Redux
Every journey circles home
It has always struck me as curious that some people choose to depart at this time of year. And by depart I do not mean to travel, but to really leave, to step into whatever lies beyond. Perhaps it is because I have always believed, and still do, that people decide for themselves when their time has come. When the children were small and began asking questions about death, I even found a French writer who argued precisely this, that one dies only when one chooses to, and we were all relieved...
I have known people who waited for the room to empty before slipping away, choosing that precise moment of solitude to take their final breath. Others made sure everything was in order first and only then allowed themselves to leave. I once met a man in hospital, back when my grandfather was a patient there, who kept asking me to fetch a nurse because he needed to be shaved and dressed in time to leave at six o’clock. And, God help me, he died at six in the morning.
And for those whose departure you question, perhaps they too had a serious reason to leave earlier. And when this happens on the eve of the holidays, when the year is about to change in a few days, you cannot help thinking that there must be some element of choice. Why leave in 2025 and not in 2026? Why now? Perhaps you did not want to trouble anyone. Perhaps you could not bear the thought of becoming a burden. Perhaps you wanted a dramatic exit, a final act that carried its own meaning.
Or, more simply, perhaps you could not endure another festive table, the conversations that have become as heavy as the Christmas buffet after the fasting days. Because what are the holidays, if you think about it, other than food, drink and the words that slip out of your mouth?
And my friend Lakis was exactly that kind of person, someone who no longer fit into such days. Sociable, cheerful, full of life, yet unwilling to endure one more conversation about elections, about the Cyprus issue, about corruption. In an age when half the world censors itself for fear of provoking a stray insult or a torrent of online hatred, and the other half is intent on silencing anyone who disagrees and imagines the world would be better if we simply cast foreigners into the sea, Lakis did something else entirely. He stopped eating. While everyone around us tucked in and chattered away, he mounted his own quiet rebellion, true to his nature: modest, understated and quietly defiant. He shut his mouth, for many days, and yesterday he slipped away. It was the purest declaration of departure.
That was Lakis. His absence will weigh heavily on these days, yet we will be comforted by the certainty that from somewhere he will be watching us with that familiar mischievous smile. Reminding us, with the memory of his presence and the ache of his absence, that life is not just noise.