Category: Georg

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After Ice Cream

Dear Dad,

It has been eight years since you left on September 26, 2013. Not a day goes by that I do not think of you. You are always looking over my shoulder when I chop a carrot, fry an onion, or stir a pot of soup. I see you in every soaring bird and every incandescent sunset. I am sure that feathery clouds placed against a bright blue sky were put there by your hand, not just for me, but for all of us to enjoy.

I know it seems strange to say, but your personality was so large, your love of life so contagious, I sometimes think you are not actually dead. You are just in another state, making art, planning a new adventure, or preparing a delicious meal for a large group of friends. I have finally gotten to the place where I no longer grieve your departure, but rather acknowledge you as ever-present. I do things all the time and imagine that you are weighing in, letting me know that you are proud of me.

For a long time now, I feel like I have hit a wall with my writing. The words don’t flow like they used to. I’m not sure what I am doing wrong. If you were here, you would tell me not to judge myself so harshly. You would tell me to stick with it through the challenges. And I would listen.

You would say don’t give up, Lisa. You can do whatever you set your mind to doing.
You would say let’s go for a bike ride and get some ice cream. Things are always better after ice cream!

Let’s go get some ice cream, Dad. I’ll see you again tomorrow.

Love always,
Lisa

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Radishes, Right Roads, and Butterflies

What a strange machine man is! You fill him with bread, wine, fish, and radishes, and out come sighs, laughter, and dreams. -Nikos Kazantzakis, poet and novelist (18 Feb 1883-1957)

It is my father’s birthday today, so of course, I was happy to see the quote from the writer, Nikos Kazantzakis pop up on my Facebook feed. This writer was very near and dear to Georg’s heart. He saw in Kazantzakis a spiritual brother. They are both Greek, born on the same day. Dad especially liked The Last Temptation of Christ (which he advised me to read when I was still a teenager, if I remember correctly) and also St. Francis. I have two copies of that book on my book self. One he gave me, one I inherited after he passed. Honestly, I’m not sure I’ve ever read it, despite the duplicate copies. It is yet another book in the overwhelmingly long list of “books I plan to read.”

I opened it up this morning in honor of Georg. It is a treat to read books that belonged to him because he was such an avid underliner. He usually used a red pen and would sometimes encase an entire line in a rectangle or put stars or squiggles next to a noteworthy sentence. For really important lines, he would use not only a red pen to underline, but also a pink highlighter to make a whole paragraph glow.

In Georg’s copy of St. Francis, in the early chapters, he was using just a black, fine point Sharpie. The first thing that jumps out at me is “There are many roads. Which is my road?” Then, much deeper into the story, he got his other underlining tools in gear. Here, there is a long passage about a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. This section got a lot of red lines and pink highlighting and stars and rectangles. “Suffer some more, struggle some more, transform yourself into a butterfly.” In the margin, Georg wrote in capital letters TRANSFORMATION.

I really appreciate seeing what things jumped out at my dad and must have informed the things he was struggling with in his art and in his life. The things he pointed to for himself also have meaning for me. I continue to find my way and look for ways to make this world a better place. I believe that somehow, my dad, gone now for nearly 8 years, is inextricably intwined in everything I do.

Recently, there is some movement afoot in the realm of Georg’s art. Potential buyers are stepping up. It is exciting and a bit nerve-wracking at the same time. On one hand, I know Georg’s art speaks for itself. On the other hand, I hope to be a good agent, a good advocate for his name. In the end, everything will happen just the way it needs to. The message I am getting from Georg and Nikos today is that there will always be an abundance of radishes and I will know my right road when I see it. And in the end, we all become butterflies.

Happy Birthday, Georg!

I miss you, still.

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Seven Years

How can it be seven years since Georg left? But here it is. I remember that week of his death like it was yesterday. He died very late in the evening of September 26, 2013 at Memorial Hospital in Shebogyan. He had been disintegrating physically for about a week or so prior. He could no longer swallow water without choking, his bones were crumbling and coming unhinged inside his body. Pain was everywhere.

I remember that my friend Brenda suggested to me that instead of saying to him, “Hang on, Dad, we’ll get through this,” I might consider telling him, “It’s okay, Dad, you can let go.” So I did. Later that night, he died. I hate the thought that mom and I had left him in his hospital bed, looking a little bit more cheerful since the doctor had come in at 8:30 and asked us all if Georg wanted to sign a “do not resuscitate order,” just in case. He smiled and nodded yes. So, he signed. Now he had double permission. Mine and the medical profession’s. He was free to go. Mom and I were happy to see him smile, so we went and got root beer floats in his honor. A few hours later, the nurse called me. Root beer floats have never been the same.

