Lyle

It was just before 8 last Friday. I was rushing to get out the door for my son Chris' graduation from university. Bob Richardson called to tell me that his brother Lyle was dead.

I could not help but think of Lyle during the graduation ceremony. He was the son of our longtime next-door neighbours, Norm and Irene. Lyle was a talented artist and musician. Some of his paintings were shown in local galleries. He played piano for four or five hours a day. He scoured second-hand music shops, buying instruments and learning to play them. He listened to classical music and read the classics. He was an intellectual.

But schizophrenia got in the way of so many things, including graduation days.

As with all funerals, I heard some things I knew and some I didn't. Lyle had attended the Ontario College of Art in the late 70s. He liked to read the Old Testament. His devotion to family was more intense than I had realized.

His sister, Joanne, gave an eloquent eulogy. She spoke of daily phone calls from Lyle, which ranged in duration from a minute to an hour. She admitted they could sometimes be a burden. When she complained to a friend, the person said she never knew whether her sister was alive or dead.

You could always tell when Lyle was having a bad day. He spoke quickly through clenched teeth and looked away. That unease and those teeth are evident in many of his paintings:

http://www.lapetitemortgallery.com/lyle-richardson

In a brief blurb on this web site, Lyle suggests that his dark paintings not be taken too seriously. He refers to a spirit of fun behind them. "Maybe I just paint the weather," he said. To which a member of art community writes: " I take that to mean the weather in his head. Pure poetry…..the sunny days and the storms that sulk and rage inside each and every one."

It had been a couple of years since I had seen Lyle. His parents died, and the family home was sold. I did send him a Christmas card last year. And for months if not years, his name has been on a whiteboard in my home, as a reminder to me to invite him to join me for breakfast as my favorite diner. I never got around to it.

I am proud of befriending Lyle. And I'm sorry I didn't do a little more.

Every life is sacred, as is every little kindness to a lonely person. Goodbye Lyle.

Mini Review of Pigeon English

by Stephen Kelman

Good sad/funny novel by a man who grew up in projects about an 11-year-old African boy growing up in a project in London. It juxtaposes awful stuff with ordinary stuff that every boy lives. Here's the boy's extended version of a poem we all know:

He who first smelt it, dealt it.
He who denied it, supplied it.
He who first sensed it, dispensed it.
He who first knew it, blew it.
He who first noted it, floated it.
He who declared it, aired it.
He who spoke it, broke it.
He who exposed it, composed it.
He who blamed it, flamed it.

Great Quote

Novelist Anne Tyler quotes Greek philosopher in her novel Noah's Compass

“Epictetus say that everything has two handles, one by which it can be borne and one which it cannot. If your brother sins against you, he says, don't take hold of it by the wrong he did you but by the fact that he's your brother. That's how it can be borne.”

Mini Book |Review: The Giant's House

by Elizabeth McCracken

National Book Award Finalist, 1997

In a small Massachusetts town, a quirky "romance" blossoms very gradually between a cynical librarian and a giant boy, who grows up to be more than eight feet tall. It is the little things about this book that are the best things. Here's how the librarian narrator opens the book:

"I do not love mankind.


People think they are interesting. That's their first mistake. Every retiree you meet wants to tell you their life story."

And towards the end:

"Library books were, I suddenly realized, promiscuous, ready to ready to lie in the arms of anyone who asked. Not like bookstore books, which married their purchasers, or were brokered for marriages to others."

My copy of The Giant's House was a real tart, moving from bookstore to second-hand store to St. Vincent de Paul store to my arms. Lucky me.