22 May 2015
A farewell to Alex Bezinge
August 2013
Perhaps a good funeral - if there can be a concept of
good in the circumstances of death and grief - is one that honours the deceased
in a manner that he or she would have wished. A setting and an atmosphere
that's a small reflection of his life, attended by those friends and family who
loved and valued him.
Alex's funeral today was one of these.
It starts with the setting: as we drive higher and higher
on small, tight roads, guided by small laminated signs saying "Alex"
tied to trees, we realise the origin of the name La Boucielle is probably,
"au bout du ciel" or "at the end of the sky". What a place
to remember a keen mountaineer.
There's a hassled looking young man guiding the parking.
With around a hundred cars trying to park where there's room for perhaps eight,
his stress is understandable. We end up parking by driving over a small sapling
at the edge of a steep cliff. It's important to get out of the right side of
the car.
In a small clearing, with spectacular views of the alps,
there's a covered area with benches - a sort of Village Hall without walls.
There's a half tree trunk full of cold drinks to one side and acollage of
pictures of Alex to the other. The place is packed with about 150 seated and
another 100 standing - Alex had many friends. There are people in shorts and T
shirts and no one is wearing a tie or jacket, not least because the temperature
is about 33C.
At the front lies Alex's coffin, slightly elevated, with
a bouquet of white flowers on the pale oak. A friend of his ex-wife with a mike
runs the show. One by one former colleagues and friends tell their story,
recount their memories and pay their respects to Alex. There's a man from IBM
with whom Alex worked in San Jose on high temperature super computers at the
beginning of his career; a colleague with whom he set up a watch company;
friends with whom he went paragliding, skiing, sailing and swimming. The event
is in French, but the man from IBM speaks in English, with an interpreter. He
speaks with such eloquence that the interpreter ends up in tears.
A message from his children is read out, a poem is read,
cousins do a mutual tribute and someone plays a beautiful piece on the sax.
It's all very dignified and very Alex; he touched many people in his life.
There are some common themes about him as they speak: his
energy, drive and enthusiasm, his love of wine (he had agreed to visit a winery
with a friend today), of mountains and especially of paragliding. When in
California, he would paraglide in Yosemite, often turning up at work on Monday
morning with scratches and bruises, because he had to land in a bush to avoid
arrest, as paragliding in the park is prohibited.
Poignantly, he died in a plane crash having recently
decided that planes were safer at his age than paragliding. The group had flown
to Italy, had lunch in Venice, and were on their way home when the plane hit a
high tension overhead line.
At the end of the tributes, we all troop past his coffin
to pay our last respects. Some lay flowers, others touch the coffin for a
second or make a sign of the cross. Four pallbearers, from his local climbing
club, carry Alex into the waiting hearse. There's absolute silence as the doors
are closed and the engine started.
It seems so appropriate that the hearse struggles up the
narrow path to the road, engine straining, fan going, suspension near its
limits. A big man like Alex was not going to go quietly.
# posted by DavidF @ 17:34 
