Bill’s birthday is coming up in a few days. We were together thirty-three years as a couple. I organized thirty-three birthday celebrations for him. Then he died of cancer. Now I’m at a loss, in so many ways, one of which is what to do when his birthday rolls around. So, I’m brainstorming ideas.

Your suggestions would be welcomed.

Here are options that I’ve come up with so far:

1. Ignore it.
2. Buy the most expensive gift he always wanted but I was too stingy to buy for him while he was alive.
3. Cry all day.
4.  Bake his favourite type of birthday cake and then eat it all myself.
5. Bake his favourite type of birthday cake and then invite all his friends over to share it (except he had far too many friends to accommodate in our condo).
6. Bake his favourite type of birthday cake and then hand out pieces on the street to complete strangers.
7. Hire a skywriting plane to spell out “Happy Birthday, my darling” (except if he’s in heaven looking down, wouldn’t the lettering appear backwards?)
8. Go out and find a new lover and pretend that he’s Bill.
9. Go out and find a new lover and pretend that he’s Bill’s birthday present to me.
10. Write a celebratory memoir about our thirty-three years together (oh yeah, I already did that.)
11. Fill our condo with his favourite colour flowers (purple) to thank him for the wonderful years we shared.
12. Fill our condo with his least favourite colour flowers (yellow) to spite him for dying way too early.
13. Play his favourite music all day and then respond accordingly (cf. #3 above).
14. Play his least favourite music all day in hopes of provoking him to return to switch it off.
15. Use his life insurance payout to buy an expensive Armani black suit and wear it all day as my widow’s weeds.
16. Use his life insurance payout to buy food for starving children in Africa.
17. Figure out why he had never gotten life insurance.
18. Spend the day looking through all our old picture albums and respond accordingly (cf. #3 above).
19. Book a daylong session with a therapist.
20. Book a daylong session with a hunky masseur.
21. Ask other widows and widowers how they handle their dead lover’s birthday (what a good idea for a blog).
22. Tell others in relationships to treasure their partner and be sure as hell not to forget their birthday.
23. Ask others who are not in a relationship what they think they would do for a birthday celebration if they had a lover.
24. Ask others who are not in a relationship if they’d like to be in relationship with me (use as an inducement my stellar history in celebrating my lover’s birthday).
25. All of the above and then respond accordingly (cf. #3 above). 

Bill and I relaxing together after celebrating one of his birthdays many years ago:

My memoir “August Farewell” tells the story of the two weeks between my partner Bill’s diagnosis with pancreatic cancer and his death. Interspersed among the scenes are vignettes from our thirty-three years together as a gay couple.

Information on “August Farewell” and on my novel “Searching for Gilead”, including YouTube video book trailers on each, is available on my website at http://DavidGHallman.com

Both the memoir and the novel are available for order from your local bookseller or on-line retailers including http://amazon.com, http://barnesandnoble.com, http://amazon.ca, http://chapters.indigo.ca, http://amazon.co.uk

Coincidences occur in all our lives. On occasion, they are dramatic or mystical and radically change our path. At other times, they are quite prosaic and almost go unnoticed. 

And then there are those delightful surprises when a convergence occurs out of the blue and, though it carries no great import, we nevertheless pause and our smile says “how cool is that!”

Such was the case for me recently when the Oscar-winning movie “Hugo” intersected with a short story of mine.

With a memoir “August Farewell” and a novel “Searching for Gilead” now out in the hands of readers, I’ve started on a new writing project—a collection of inter-related short stories.

The initial one that I have completed—the first draft, that is—is something of a character study of a young man who immerses himself in the puissant intellectual environment of one of the great libraries of the world. In the story, entitled “La Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève,” I describe in detail the imposing interior of the building and the impact of the sunlight cascading in through the massive windows.

Eons ago, I spent a year as a young student in Paris and virtually lived in la Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, just a few steps from the Sorbonne.  The picture below, taken by my anxious parents, shows a nerdish me backpacked and ready to head off on my youthful year-in-Europe. The staging of the photo with me consulting the map was intended to evoke adventure. It now embarrasses me, as if the caption might read “how do I get to the airport?”

