Miranda Cambanis
My Daphne, fifteen months later, I still write you mental, detailed letters, hoping to reach you, wherever you might be, having trouble with your silence except for those rare moments when you materialize out of the darkness in mysterious ways, wrapped in sounds, music and water, the very elements that defined your 97 years.
Your life was indeed the pandemonium you perceived during the last part of your journey. The catastrophic pandemic that cut you off from us in the most cruel, unyielding way, turned your indomitable spirit inward. We all hoped for a magical reversal of life, but it did not happen on time. The world plagued its ears. The music stopped. The pandemonium was silenced. You made your exit peacefully, and thankfully, I was able to hold your hand again as you gracefully transitioned towards Thalia, Subby, Tony…
It is impossible to squeeze 50 years of friendship into a brief goodbye. Grief commands its own history. Ours, was one that began over what was meant to be a quick, four-hour cup of coffee (and terrible food) at Lenoir Hall in the fall of 1970 and ended July 28, 2020, in a strange, solitary room, that none of us recognized as anything but a brief, quiet crossing. A few months back, when we could still drink our daily afternoon coffee together, you asked me once out of the blue: who do you think will greet me on the other side? I was so shocked, I dropped my full cup, fortunately, only on the floor. Who indeed? I didn’t give an answer and you didn’t ask for one. Still, the question remains and I will always wonder..
You became family swiftly and easily, as if you always belonged, joking, arguing, laughing, being irreverent, interesting, inspiring, emotional, infinite, loved. Whether traveling in Greece, or swimming the Aegean, your big love, or watching the multiple faces of the full moon during the late nights we all spent sitting on the balcony of my island home, or imitating the hoot of the white owl on top of the marble bust across the way you were sure was goddess Athina herself, your message was always loud and clear: life is here, now, today, tonight, and it is full of myths that need to be dispelled, full of magic we are all entitled to, full of joy that knows no boundaries once we open the windows of our mind and taste it.
And taste it, you did. There was no path you didn’t cross in order to see what was there, beyond all that was visible and tangible, no page unread, no thought undocumented, no storm silenced. You grew old but, like a fountain, you never ran out of ideas or words that signaled endless journeys of heart and mind.
It has to be a consolation then that we all became richer by having shared your world. Nobody can take this away from those of us who, having known you, experienced the high quality of your spirit, the spectacular colors of your language and the endless energy of your reality that will keep us going, rising from the depths of the great sadness you left with your passing.
I will close with your favorite lines of the Greek poet George Seferis whom you loved:
The life which was given to us to live, we lived it.
Pity those who are waiting with such patience
Lost in the black laurels, under the heavy planes,
And those who, solitary, speak to cisterns and wells
And are drowned within the circles of their voice.
Pity the comrade who shared in our privation and our sweat
And sunk into the sun, without a hope of enjoying our reward.
Grant us, outside of sleep, serenity.
Propelled by your example, we proclaim continuity of life, always remembering you with love.