Henri's Blog

I am sorry to let you all know that Henri passed away peacefully on Saturday afternoon. His parents and I and Mona were with him, as was our wonderful hospice nurse Chris. Henri had been sleeping continuously since about Thursday, and he was not in any pain when he went.

A casual wake is planned for Sunday, September 6, from 10 am to 8 pm at our home. Anyone is welcome to drive or fly here if you want, sign the guestbook, hang out, tell stories, whatever. Friends from our Phoenix days are encouraged to wait a few weeks, since Mona and I will be flying down for a similar wake at Juan and Michelle Trujillo's house. Details on that will follow.

Henri's cremains will be split between a lovely local cemetary's cremation garden and his home country of Lebanon.

What can you do? If you feel compelled to give money or flowers, I encourage you to send a donation to Whatcom Hospice, which has been a wonderful resource for us for the last few weeks, and will continue to follow up with us for another year. They have a foundation to help pay for the things they don't cover, like certain medications and supplies, for patients who can't afford them. And they are raising money to build an inpatient facility for people who, unlike Henri, don't have a big comfortable home and a family with the time and energy to be caregivers. Or, consider giving to your local hospice. Or if you have a charity in mind that you think Henri would want to support that's fine too.

Here's what else you can do: help me to be Henri's personal historian, on Mona's behalf. Go into your attic (actual or virtual) and find all your old pictures of Henri. Send me a CD and hardcopies. Write down the stories you remember... not mushy stuff just about how great he was, but things that will really help Mona understand what kind of a man Henri was. Give her clues as to what it would have been like to know him.

(I remember once he was riding to work at Cisco on his BMW motorcycle, and he got pulled over for going about 90 mph on the freeway and crossing about 4 lanes of traffic and the gore point without signaling. Then he couldn't produce his registration OR proof of insurance. Somehow he ended up getting a warning, and chatting amiably with the police officer about bikes. I wondered if later the cop was shaking his head to clear it, and asking himself if he might have just met a Jedi master. Henri always had this effect on police.)

There is no hurry on the pictures and stories. Please take your time. I know it might hurt.

-jill