (or, in Dvorak's case, a precious child, or two, or three).
January 27, 2007
Today it was Roger's beloved Mahler. I look forward to every day now, as I did before, brimming with life and happy to laugh. And yet something has changed forever.
So it is with twinned souls. How I feared that those with respect for neither the dead nor the living would change our history. But now I know that this can never happen. The bond is too tight and, being intangible, cannot be touched. (So it is, too, with other extraordinary ties - for example, that between a parent and his most special child.)
April 1, 2007
We had talked about Erich Korngold. Die tote Stadt would have been just right for Roger. It still is so right for the living.
February 21, 2005
In a letter Rilke wrote that there was no real consolation,
but what we had to do was to make a new home for our lost loved one in our heart;
hence, the need to make our heart a beautiful home, a worthy home.
Robert (Bopp) Fisher
June 11, 2006
For 1.5 years now, my heart has been a shrine
that has jealously held all that Roger valued.
Thank you, Bopp. I continue to be delighted with life as I - laughing, quick-witted Larkspur Ascending :) - view it with twinned eyes.
December 11, 2007
From Richard
to whom I thought all eight Beatitudes applied
and who I thought brought light to dark spaces
who I thought was loved by many
The Jewish people refer to the anniversary of the death of a loved one as Yahrzeit. The earth, in its orbit around the sun, is in almost the same place as it was three years ago. The calendar opens to the same date. And the memories come flooding back. This is a natural part of the healing process, the gradual letting go and learning to embrace in a new way.
The past is part of who we are but so is the present and the future. So, tonight, after we drink a toast to Roger [and read the poem below], the way will be open to return to the present and dream of the future.
Death of the Beloved
Rainer Maria Rilke
He only knew of death what all men say:
that those it takes it thrusts into dumb night.
When she herself, though - no, not snatched away,
but tenderly unloosened from his sight,
had glided over to the unknown shades, and when he felt that
he had now resigned the moonlight of her laughter to their glades,
and all her ways of being kind:
then all at once he came to understand the dead through her,
and joined them in their walk, kin to them all;
he let the others talk, and paid no heed to them;
and called that land the fortunately-placed, the ever-sweet.
And groped out all its pathways for her feet.
