I am of an age

 

I received this obituary from dear friends in Toronto today asking me to share it: we will undoubtedly include a tribute to Barrie in the NARGS Quarterly (he was an eminent rock gardener in North America) and I could send it as an attachment to my many friends who knew and loved Barrie. I've not done many eulogies in Prairiebreak. Perhaps now is the time?

I am of an age that funerals and memorial services are more and more frequent, it seems, as well as visits to nursing facilities and I find myself purchasing extra sympathy cards to stockpile when I go to buy one: just in recent weeks I was at a funeral service for Ted Kuettel--one of my dearest nursery friends who was born in Switzerland and grew the best perennials in the Denver area. My oldest and dearest childhood friend, Maia Sampson Michael, succumbed to ten years of brave battling with cancer--her service will be in June and I shall be there. Jerry Morris--the greatest Horticulturist of the Rocky Mountain Region--who was honored in a previous guest blog is also gone. And now Barrie who I knew mostly from study weekends and meetings of the North American Rock Garden Society--which he attended regularly for decades. There is no more compelling reason to attend meetings like this than to meet the likes of this Great Scot!

He was one of those people you looked out for--to greet and to hang out with--that beaming smile--and because of his wicked, sardonic and utterly hilarious wit. His writings (far too few) were positively brilliant pieces of humor, and his talks were utterly unique: he would depict a fantastic travelogue with superb photographs, but subtly, a second theme would play out: in one particularly amazing performance we traveled through highlights of the West viewing dazzling wildflowers, only little bits and pieces would casually emerge that made you realize that his loving wife Jane, was actually attempting to kill him by various means--urging him to back up further as he photographed where he might fall over a cliff, or by attempting to poison him at a greasy spoon. Delivered deadpan, the audience was in stitches (not to mention pins and needles) wondering if she'd ever succeed! I've never seen or heard anything quite like Barrie's performances: if he was on the docket, by God I'd be there to enjoy it!

And so it happened he was in Scotland once when I visited "The Botanics" where I bumped into Barrie. Next thing I knew I was visiting his mother's house with him around the corner from the great Garden, and we were sipping tea: his beautiful, vigorous, stylish mother was exactly the sort of person who would have given birth to a Barrie! Or the magical dinner I had one evening with Canadian luminaries at his elegant home in Richmond Hill: one of those unforgettable nights orchestrated by Jane (who had not het managed to kill him) with the finest crystal, and course after course of ambrosial food and drink and sparkling humor. Every encounter with this fellow was memorable.

His city garden was small, but full of treasures that I'd never seen before (many no doubt brought from Scotland). He often spoke and wrote about a much grander garden he had in Muskoka. I've always hoped one day to visit it.

I am of an age when certain things we hope for will never come to pass.

Farewell my elegant Canadian-Scots hero! I shall cherish your memory forever.