21) A Time to Go.

In my deepest heart I accept it. 'The old boys are leaving,' goes the Runrig song. One eventually has to say goodbye. Yet as I type at 6:00 a.m. it is no sunset, but a sunrise. This morning there is no mist, no uncertain cat caught to brush against the barrier of my window's pain, but clarity; one sees a way. I shall arise and go now, and go to Innesfree. The Zikmann family dinner was a magnificent memory. Daughters Sarah and Ziggy sang in the most delightful harmonies, a band aid kit song for the soul. Father and youngest daughter sang their very own classic, one less angel in heaven, because she sang there right beside him, daddy's little girl. And Marcel, their beautiful and giving soul of a mother, beamed beside me with love and pride. The guitar was passed between Sarah and Rob for about six songs, and then it was time to go. All that effort, all that preparation of food and care of details and consideration for others and the giving and receiving of love, and like writing a long letter full of one's heartfelt things and then finally putting it into the post, it was time to press send, time to go. The South African experience on the back deck, as we sat around the fire cauldron with nibbles and drinks and even a blanket and a toque against the chill, confirmed it; we are all one people, one integrated mass, dependent on each other. At some time or other, for each and everyone and everything, it will be time to go. "Stay true to yourself," an angelic twelve year old Ziggy bid me goodbye, as she'd thought about it after the dinner table invitation by Rob for each of us to sum up the evening's most profound thought. It was a message from heaven. It was delivered by this girl with a golden voice. And I shiver now, with the realization of its full import. Specially now, as it's almost time to go. Mike, at 60, spoke of the impossibility of prediction. Simon, at 60, may not be the first to go. Sarah, at 22, spoke of the need to protect and preserve the future. Ziggy, at only 12, spoke of finding the profound. Rob, at 60, spoke of family and his pride in them. Marcel, youthful and lithe and beautiful, had spoken of care. I spoke of our need not only to give love, but to receive love, which had come to me courtesy of Simon, just last night, when it was his time to go. Yet it was Justin who summed up in one simple word not only the entire evening, but the manner in which we might live our lives as ongoing entities. He gave thanks. Just thanks. And then it was time to go. As I type from my bed at Mike's Glenorie the early morning light is now that orange brilliance of awakening to a new day. Soon as I'm done this essay I shall arise and prepare to go now, and to go to Innesfree. The w.b. Yeats poem has pervaded the thread of these essays about the Oz saga. Because of Simon, we conceived of coming here, Justin and me, because of Simon. We all made all the arrangements to be in Oz, thanks to Mike, Anthony, Rob, and all their family members, because of Simon. All for one, and one for all. Because it is Simon's time to go. But he goes not to some hut of clay and wattles made. We do not necessarily hear where we go the sound of the honeybee. We do not care necessarily for nine bean rows. What we each and everyone of us really want, we concluded as we sat around the fire of Rob's hearth, was to love and to be loved. And to do that best, one has to free within, completely, entirely, without wanting from the other, expecting from the other, holding grudges, or keeping score. Indeed, we each search for Innesfree. It is time to go. With thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks.