dearests, a week ago Norval died. I learned of his passing the next day, when my daughter Susanne phoned me from Ibiza, after her stepsister told her. Norval and I met exactly forty-three years ago; many of you will remember our marriage, in October of 1990, in Stratford. We have been in each other's life, through 'sick and sin', all these years, travelling countries. books, theatre, photography, and, Norval's last dream come true, his solar house built almost twenty-five years ago, on our New Brunswick lake property, where much of our life happened. All this came to an end when Norval, in a challenged moment, gave legal power over his person to people he trusted. They have, since the 8th of January, 2018, when he fell grievously ill, used this trust to separate us and, eventually, to sever and take control of all communication between us. A last plea from Susanne that she and i might visit during her brief June stay from the Middle East was denied. We now must live without the closure we, and we know, Norval, too, needed. For these past one and a half years I have tried legal avenues, personal appeals, private investigators, the press, and exactly two weeks before Norval died, I was in despair and tears in the Halifax offices of the Human Rights Commission. None of them could help in the face of the cruel stupidity behind this incomprehensible abuse of legal power. As our German Shakespeare - even though he didn't write King Lear - said in his masterpiece: gegen Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens... . The right kind of grief is a blessing and a balm - as some of you who knew 'Aschi in Stratford' know so well; the wrong kind of grief, grief without natural closure, is a baptism by fire and water and a sojourn through unlit underworlds. Yet, the end must still be love, serenity, and light. Licht. Meantime let those flights of our own Shakespeare's angels sing him to his rest. love, Astrid

please note:

*my email address has changed to darkladylicht@gmail.com (it replaces darklady@nbnet.nb.ca)

*some of my email contacts got lost or confused in the shuffle, please bear with me if you have received a version of this message already

*please encourage my Stratford and Toronto and Banff friends to send me their email contacts

*the attached picture is a photograph of a photograph of the Wedding of Norval and Astrid, here leaving the Knox Presbyterian Church in Stratford after the ceremony, on the 7th of October, 1990