Boreal

FAREWELL POSTINGS

Dedication

TO LIFE!

At her request, I ordered smoked salmon on a bagel and cream cheese for lunch and her favourite wine as accompaniment.

It was a few minutes before the nurse who would get her ready for what came next to make her appearance when Lucette raised her glass and said: "I would like to propose a toast."

What she wanted us to toast caught all of us by surprise. It was not what you would have expected from someone whose existence, as was her wish, would shortly come to an end.

We all raised our glasses and she said: "À la vie!” (To life!).

And

To a celebration of life that was the Arab Civilization.

I am not aware in the entire history of civilizations of a more gracious, more loving, more vibrant society than that of the Arabs before Islam. [It was a time] of unbound freedom, lofty sentiments, a nomadic and chivalrous way of life, [a land] of fantasy, joy, mischievousness, bawdy impious poetry, refined love-making…

Ernest Renan, cf. Robert Montagne, La Civilisation du désert