“The thing that is important is the thing that is not seen. …………At night you will look up at the stars. My star shall just be one of the stars for you. And so you will love to watch all the stars in the heavens. They will all be your friends.
“In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And when your sorrow is comforted, you will be content that you have known me. You will want to laugh with me.”
~Antoine de Saint Exupery
Wendell was awake all night. He is sleeping now and I am watching the sky brighten and the sun rise over the ocean missing my little blessed angel brother. I got my last Joe-hug two years ago today in the parking lot of the Hanover Food Coop after buying him a wonderful dinner full of red-faced margaritas.
As we pulled out I tried to spot him making his way to his car, but I couldn’t see him. Did I really feel panicked or is it just hindsight?
Thinking of Joe and his loved ones today, and always. Blessed be.
Artist of the Month for January at Cook Memorial Library
Self-portrait
This is Joe’s eye. So blue and twinkly. He took lots of pictures of eyes, all colors of irises and lashes. I imagine him with a wry smile asking for permission to do so.
Joe had many friends in New York and visited often. Washington Square in Greenwich Village was one of his favorite places. On Sundays he liked to go play chess with the old men on those stone chess tables.
There were a half dozen of these shots of games. I think they are really interesting and colorful. I like the way he got right down there at the table top angle to get this shot.
I imagine that this is a Dartmouth-Hitchcock bash, but who knows? Joe liked to party. It could be at the Waldorf-Astoria for all I know. I love the composition, especially the woman in the foreground striding toward the camera whilst chewing.
This is another from the Halloween series, probably taken in a bar. Who knows if Joe even knew this guy. I like how the photo reads at first as a crescent moon in a night sky and is only gradually revealed to be a man with a cigarette in his mouth.
There were many shots of this pile of folders. At Dartmouth –Hitchcock, as a research coordinator, Joe shuffled file folders all day. It makes me really happy that he could stop and see something visually interesting in a pile of folders.
This was taken when Joe joined his Dad and his Dad’s buddies for a winter trip to our camp on Moosehead Lake to ice fish and snow machine. Joe had a ball being with the guys and doing guy things. I remember he proudly told me he trounced them all at cribbage.
There were many of these snapshots of people. I don’t know them, but Joe must have known these two. It’s such a loving portrait. My gaze just zooms right in on those smile crinkles at the corner of their eyes.
I have no idea how Joe got so close to this duck but it is quite a shot. Any pro would have been proud of it. He must have been lying on the ground with his chin in the water to get it.
Joe attended a friend’s graduation from law school and afterwards they all went down to the river. I believe this is his friend’s sister. Joe must have been very taken with her – it was hard to pick amongst the many shots he took. A flower of young womanhood!
I particularly like this game shot because of his friend’s striped shirt (I strongly suspect that this is Steve Katz). I really wonder if Joe looked back through all his pictures after he took them. They were organized by date taken. Perhaps he did to remember good times with friends, and the beauty he saw all around him.
This was taken on our family trip in April 2010 to Terceira, an island in the Azores way out in the middle of the Atlantic. Interesting flora abounded there, and Joe took hundreds of pictures.
This is another one from the Moosehead Lake ice fishing trip. He must have crawled right under the lip of ice to get this shot of the shore where our camp is. I like how the foreground is so dark and cool blue, with the far-off land bathed in sunlight.
This is my favorite. Taken in the Azores on the terrace of our sumptuous villa, it exemplifies the enjoyment we all felt at the colors, the ocean, the morning breezes, and the excellent Azorean coffee. I love the way the geranium is perfectly reflected in the coffee cup.
Sana is Joe’s beloved goddaughter. He was so proud to be chosen for the honor and took his duties seriously, visiting her often at her home on Roosevelt Island in NYC. You can see him holding his camera over his head, reflected in her eyes.
Much to my surprise, Joe shot perhaps a hundred photos of flowers. I had no idea he had any interest in flowers whatsoever. But I did know that he had his eye out for beauty.
