Much of this tale is about the importance of a name, or two, or more. In this game, if you are to unravel the tangled skein, you must attend to many subtle distinctions. So, here is the plot for your perusal taken from the Montreal Gazette [nota bene: I have changed some names and have used this extract under the Fair Dealing Provisions (40 & 41) of the Australian Copyright Act of 1968]:
LUMIERE, Cornel. Passed away on Saturday, September 2, 1995 in his eighty-third year, in the company of his family. Beloved husband and companion of Jewell Lumiere, devoted father and father-in-law to sons, Joe and wife Janice, Charles and wife Veronica, and to daughters, Sharon and Charlene. Cherished grandfather of Jennifer, Johanna, Maria, Nancy and Tom, and loving brother and brother-in-law to Rev. Harry Punt and wife Clazine. A private service was held. He will always be held in loving memory of his family as well as his many friends around the world.
Now, some of what is implied in this square is not, strictly speaking, true. Ironies also abound; so does pathos. Sorting out what may or may not be the case will be the gist of my task. Both the difficulty and the lack of difficulty in doing this is significant.
Lest anyone think that I am seeking to be flippant, I am not. I have a genuine regard for the various members of this family and what they have gone through. That they have, for the most part, ‘gotten through’ is a focus of this case study.
What are the conditions for survival when all hell breaks loose in your life? How do we pull together this “booming, buzzing confusion” that the founder of American psychology, William James, wrote about? How is it that there is something like an ordered world at all when it seems that everything is working against just this possibility? To what degree are our lives being reordered by technology and to what degree are we vulnerable as ‘private’ persons to undue public scrutiny?
At the end of our lives, will we know who we have been and what good we have done?
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