Anyone who has ever seen Raymond in action… bartering for flowers, cooking for twenty, flirting with waiters, or doing his upgrade dance for the travel agent. Anyone who has been warmed by his kitchen, cooled by his garden, seduced by his music, or calmed by his gentle spirit, has been touched, and changed, by one of life's kindest, quirkiest characters.

In mourning her, I am also mourning the loss of my last link with womanhood as it was defined in my youth. Many things from her day-to-day life are now trivialized, or found demeaning. I cannot rewrite history, nor will I negate an important part of her existence. She was an intelligent woman with many opinions and passions. She accepted her role and its responsibilities. And, I loved her.

Ted was in love with life. In love with love, with music, with adventure and beauty — in the smoky bistros of 1930s Berlin, at those rollicking Hornby Island thrashers, and at all the soirées in between. I often see his friends, gathered at that little bench they built for him, right on the rocks, with a view of everything and a plaque that reads, “To Ted … blithe spirit of the Spit.”

I know a woman whose only child died at the age of four. Her grief was so complete that she could never be consoled. Her friends told me it was as if there was no one there for them to console. She had been a mother. That was how she defined herself. Then one day her child was gone… and in a sense, so was she. What could anyone say? “I know how you feel?” “I understand?”

Notes by Val Brandt

Ella Sunlight

January 22, 2000
PRO CORO CANADA
Conductor: Richard Sparks
All Saints' Anglican Cathedral
Edmonton, Alberta
Canada

For more information on the score for Eulogies, contact the Canadian Music Centre Although the score is not officially published, an arrangement can be made with the CMC that allows choirs to purchase copies of the manuscript.

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