Loss
I felt the tragedy mentioned in passing in my previous blog deserves an entry of its own. My tuition last term was very disrupted by my tutor, Margaret, somewhere in her seventies, failing to organise tutorials with me. She came to the meeting in 0th week with all the linguistics students, but dropped off the radar thereafter. After two weeks without reply, my French tutor told me that she had suddenly and unexpectedly developed a brain tumour and been taken to hospital.
The British are notoriously bad at expressing emotion, and I am probably worse than most due to my personality. Nonetheless, I was pretty shaken up. Despite being in her seventies, Margaret had shown absolutely no signs of ill-health before last term. She was incredibly sprightly, to the extent that one never really remarked her age. She was also incredibly popular with her students, many of whom I've been in touch with and all of whom are devastated by what's happened. Not only was she entertaining to talk to, she was also extremely friendly and personable.
I'm using the past tense even though Margaret is still (the last I heard) alive. About mid-November, I asked if it would be possibe to visit her in hospital, moved by a desire to see her again before it was too late. I was told that she had been moved to a nursing home, and that she was no longer taking much in. I saw my grandma go through the same thing, although much more slowly, and although I could have pressed the matter and gone regardless, I didn't and don't want to see Margaret in that state. In my view, she's already gone as a person. I don't know how long her body will hold out, but I don't want to see her shell - I would far prefer my last memory of her to be the same lively character I've known for two years.
It's pretty obvious from what I've written that Margaret has been a huge influence in my life. She was my only tutor in Linguistics for two years and I would see her at the very least once a fortnight, usually more, to engage in riveting conversation about whatever linguistic matter was at hand. She was also one of the people who decided to let me into Oxford, perhaps the single most significant decision ever to affect me except my grandmother's decision, long before I was born, to bring her children to England rather than taking them to India. The parallel with my grandmother is a good one to make because my grandmother passed away not long ago after a similar, but far more prolonged, decline. I felt far more affected and saddened by what happened to Margaret than what happed to my grandmother, and for some time I felt guilty about this. Of course, on reflection it's natural that I should have done - I was far, far closer to Margaret than to my grandma.
It still gets me down whenever I come across a piece of work with Margaret's witty comments in elegant, flowing red ink penned over it. Mainly, though, when I think of her, I'm just glad that she lived such a long life in such good health, and that her decline was so mercifully sudden.
I do wish I'd got to say goodbye.
Goodbye, Margaret.
The British are notoriously bad at expressing emotion, and I am probably worse than most due to my personality. Nonetheless, I was pretty shaken up. Despite being in her seventies, Margaret had shown absolutely no signs of ill-health before last term. She was incredibly sprightly, to the extent that one never really remarked her age. She was also incredibly popular with her students, many of whom I've been in touch with and all of whom are devastated by what's happened. Not only was she entertaining to talk to, she was also extremely friendly and personable.
I'm using the past tense even though Margaret is still (the last I heard) alive. About mid-November, I asked if it would be possibe to visit her in hospital, moved by a desire to see her again before it was too late. I was told that she had been moved to a nursing home, and that she was no longer taking much in. I saw my grandma go through the same thing, although much more slowly, and although I could have pressed the matter and gone regardless, I didn't and don't want to see Margaret in that state. In my view, she's already gone as a person. I don't know how long her body will hold out, but I don't want to see her shell - I would far prefer my last memory of her to be the same lively character I've known for two years.
It's pretty obvious from what I've written that Margaret has been a huge influence in my life. She was my only tutor in Linguistics for two years and I would see her at the very least once a fortnight, usually more, to engage in riveting conversation about whatever linguistic matter was at hand. She was also one of the people who decided to let me into Oxford, perhaps the single most significant decision ever to affect me except my grandmother's decision, long before I was born, to bring her children to England rather than taking them to India. The parallel with my grandmother is a good one to make because my grandmother passed away not long ago after a similar, but far more prolonged, decline. I felt far more affected and saddened by what happened to Margaret than what happed to my grandmother, and for some time I felt guilty about this. Of course, on reflection it's natural that I should have done - I was far, far closer to Margaret than to my grandma.
It still gets me down whenever I come across a piece of work with Margaret's witty comments in elegant, flowing red ink penned over it. Mainly, though, when I think of her, I'm just glad that she lived such a long life in such good health, and that her decline was so mercifully sudden.
I do wish I'd got to say goodbye.
Goodbye, Margaret.