A few months ago, at a session of the writing group that I attend, I met Demetri Portelli who was the 3D stereographer on the movie “Hugo” working with the director Martin Scorsese and the cinematographer Robert Richardson. Demetri is a friend of Joaquin Kuhn, our writing group’s coordinator, and he happened to be at our meeting the week when the Academy Award nominations were announced. We celebrated with Demetri the many nominations that “Hugo” had received.

I put “Hugo” on my list of movies to see.

At a subsequent writing group session, the focus of the discussion was on my short story with the group members giving me wonderfully helpful feedback. A few days later, Joaquin watched “Hugo” with his grandchildren and promptly emailed Demetri and me, letting me know that la Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève is one of the settings in the movie. He told us that the film came to life for him in a new way because he had been there through my story, and my story came to life in a new way because he was actually seeing what had been presented to him earlier in words.

Demetri responded telling us that it was primarily this library that brought Martin Scorsese to shoot in Paris. Demetri found it a magical place with the space and the natural light making it so special in the film. He called it a jewel in the city of Paris.

He is right. It is that jewel that bewitched me as a young student forty odd years ago and it is that jewel that I had chosen as the setting for my short story.

Needless to say, I promptly made my way to the theatre to see “Hugo.” In addition to the stunning visual effects, I found the story itself deeply moving in many ways, not least of which as a testament to the importance of the arts in our lives.

I now have in my hands and have begun reading the book that inspired the film, a beautifully published version of “The Invention of Hugo Cabret, A Novel in Words and Pictures” by Brian Selznick.

La Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève in my short story and in “Hugo” – an artistic coincidence that makes me smile and think “how cool is that!”

P.S. "Hugo" won the 2012 Oscar for Cinematography.

* * *

Some of my earlier posts also use films as the starting point for reflection. Scrolling back through my blog you can find posts based on “The Iron Lady,” “The Descendants,” and “Midnight in Paris.”

* * *

My memoir “August Farewell” tells the story of the two weeks between my partner’s diagnosis with pancreatic cancer and his death. Interspersed among the scenes are vignettes from our thirty-three years together as a gay couple.

Information on “August Farewell” and on my novel “Searching for Gilead,” including YouTube video book trailers on each, is available on my website at http://DavidGHallman.com

Both the memoir and the novel are available for order from your local bookseller or on-line retailers including http://amazon.com, http://barnesandnoble.com, http://amazon.ca, http://chapters.indigo.ca, http://amazon.co.uk

At a session of the International Festival of Authors in Toronto several years ago when I was more naïve and less experienced as a fiction writer, I challenged an author on a panel who was talking about all the revisions she did after negative feedback from readers to an early draft of hers. I said, “But isn’t what is important that you are true to your own voice, whatever others may think?” 

She replied, “But if what I’ve written doesn’t communicate with the reader, what’s the point?”

To which I responded, “The point is we write primarily for ourselves. At least, I do.”

I was speaking out of the context of having written a very personal memoir “August Farewell” that initially I had no intention of publishing and being in the midst of writing my first novel “Searching for Gilead” that was also precipitated by personal and systemic issues that I wanted to tackle.

Well, now I’m at a point where I agree with Lao-Tse, “The more you know, the less you understand.” Meaning, the more I’ve written and published, the more confused I’ve become.

My current dilemma is in relation to a collection of inter-related short stories that I’ve begun. I finished the first one and sent it out to a few friends to read. I’ve gotten mixed responses. One person, who is an editor by profession, said, “But nothing happens in it.” A second friend, an avid reader, said, “I just didn’t connect with the main character.”

However, a third wrote me, “What stays with me a few days later is the feeling of intense passion that is conveyed by the story…I identify personally with the feeling behind the words, but I also think they have enduring and universal appeal… a very successful writing project.”

The short story in question is intended much more as a character study than an action thriller. And I happen to like it pretty much as it is. It speaks to me.

Though the creative satisfaction is by far my principal motivation for writing, I’m no longer in the place where I am writing just for myself. My life has been immensely enriched by the touching reader feedback that I have received to “August Farewell.” I’m learning a great deal from the responses that I’m getting to “Searching for Gilead.” The author-reader dialogue in person and through social media such as Twitter and Facebook is a big part of my life now.

I want to be as fine a writer as I can be which suggests that I have much to learn from feedback. But, I also want to be authentic to my own voice and not tailor my writing to the expectations and tastes of others.

How do you resolve this dilemma in your writing?

