Farewell

We parted from Boaz that afternoon in Arequipa. He was flying back to the US and his job in Washington, DC, and we were about to take the overnight bus to Cuzco. Being with Boaz was wonderful, and parting from him was sad.
While we were planning the trip, Judith was strongly opposed to doing any more than our business in the Colca Canyon area and returning from Peru. She had no interest in Peru and no desire to tour there. Ofer had been to Peru in the early 1990s and fallen in love with the country, so he naturally wanted to take advantage of his presence there to become reacquainted. Hannah had also been in Peru, but not the parts where we were, and she's an enthusiastic traveler, so she also wanted to stay on. I had mixed feelings. Like Judith, I had never had much interest in Latin America in general or in Peru - indeed I had been very apprehensive about the trip, imagining that people would be trying to rob us left and right. On the other hand, since we were laying out so much money to get there, and we had already committed so much of our time, why not do some ordinary tourism and get a little fun out of the trip?
We could always justify it, if there was any reason to justify it, by saying that we were going to see the places that Asher planned to see. We were completing his trip for him.
It's true that everywhere we subsequently went in Peru, Asher's shadow was with us - as his shadow is with me every time I dice an onion. And it's also true that we had a fascinating, enjoyable trip during the following ten days or so.
But I don't intend to write about those experiences here.
It's time to sum up and move on.
Planning and anticipating the trip to Peru was central in our lives during the months preceding the trip, especially in Judith's life, for she did most of the planning and arranging. We had a specific mission, and we completed it successfully - more than successfully. I'm proud of our family, proud of our friends who contributed so generously to our project, pleased to know that their contributions went to worthy people, glad that we were able to express personal gratitude to the people who did so much to help us. I'm also glad that I liked Peru and the Peruvians so much.
However, having completed the mission, I am left with emptiness: what is there to do next? What's worth doing?
Grief is lonely and individual.
Asher's death is many losses to many people, each of whom knew him in a different way, each of whom is in a different stage of life. We are all many things to many people, and when we die, each of the many people loses something different. We have lost a son, a brother, a friend, a student, a patient, a colleague.
"You can't take it with you," as the cliche tells us. But you leave a lot behind, assuming that "you" exist after you are dead, so that "you" are deprived of something or have lost something.
If we assume that "you" stops existing when "you" dies, then "you" leaves nothing behind. But it is we who are left behind, we who have lost, and we who imagine how "you" could have had a longer, fuller, more rewarding life.
Asher would have been twenty-nine last June. He might have gone on living for at least another fifty years, growing, developing, working, creating, gathering friends, lovers, a family, a career - living a full life and enriching the lives of others.
I've said it before. If Mephistopheles had appeared to me and offered me a deal: die instead of Asher, and he'll live for at least the number of years that you've lived so far, I would have taken it. Asher should have been speaking at my funeral a year ago, not I speaking at his.
I've had a decent shot at life. He only got a beginning.
Until Asher died, I was always optimistic, pretty much assuming that things would work out all right. I've lost that.