The last twelve months weren't good for me.

My dear friend Guy B. Meeker died in December 2008. His body was not strong enough to withstand the merciless grip of an aggressive cancer.

In May 2009, my mother Ana Catharina Barber passed away, she was 95 years old. Even though it was not a 'tragic' death, considering her age, I miss her now that she is not around anymore. She was enviably lucid until she suffered the devastating effects from a stroke that completely paralyzed her two weeks before she was released from life.

"Mami", aka "AC" when she was 93
Photo taken in 2006

My mother wanted to be buried in Cochabamba where she spent wonderful years of her life. We, her surviving children, complied with her request, and interred her remains next to her mother, Marie-Louise Barber.

If I were requested to say what my mother's most remarkable personality traits were, three characteristics would come to my mind immediately: Discipline, modesty, and independence.

Ana Catharina Barber (1913 - 2009)

Photo taken in 1969

My youngest sister Erica, aged 63, followed my mother only three weeks later. She died of cancer in June 2009, in Munich, where she has lived most of her adult life.

Erica Leander (1945 - 2009)
Photo taken in 1993



Erica, 20 years old
Photo taken in 1965

Erica when she was 15
Photo taken in 1960




Renate, Wolfgang, Erica
Photo taken in 1950

While Erica and I had a conflict-laden relationship, we had so much more in common than one would expect from siblings. To say that I 'miss' Erica would be an inadequate word to express the void I feel after her death.

Although I am a confirmed atheist, and, thus, do not believe in an after-life, I would now like to be comforted by the thought that one day my beloved sister and I will be able to find the reconciliation we both so much longed for during the often tempestuous times of our lives. But since I do not foresee a good reason to give up my agnostic conviction, I have to accept the harsh reality that we will not meet again. I will, therefore, keep the dialogue with Erica alive until I die.

Hers was a tormented earthly passage. And the more difficult it became for her to find the peace to live the present with what could be described as a 'normal' degree of happiness and a reasonable sense of worth, Erica dug deeper into the roots of our Jewish ancestry to look for the simple solace of belonging.

I recently heard an accurate metaphor for the search of one's identity - not an uncommon phenomenon in our times of crumbling social and familial structures. "Searching for an identity is like carrying a heavy back-pack without knowing what its content is."

Had Erica known that my sister Renate and I would put her to rest next to our grand-mother Pauline Margarethe Leander in the Berlin Weissensee Cemetery, the largest Jewish cemetery in Europe, she would have just smiled the contagious smile that so much reminded me of the way our father smiled...

Click on images to enlarge

PS: On December 26, 2009, I received a mail from my young friend Matt Burnes informing me that his mother, Jean Booth-Rex, passed away unexpectedly. I have known Jean since 1968, when we fell in love with each other. We both lived in Puerto Rico back then. Our love affair didn't last but our friendship did and became perfectly natural over the years. I spoke to Jean on the phone as recently as six weeks ago when Matt joined me to dive with the tigers of Tiger Beach. Jean was healthy and, as always, full of energy and in good spirits. I still cannot imagine her not being with us anymore.

Matt's father, Glen Burnes, died only a few months earlier.

Matt - you lost your parents. They are irreplaceable - but you might find some consolation knowing that you have an old fatherly friend...

So long, Guy...

Guy Bentley Meeker (1945 - 2008)

Guy died on December 20, 2008 - he was only 63.

About an hour before he passed away, Lyn, his former wife, sent me an e-mail to ask me where I could be reached by phone so I could say 'good-bye' to my dying friend. As I was not online, I could not read the message immediately.

I had Guy's number, so I tried to call him at the hospital, heart pounding, hands trembling, absolutely devastated, and not knowing what I would say to him while the phone was ringing.

After a little while somebody answered; it was not Guy but Melissa, his daughter, who told me that her dad had died about 45 minutes earlier.

At that moment I knew what I would have told Guy.

I would have said to him: "Gayo, I love you very much - don't worry, my good friend, you will have a safe trip."

Guy was one of my very best friends, and I have not even a handful of true friends.

Ours was a solid friendship that did not require any rituals to keep it alive. Before the advent of the internet we hardly wrote to each other, and later, our e-mail correspondence was not very intense either. Sometimes we would not see each other in years, not even use the convenience of a telephone - yet, we always knew where we were.

Guy and angelical Melissa, Nassau (1974)

I met Guy in the Bahamas in April 1974, on a dive boat. He was with his family: Lyn, Bentley, and Melissa ('Missy'). We immediately became friends; the kids were great little people, and I got to love them very much - I am sure they must have sensed that at 33 I felt like having children of my own.

Guy with cute little Bentley, Nassau (1974)

Bentley, who was seven at that time, once told me: "Wolfer, you are such a nice man with kids, you would make a great father." Tiny Bentley was already then an outgoing and talented communicator.

Those were the 'glorious' seventies as Guy would say - he absolutely loved them, and when we would later talk about our good old days in the Bahamas, his eyes would nostalgically gleam...

Guy and I were both boyish looking, cigarette smoking, long-haired international bankers in Nassau - we had nothing in common with the contemporary breed of investment bankers. Making tons of money was not our raison d'etre. Our generation had other values.

We did some syndicated off-shore loan business together, but it was the human bond that was so much more important to us. We would seldom talk shop but discuss the essential things young men, married or not, normally talk about....

I spent almost every evening at the Meekers; they all received me as family, and to this day they consider me a close friend. So much so that Melissa and Bentley invited me to join them and Lyn at a family memorial service for Guy to be held in Nassau in February. Next to Paradise Island they will return Guy to the sea where we both dived for the first time together almost 35 years ago.

What I admired most about Guy was that he never, ever spoke bad about anyone. If Guy did not like someone, he wouldn't say anything about that person. In that respect he was very much like my son Felix - both great souls one finds rarely in a world of envy and malevolence.

Guy: I am infinitely sad, and as I write this, a little over one month after your death, I simply cannot imagine you not being at the other end of the phone, asking me: "Hola, chico, what's up?". But since there were so many periods of time during which we had no immediate contact with each other, I consider the time that will separate us now as but a brief interim.

Well, then I guess I shouldn't be really depressed, should I? You are not really gone; you are just leading the way, and in doing so you have an edge over those you left behind for the time being.

So long, my good, good friend. I love you. Soon we will be together again, and then we will have an eternity to discuss, roguishly smiling, all the essential things old men normally talk about....