* * *

My memoir “August Farewell” tells the story of the two weeks between my partner’s diagnosis with pancreatic cancer and his death. Interspersed among the scenes are vignettes from our thirty-three years together as a gay couple.

Information on “August Farewell” and on my novel “Searching for Gilead”, including YouTube video book trailers on each, is available on my website at http://DavidGHallman.com

Both the memoir and the novel are available for order from your local bookseller or on-line retailers including http://amazon.com, http://barnesandnoble.com, http://amazon.ca, http://chapters.indigo.ca, http://amazon.co.uk

Today I was with friends when they had to put their beloved dog down. Memories flooded back of occasions when I was with loved ones—family members, friends, and pets—at the point they took their last breath. 

That moment of a last breath is as replete with mystery as is the moment of a first breath when a new life enters the world.

I do not expect ever to be able to comprehend its potency as long as I live which is of course stating the obvious. None of us on this side of death’s door can appreciate what it is like to walk through it, never to return. 

We understand the physiology and science can explain some of the neurobiology.

But such explanations are woefully inadequate for me.

Two months ago, I held our cat as the vet injected him to relieve him of the pain from pancreatic cancer that was ravaging his little body. At one moment before the injection, Simon was breathing. He was alive. He was Simon. Two minutes later, he was not. Neither alive nor my Simon. Only an inert though soft and familiar body.

Two years ago, I sat beside Bill my long-time lover holding his hand as his breathing peaked in sharp erratic bursts, then slowed to quiet measured intakes and exhales, and then finally stopped altogether. That moment at 10:30pm on a Sunday evening occurred as he lay in a hospital bed in our living room sixteen days after he had been diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. The same cancer that felled Simon. At 10:29pm Bill was still with me. At 10:30pm he was no longer. How is that possible? To be here and then not to be here.

Over the previous two years, we went through the comparable moments of final breaths holding Bill’s mother’s hand, holding my father’s hand, and holding my mother’s hand.

Interpreting to where their spirits move after this world is the province of others wiser than I am and for times more contemplative than this. What transfixes me today, having just accompanied my friends as they lost a dog that was as significant in their lives as just about any other family member, is that final moment.

Though the moment when they took their last breath is beyond my comprehension, it is not beyond my experience. I lived that moment with those loved ones. And for that I thank God. Those singular moments are amongst the most treasured of my life.

* * *

My memoir “August Farewell” tells the story of the two weeks between my partner Bill’s diagnosis with pancreatic cancer and his death. Interspersed among the scenes are vignettes from our thirty-three years together as a gay couple.  

Information on “August Farewell” and on my novel “Searching for Gilead” is available on my website at http://DavidGHallman.com 

Both the memoir and the novel are available for order from your local bookseller or on-line retailers including http://amazon.com, http://barnesandnoble.com, http://amazon.ca, http://chapters.indigo.ca, http://amazon.co.uk

* * *

The photo below taken several years ago is of my partner Bill and our friends’ dog that had to be put to sleep today.

During a performance of Puccini’s “Tosca” last evening, I was temporarily confused about whether I was in the opera house or watching a Republican Party Primary debate. 

The conflagration of sex, religion, and politics is a volatile mix that is as old as human culture and yet as fresh as Jon Stewart’s and Stephen Colbert’s satires.

One would think that after a hundred and twelve years and countless performances of Puccini’s opera, Tosca would realize that her illicit love affair with artist and revolutionary Mario is likely to be in for a bumpy ride.

But every time she walks into the church of Sant’Andrea della Valle in Act One and promptly starts being wooed by her lover, she misses the clues that Mario’s ardent kisses, while genuine, are also intended to distract her attention from the escaped political prisoner that he is hiding from the tyrant Scarpia.

Tosca’s love is blind.

Until it isn’t.

Chief of Police Scarpia’s political oppression and sexual violence jar her from a romanticized ideal and into a profound commitment to risk everything for her beloved Mario.

In societies around the world, true love is in constant battle against religious intolerance and political expediency.

Many of us have testimonials we could share about the struggles in which our love has been tested in furnaces stoked by societal prejudice. Thankfully, for most, our relationships survive and are stronger as a result.

Sadly, the last act of some people’s love lives ends tragically, as did Tosca’s.

It is incumbent on all of us of to work for happier endings.

