Requiem for Norman Hackett

Dear Maggi et all,
As you know I deeply share your grief and all day yesterday I could think of nothing else, so after a few drinks I wrote some words. My device is, when in pain, write. As it happens, I've done a lot of writing in my life ...
Soon after you started living in Lange Leemstraat, Norman became a regular visitor to my shop and very soon we became bantering friends when he made some snide comment about one of my books or whatever and I told him to bloody well sod off underneath my breath or so I thought but he'd heard and burst out laughing. So this is the stuff friendships are made on. He kept inviting me to the house on friday-nights but I thought it was just a polite figure of speech, some social formula that it would be foolish to act upon so I didn't. Still, he kept repeating the invite and one friday evening after closing up shop I drove past your invitingly lit house and as I spotted a free parking space right across from it I pulled over and rang your bell. From then on our friday-night diners and massive booze-ups became a regular fixture at which Norman introduced me to opera which I had always steered clear off. I cannot come close to describing the fond memories I have of these evenings and mellow get-togethers with Norm, Maggi and whichever of the children happened to be present. I remember pressurizing Norman to buy Alex a then state-of-the-art computer after she came campaigning for it to me in the shop. It felt like a friendly conspiracy. A great moment came when I was invited to carve my name in the massive dinner table and thereby joined the inner circle so to speak.
When the house in Gallargues was purchased, Norm and I drove over for a weekend while Pierce was doing it up and later Norm insisted I'd visit at least twice a year when you'd finally moved. An indulgence I gladly extended as I had a complete wing of the house to myself, bedroom with TV, private bathroom, all the books one could read, perfect privacy when needed and interaction and histrionic banter at meals, and what meals they were ! Your hospitality was boundless and experienced by many of your friends who, like me, kept repeating the experience.
Then Maggi's phone-call one day about Norm having suffered a "stroky thing" when over in the States. That of course changed everything and eventually came the move to Béziers. I remember all of us plus David Steele and his wife visiting the block when it was still under construction and we had to make our way up to the duplex via a rickety ladder.
The barman comes to my table and asks if I need more beermats to write on but I'll chuck it in as I'm too drunk and I'll write some more at home and I tell him what I'm writing and that I never had a friend like Norm and now I never will again.
And so, in the face of the unspeakable we act out the unthinkable, the now without now, we wander on as we always did but changed as never before, we are different people now in a different place that has not at all changed but yet will never be the same and we imagine Norman's present world but we can only be ghosts there, phantoms. We will go on, we always do, but a crucial part of the stage remains empty and only our thoughts and the sweet chimera of remembrance can fill it to some extent. I will remember the fedora and his taliban beard, whatever that was for, too lazy too shave I bet. I will remember quips and puns and hits and runs but also the comfortable silences during countless visits because is that not one of the quintessences of love and friendship ? the ability to be still together, quiet, to not feeling the need to fill the room with small talk and mindless chatter in order to stave of the existential void ? I could be silent with Norman and bask in his generous friendship and know it would always be there and then came NOW. Dear oh dear, this is going to take some getting used to. My health precluded me from visiting lately but there was always the idea, that maybe some day ...after all we were only a trainride away... now that ride cannot be taken, that day can never come and I have great difficulty holding back the tears, but then again why should I. Oh darling Maggi it must be hard on you.