La Professoressa is Too Far Away

A week ago La Professoressa left Cello and me once again, early in the morning standing on the verandah, waving our good-byes as her taxi pulled away. This time a London symposium with Chinese Human Rights activists was her destination. Cello and I settled into our mutual watching- out- for- each- other routine with an extra challenge; because of the problematic installation of the National Broadband Network, I had no internet or landline service. I had not heard from my darling for two days after her departure when finally, I heard her voice on my cell phone--a tired, unlike her voice. "I am calling from the emergency room of the college hospital, it is 2 in the morning here and I feel so sick." What I learned in the ensuing 48 hours until Di started feeling better from the antibiotics the so kind and good doctors provided her with to fight a raging urinary track infection was the heaviness of distance, the wall that seemed to tower over me, keeping me from being with her in that hospital, my darling too far away. I wept in the stillness of our home, I called two of my dearest friends in New York, Paula and Linda, asking them to call her so she would not feel so alone and they did, to Di's great amazement and pleasure, I called Ann and Jane, our oldest friends here, the foster family for Cello,and told them what was happening in London: "Just give us the word, we will come, pick up Cello and get you to the airport." Without this little window I am using now where my words can fly out to find many of you, all my fears peered back at me. Now, La Professoressa is back, groggy but determined to go ahead with her journey, and I look at Cello, his sightless eyes finding me, pondering the weight of love and the implacable demands of life.