(The Canadian Opera Company’s production of “Tosca” that I enjoyed last night featured the brilliant Canadian soprano Adrianne Pieczonka.)

* * * 

My memoir “August Farewell” tells the story of the two weeks between my partner Bill’s diagnosis with pancreatic cancer and his death. Interspersed among the scenes are vignettes from our thirty-three years together as a gay couple.  

Information on “August Farewell” and on my novel “Searching for Gilead” is available on my website at http://DavidGHallman.com 

Both the memoir and the novel are available for order from your local bookseller or on-line retailers including http://amazon.com, http://barnesandnoble.com, http://amazon.ca, http://chapters.indigo.ca, http://amazon.co.uk

I’ve just come from a performance of Mozart’s “Requiem”. 

There are not many pieces of music that can bring me simultaneously to the verge of an erection and tears.

Many mysteries surround Mozart’s life and this particular work. One reality though is the inter-linkage of sex and death. Mozart passionately embraced life including sexuality but died far too young in 1791 while composing the “Requiem” (more or less accurately portrayed in Peter Shaffer’s play “Amadeus” subsequently made into the 1984 Oscar-winning film by Miles Forman.) Mozart was commissioned by a Viennese nobleman to write the “Requiem” to commemorate the tragic death of his vivacious twenty-year-old wife. Other compositions of Mozart’s such as his opera “Don Giovanni” integrate themes of powerful sexual appetite and the foreboding drama of death.

Sex and death.

I found myself swept away (a.k.a. aroused) particularly in the early movements of the performance at the Toronto Symphony concert. The potent and luxurious harmonies and gradually building intensity of the orchestra, chorus, and soloists in the introductory section felt like a robust and attentive lover enveloping me in foreplay. Then suddenly the energy level catapulted into the vigorously assertive passion of the Kyrie. (It didn’t hurt that the tenor soloist was stunningly handsome.)

And yet as I glanced down at the Libretto drawn from the Mass, the wording was in a different universe from that uttered by lovers in the midst of sexual exuberance. The “Requiem” was after all composed to mourn the loss of a loved one. It’s a work of art about death.

Maybe the worlds of sex and death are not so distinct one from the other. Certainly for many of us who have been impacted by AIDS, the connection has seared our lives and our communities. One of the political slogans in the fight against AIDS has been “Silence=Death”. Mozart’s music crashes through the disabling strictures of silence and opens for all of us a world in which we can celebrate life, including sexuality, and also grapple with death. 

Thank you Mozart.

* * *

My memoir “August Farewell” tells the story of the two weeks between my partner Bill’s diagnosis with pancreatic cancer and his death. Interspersed among the scenes are vignettes from our thirty-three years together as a gay couple. 

Information on “August Farewell” and on my novel “Searching for Gilead” is available on my website at http://DavidGHallman.com

Both the memoir and the novel are available for order from your local bookseller or on-line retailers including http://amazon.com, http://barnesandnoble.com, http://amazon.ca, http://chapters.indigo.ca, http://amazon.co.uk

I just saw the film “The Iron Lady” with Meryl Streep putting in a stunning performance as Margaret Thatcher. 

I had anticipated the political biopic plotline and the Greek tragedy nature of Thatcher’s arrogance-induced downfall.

What I wasn’t prepared for in the film were the dual sub-themes of a) the in-depth treatment of her relationship with her husband Dennis Thatcher; and b) the focus on the vicissitudes of the aging process.

These two aspects of the movie struck a very personal chord for me as I suspect they will for many moviegoers and it is making me reflect on my own life. That surely is one of the criteria of good art.

We tend to see public figures largely in terms of their professional roles. Where their private lives do become visible is often in sensationalized situations, rarely in the context of their principal affectionate relationships. Margaret Thatcher is identified with (and loathed by many for) her politics. We get that in “The Iron Lady” but we unexpectedly get the impact on this woman of her love for and then the loss of her significant other. That theme in the film started my self-reflection.

I worked for thirty-plus years in the area of global environmental ethics, principally climate change. During this period, I participated in countless international conferences with the UN and academic institutions, was interviewed by media many times, and authored five books. After I took early retirement for health reasons, my life suddenly gyrated away from the public professional responsibilities and toward family care-giving roles with the deaths in quick succession of my parents, my partner’s parents, my younger brother, and then, cataclysmically, my long-term partner Bill.