I’ve been thinking about Georg a lot lately, especially while I’m driving. It’s as though he often joins me in the car. I wonder why that is. He is suddenly there with me and I just start crying because I miss him. I want him to really be there with me. And he always says, I am really here. In fact, he is saying it right now as I type.

I was down at the lake at sunrise the other morning, and I wrote a poem in his honor. On the occasion of the seventh anniversary of his death, I will share it here.

Memory of My Father at the Lake

We were nearing the end of you
You knew it, I knew it
but it was not something
we talked about.

We came down to this very shore
with sandwiches and a couple beers.
Looking out at the lake,
you said, Let’s make one more road trip.

Knowing this would never happen,
I said, Yes! Let’s do it!

Now it is sunrise and you,
seven years gone.
The lake calls me to remember,
gently undulates on and on.

An immense liquid mirror of the sky,
delivering a bridge to the sun,
reflecting you and me
and all of creation
in the wave of its hand.

No words can even begin to sum up all that Georg was to me, all the doors that he opened through his art. I introduced Dad to my therapist, Dan, that summer when Death was lurking. Dad was languishing at Morningside Rehab Center and we met in the drab little common room with the couches and the big color TV. Months and months later, after Georg was long gone, Dan told me that it had seemed to him that summer that Georg’s spirit was already gone. That was in May of 2013. Dan also said that Georg had a strong connection to other realms and you could see them peeking through his art. His paintings were glimpses into other dimensions of light, sound, and vibration. Yup. I believe it.

When he left this plane of existence, Georg knew full well where he was going.

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An Ofrenda for Georg

fullsizerender-7Here we are, three years since Georg passed away, September 26, 2013. Not a day goes by that I do not think of him in one context or another and say to myself, “what would Georg do?” Or, if I am cooking something, I will forget for a moment that he is gone and I will think, “I should call him and tell him what I am making.” Immediately, however, I remember he is not here. I can’t tell him anything. Somehow, though, it always feels like he knows.

I think he is happy that I recently packed up a whole box of his stuff, collage papers, tiny bird effigies, plastic toys, Mexican milagros, pastels, and more. I sent them to my friend, Jarie Ruddy, who teaches art at The Roeper School in Bloomfield Hills, MI. This is the place where my sister and I went to school all the years we were growing up. It is where our mother, Rosanne, taught art for 40 years, and where Georg taught art for seven.

The school is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, and one part of the celebration is to create a large ofrenda (altar) to “celebrate the lives of the people who contributed significantly to the story of the school.” I’m so glad I could send off a box of Georg’s things to the children in Jarie’s Stage IV class. They have been learning about Georg and his passion for line, color, and things that fly. They have created a most fitting ofrenda box in his honor, one that will become part of the larger community of offerings.  The photo above shows the box in progress. Jarie says it is not quite done, but it will be done very soon.

img_1845This is a picture of children’s hands making lines on cardboard in honor of Georg. Jarie said, “The students loved making Georg-like marks.”

Inside the box, you will see a brick. Jarie related the story to me that when the box became a bit unbalanced, one boy suggested weighting it with a brick. Jarie flashed on the fact that Georg had once given her family a brick on New Year’s Day. This was one of his annual rituals, the delivery of bricks to family and friends for good luck in the new year. I’m not sure if this was some rite from his ancestral home, Greece, or some Aquarian tradition, or just a “Georg-thing.” Whatever. The brick has been temporarily removed from Jarie’s backyard and added to the ofrenda. It looks at home there.

I was also very touched to hear that a girl in the class who is Greek is going to ask her mom to provide some Greek cookies, so that when the ofrenda is installed, it will include something sweet and Greek and buttery, melomacarona (honey cookies).  These will be an edible offering to those who have passed on.  Georg would love that.  I am so tempted to go home to Michigan to see the ofrenda when it is installed. I am not sure I can get there, given everything else going on in life at this moment.  But, knowing that the children are working together to make something beautiful in his honor gives me great hope.

Today may be the day that is the anniversary of Georg’s death, but one of his favorite Greek words was “Zoe” which means “life,” or as he always translated it, “new life.” Thank you, students of Stage IV at The Roeper School, for honoring Georg Vihos and giving him “Zoe.” Wherever he is today, he is smiling on us all.

 

An ofrenda (Spanish: “offering“) is a collection of objects placed on a ritual altar during the annual and traditionally Mexican Dia de los Muertos celebration. An ofrenda, which may be quite large and elaborate, is usually created for an individual person who has died. In honor of the 75th Anniversary of The Roeper School, classes, groups, and individuals are coming together to create an ofrenda to celebrate the lives of the people who contributed significantly to the story of the school. Boxes are being created to commemorate each person and will be placed together to create a traditional Ofrenda in the Bretzlaff Commons on the Bloomfiled Hills campus. This will be on view the last week of October with a community reception on the evening of November 1st.