I KNEW THIS DAY would come and feared it would come sooner than any of us
could expect.
I woke up and looked out the window at our gardens, watched a couple of our cats doing important cat things and observed that the first day of summer looked like one.
My husband came out of the barn, leading the chickens to their daily romp. He saw me in the window and said gently, "Honey, Timothy Findley died last night." Suddenly, this perfect summer morning turned wet and rainy. Or maybe it was the tears that sprang to my eyes.
There will be no more stories.
CBC This Morning promptly dedicated an hour to Findley - Shelagh Rogers reminiscing with actors, writers, dancers, friends. As each of her guests brought forward memories, vignettes of the man his friends called Tiff, I considered my own memories.
They are not as familiar or luminous as theirs, but they are treasured in my heart.
I had heard of Timothy Findley, but it was 1990 before I came to a place and time to read his work and even meet him. He came to Acadia University, where I was a mature student, gone back to school after 10 years of life, marriage, motherhood, to read from Inside Memory.
I was dazzled, much as Shelagh was by her initial meeting with him. His voice sang in my ears as he read; the words danced, so much so that from that day forward, every word of every book, every essay, every snippet of his writing I read echoed in my head - in his voice.
I had just read Not Wanted On the Voyage, and he autographed it for me; I then embarked on a Timothy Findley reading frenzy. Several years later, I decided to write my master's thesis on some of Findley's writings, choosing to look at the way madness and the artist were so linked in his voice. Findley was then in the process of finishing what was to become my favourite book, The Piano Man's Daughter.
I wrote to him asking a few questions about this new book. One day in the mail came a large and bulky envelope, inside of which was a printout of the book in its individual pages, with a gracious note from him, asking for a copy of my thesis when it was complete.
This man, a well-known writer with his huge amounts of work and various demons to face, had the time and consideration to send me, an ordinary student provinces away, a copy of his soon-to-be released new book so that I could mention it in my writings.
I was honoured beyond words. But this was the essence of the man, who was so generous and supportive of others who write. What a gift. So in the summer of 1995, when he was in Halifax for a reading, I met with him and Bill Whitehead at a local independent bookstore. Findley was doing a television interview, and I was entertained - enchanted - by Bill Whitehead as he told me a variety of delightful stories about life with Tiff and some of the friends they shared, people who to me are icons of Canadian writing, Margaret Lawrence especially. Bill made me feel at ease, but I was completely awestruck and
tongue-tied by his partner. In watching them together, even briefly, I saw the perfect partnership in these two. I ache now for the great loss, greater than all of us can imagine who loved Findley the man, the writer, the actor, the Canadian.
There are many things I can say about Findley, the writer, but, to my mind. the greatest joy of his body of writing is that even after studying it intensely for several years, in order to write some little thoughts on them for a degree, I still LOVE everything he has written.
The only exception is his last novel, which I found less exciting, less resonant. I remember finishing it, closing it, looking at it for a moment and thinking - That's the last one? I had heard Findley was not terribly well; hoped it wasn't so. And sadly, it was.
When CBC's hour of remembrance was finished, I went outside and walked in the gardens and thought about Findley. Some of our 10 cats followed, as they do; one of them, a little tortoiseshell named Mottyl, from Not Wanted on the Voyage, came to bump against my legs.
This day I shall plant a rosebush, an Explorer, hardy and vigorous and unbowed by the curve of winter's rage here on the Bay of Fundy, in memory of Timothy Findley.
The narrator of The Piano Man's Daughter says that he had a gift of perfect pitch. Timothy Findley had also the gift of perfect pitch, in capturing the voices in his head and singing them to life for the rest of us in his writings. He will ever sing so perfectly for us.