My writing veered dramatically as I produced first a memoir of our thirty-three-year gay relationship culminating in the two weeks between his cancer diagnosis and his death, and then a novel that similarly depicts love, laughter, and loss.

My profile as an academic writer has been displaced by that of a story-teller of deeply personal experiences of love and grief. I sometimes feel like I have become an emotional exhibitionist, a dramatic role reversal from that of my decades-long professional persona. 

I have significant misgivings about that transition.

The other dimension in “The Iron Lady” that caught me off-guard was the searing portrayal of the aging process particularly as it is impacted by the loss of one’s partner.  

I left the theatre a bit shaken by how that aging process might play out in my life. I’m not ready. Are you?

* * *

My memoir “August Farewell” tells the story of the two weeks between Bill’s diagnosis with pancreatic cancer and his death. Interspersed among the scenes are vignettes from our thirty-three years together as a gay couple.

Information on “August Farewell” and on my novel “Searching for Gilead” is available on my website at http://DavidGHallman.com

Both the memoir and the novel are available for order from your local bookseller or on-line retailers including http://amazon.com, http://barnesandnoble.com, http://amazon.ca, http://chapters.indigo.ca, http://amazon.co.uk

* * *

The two pictures below: a) in the professional role early in my working career; b) the current “author” photo used on my memoir and novel.

The question came out of the blue about halfway through dinner with a friend I hadn’t seen for quite awhile. 

It caught me off guard but maybe it wasn’t as much of a non-sequitur as I thought at the time.

We had been talking about how I was getting along now that I was into my third year since the sudden cancer death of my partner Bill. Even though I have a wonderful network of friends, I carry an anxiety that they must be tired of hearing the same kind of response when they ask how I’m doing. It’s not a happy answer and I fear that it would throw a wet blanket over the socializing. So I don’t initiate the topic. They don’t often either, I suspect out of the very honourable intention of not wanting to upset me by leading me into the territory of mourningland.

But this friend was being persistent. So I described how, despite invitations to go elsewhere, I had spent Thanksgiving and Christmas Day at home making a turkey dinner, setting two places, and spending those memory-laden days alone; how I continued to go out to concerts, the opera, and theatre as Bill and I had done for decades but now I was sitting by myself; how I had been doing some socializing with friends but indeed spent the vast majority of my time at home reading, writing, and listening to music.

My mantra had become “solace in solitude”.

The “have you started dating again” question jarred me out of the memory reflection and thrust me around toward the future.

I cringed.

Many people have to confront this question having found themselves no longer in a relationship whether through the death of their partner or through a separation/divorce. I suspect that the prospect of entering the dating world again is intimidating for the vast majority of us.

I struggled to respond to my friend. Three issues raced through my head: a) a wounded, grieving soul like me hardly makes for a very attractive dating prospect; b) I can’t imagine summoning the energy to go through the process; and c) God I miss the affection, intimacy, and companionship of a special relationship.

So my response to his question was succinct: “No.”

I paused.

“Not yet at least.

* * *

My memoir “August Farewell” tells the story of the two weeks between Bill’s diagnosis with pancreatic cancer and his death. Interspersed among the scenes are vignettes from our thirty-three years together as a gay couple.

Information on “August Farewell” and on my novel “Searching for Gilead” is available on my website at http://DavidGHallman.com

Both the memoir and the novel are available for order from your local bookseller or on-line retailers including http://amazon.com, http://barnesandnoble.com, http://amazon.ca, http://chapters.indigo.ca, http://amazon.co.uk

This afternoon I saw the new George Clooney movie “The Descendants” and I’m a blubbering mess. 

Mind you it’s not quite as bad as the time I went to see Colin Firth in “A Single Man.”  I didn’t know anything about the plot but I like Colin Firth and thought that a movie would be a good distraction for me after the weekend of my partner Bill’s funeral. It turned out that “A Single Man” is the story of a gay man coming to terms with the sudden death of his long-time partner. I sat through it in shock watching my life up on the screen. I came home afterwards, cried for four hours, and then cleaned for four hours.

I had seen the movie trailer for “The Descendants.” It looked like a comedy to me. And I’d go to a movie with George Clooney reading the dictionary.

