Από τα παλιά ημερολόγια [4]. – Τη μέρα που έφυγε ο Κώστας.

Η 7^η Απριλίου του 2000 ήταν Παρασκευή.

Γύρω στις 7.30 το πρωί με πήρε τηλέφωνο στο γραφείο ο αδελφός μου: «Ο παπάς δεν ξυπνά…»

……

«Τηλεφώνα ασθενοφόρο, και έρχομαι αμέσως.»

Ο παπάς μου έφυγε στον ύπνο του σε ηλικία 76 ετών.

Το απόγευμα και ενώ είχαν ολοκληρωθεί οι διαδικασίες για την κηδεία, έκατσα στο κομπιούτερ έγραψα  και έστειλα το πάρα κάτω μήνυμα στην αγγλόφωνη “Cyprus list”. Είναι μια λίστα μέσω της οποίας γνώρισα τους πρώτους Τουρκοκύπριους, και  στην οποία είμαι ακόμα μέλος, άνκαι τώρα πια έχει φθαρεί από τον χρόνο.

April weather in Cyprus.

It has been typical April weather recently in Cyprus. A lot of high cloud, dust from Africa and the temperature suddenly jumping to 30 degrees Celsius. Today though, it started cooler. The strong wind from the west was reminding us that summer is just around the corner, but it let us feel today or for a few days more the coolness of the livas, but  that’s it! From the beginning of May until mid October it is a very boring job for forecasters.

My father would come to the office on foot, from our house in Strovolos, about 1 hour’s walk. He had been doing this everyday for the last 3 or 4 years, he needed the morning walk he was saying. He would start from the house at around the same time I was reading the messages from Cyprus list, i.e.  7 o’clock in the morning, and he would arrive at the office at around 8 o’clock.

Today it was all the same. I wrote a reply to Adonis wishing to continue our discussion at Pyla, asking – for a change- Nejla an academic question, and feeling angry about a post by Glen which unconsciously I believe, supposed that all members of the Cyprus list live outside the island.

The only difference was that my father never started his walk towards the office this morning because he never woke up.

He passed away peacefully, quietly in his sleep.

He looked as if he did not suffer at all. He would just not wake up.

And this is what he wished. In his later years he would take care about his health, his eating habits etc, not just because he wanted to feel good, but because he did not want to impose any burden on his family. He always said that he would hate it if he became an old man unable to provide for himself and being a burden to others.

His life effectively ended 7 years ago when my mother passed away after being tortured for a long time by cancer, and since then it  was his aim to trouble as little as possible me and my brother. He never was a deep thinker, but he thought that it was unfair for anybody to go through what my mother and her family had gone through.

Well, he made it. He even chose the best of days. Die first thing on a Friday, close the office for the day, make the arrangements, funeral on Saturday, relax on Sunday, Monday back to work. I am sure that if he ever made a plan he would think about it that way. Leave easily, quietly, with very little disturbance to the earth and to the world that is left behind.

He was a low profile man, just like millions of other souls who do not feel that they have the right to make a stand for something. He was never a deeply religious man or a political animal, he just kept fondly a picture of his native village Larnakas tis Lapithou, a black and white picture, and I think he wished to go back there some time, to relive some of the stories that his long memory held. In fact, although he never mentioned it I think he would like to go back in time when he was 11 years old and got drunk for the first time by the home made zivania of his father. He would like to go back there with the maturity that he managed to accumulate in his 76 years of life. Which, I sometimes thought, that it was no more than the maturity of a graduate student. But at least that, he managed to get, and he knew that not all people manage this.

The wind is blowing hard, through the various electric signs and neon lights over the shop windows below my apartment. The sky is empty, clear, there is not much to expect, nature is reminding us of its inexorable laws.

Yiannos Costa Ioannou

7/4/00.

P. S. I know that there are a couple of hundred members in this list, although I personally know less than 10 people. I just thought though, that I should tell those people that talk 24 hours a day about this dearest dry island, and have been a part of my life for the last 4 years, just like any other friend of mine.