“The Descendants” is not a comedy. Well, not mainly.

I don’t have to issue a spoiler alert here because I’m not going to give away any key surprise elements of the storyline.

Early in the film we learn that Clooney’s wife is dying. He has to help various people say their goodbyes to her - two daughters, the wife’s parents, close friends.

And, he has to say his own goodbyes, made rather challenging because theirs is a complicated relationship.

But what relationship isn’t complicated?

Every one of us will at some time in our lives be confronted with the imminent death of a loved one. Many of us already have. Our mother. Our father. A sibling, a child, a close friend. Our partner, lover, soul-mate.

All of these relationships in our lives are complex and replete with some resentment.

There is the temptation to postpone saying our goodbyes. Perhaps, we’re refusing to acknowledge the inevitable. It might be a hesitation grounded in pride, regret, or anger. Maybe we’re too traumatized or just too awkward.

My advice, not that you’re asking for it, is: Don’t be afraid. Do it before it’s too late. Say your goodbyes.

Bill and I said our goodbyes — for which I am forever thankful. I describe our story on the short 2 minute YouTube video at http://bit.ly/jZrEbf.

If you don’t trust my word, go and see George Clooney’s character in “The Descendants” say his goodbyes. You may be forever thankful.

* * *

My memoir “August Farewell” tells the story of the two weeks between Bill’s diagnosis with pancreatic cancer and his death. Interspersed among the scenes are vignettes from our thirty-three years together as a gay couple.

Information on “August Farewell” and on my novel “Searching for Gilead” is available on my website at http://DavidGHallman.com

Both the memoir and the novel are available for order from your local bookseller or on-line retailers including http://amazon.com, http://barnesandnoble.com, http://amazon.ca, http://chapters.indigo.ca, http://amazon.co.uk

The picture below is self-explanatory:

George Frideric Handel hid a secret message in The Messiah when he composed his masterpiece oratorio in 1741. 

The incredible code has remained undetected until last night when I discovered it at the conclusion of a brilliant performance by the Toronto Symphony, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, and soloists.

Don’t believe me? Let me explain.

My partner Bill was a music teacher of piano and voice. Over our thirty-three years together, hundreds of children and adults came to our home for lessons. They adored him. Bill was something of a larger-than-life character and highly respected as a music teacher. He always had a waiting list of students anxious to secure a place. With the children, he had infinite patience. With the adults, not so much.

When Bill and I first met in 1976, fell in love, and started living together, we discovered that one of the things we shared in common was a passion for music, especially classical music. There was always music playing in our home. Over the decades, we went to countless musical events in Toronto and in every major concert hall and opera house around the world.

One of our favourite Christmas traditions was attending The Messiah every year. Bill had a beautiful tenor voice and sang in many performances.

Then, Bill died. He was suddenly and unexpectedly diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer on August 7, 2009. He died two weeks later in our home. The story of those incredible two weeks and of our thirty-three-year love affair is told in my memoir “August Farewell.”

As with many people who lose a loved one, there is a powerfully-charged emotional dilemma about what to do with the special traditions that were shared together. To continue them invariably brings back all the memories. To ignore the traditions would feel disrespectful. My choice has been to embrace the traditions come what will.

And so, in a fragile state, I was at Roy Thomson Hall last night for the 2011 version of The Messiah.

I held it together pretty well throughout the performance. Until the finale.

The oratorio ends with a chorus that concludes in a four-minute-long stunning choral “Amen”.

All of a sudden, as the 250 voices of the massed choir were reverberating through the concert hall, I wasn’t hearing “A---men, A---men, A---men,…”

I was hearing “Hall---man, Hall---man, Hall---man,…”

Tears streamed down my cheeks.

Bill was directing a chorus of angels calling out my name.

At least that’s how I experienced it.

I know that Handel’s coded love note from Bill to me was discernible to my ears only. No matter. It was intended for me after all.

* * *

Information on my memoir “August Farewell” and my novel “Searching for Gilead” is available on my website at http://DavidGHallman.com

Both the memoir and the novel are available for ordering through your local bookstore or on-line retailers including http://amazon.com, http://barnesandnoble.com, http://amazon.ca, http://chapters.indigo.ca, http://amazon.co.uk

* * *

The picture below is of Bill’s well-used score of Handel’s Messiah sitting on the piano in our home.