Joe really liked cloud formations and vapor trails and seemed to notice them often. How often do you look at the sky? I like the simplicity of this photo. It is exactly as he framed it in his camera, clean and crisp.
This must have been some Halloween party. From what I could tell, he was in NYC with a big group of pals who apparently started off at someone’s apartment and then barhopped all over the city, ending up in the wee hours on the bank of the East River. The photos were a bit blurry by then…
He’s not dead, just sleeping it off. At Moosehead camp, one of Joe’s Dad’s friends.
The bobbin on my spinning wheel
The stage at SMAC, a place Joe loved. We had a memorable evening listening to Bela Fleck to celebrate Joe’s 29th birthday.
I believe this view was on Joe’s commute from his home in Etna. He loved his country home.
Here’s another of the many of people in relationship, in a bar scene, probably known to Joe but who knows?
This was the view from the terrace on Terceira. Joe took many photos and movies of the sunsets. It was an extravaganza every night.
Joe and I had a wonderful day together, just the two of us, driving around Terceira on the coastal roads. Unbeknownst to each other we both took shots of this lone, windblown tree girted by ancient stone walls, with wild surf below. I even painted it in acrylics as a thank you to our landlady there. It pleases me that Joe and I both noticed the same bit of beauty.
The man himself. Our Joe. Next to a pretty girl. Self-portrait.
If you know who any of these people or events are, please leave a comment. Leave a comment even if you don’t, we’d love to hear from you.
Today is a whole year without Joe amongst us. It’s been both long and short. There are mostly good days now. I can again work, laugh, think, and even create a little. Weaving and spinning are my contemplative and comforting joys. I love my friends and family more fiercely than ever. I am back to being able to count my plentiful blessings. But the missing of Joe is a daily labor, and there are some days my heart is pressed down with the effort of accepting my life without him in it.
A good friend sent the following poem a month ago, and I happened upon it just now. I took the liberty of changing it slightly to suit my particularity, but if you go to my friend’s website, you can read it in the original.
Kaddish
Look around us, search above us, below, behind.
We stand in a great web of being joined together.
Let us praise, let us love the life we are lent
passing through us in the body of everything that is,
and our own bodies, let us say amen.
Time flows through us like water.
The past and the dead speak through us.
We breathe out our children’s children, blessing.
Blessed is the earth from which we grow,
Blessed the life we are lent,
blessed the ones who teach us,
blessed the ones we teach,
blessed is the word that cannot say the glory
that shines through us and remains to shine
flowing past distant suns on the way to forever.
Let us say amen.
Blessed is light, blessed is darkness,
but blessed above all else
is peace
which bears the fruits of knowledge
on strong branches
Let us say amen.
Peace that bears joy into the world,
peace that enables love.
Everywhere, blessed and holy is peace.
Let us say amen.
~Marge Piercy, from ‘The Art of Blessing the Day: Poems with a Jewish Theme’.
I have chosen to end this first most difficult Kaddish year by assembling an exhibit of Joe’s photographs at the library. On January 20th, from 5-6 pm, one day after the anniversary of his death, one day into our second year, we will gather with friends and family at the library to look at his work together, and celebrate his great heart and discerning eye. I will post the photographs on LG for those of you who can’t make it to Tamworth.
Time passes. Lichen & David’s wedding reception has come and gone.
We are still a three-legged dog – we can get around just fine now but there will always be a limp.
No more so than at Lichen & David’s bash on August 6th. Joe’s absence was an aching presence amidst the celebration – the greetings and hugs and laughter and dancing.
I had a bad night of missing Joe last night and when I woke up today, I went looking for Diane’s gift of “A Year with Rumi: Daily Readings”.
This is what I found for today, August 25th, Robbin’s and my 32nd wedding anniversary.
On the Day I Die,
when I am being carried toward the grave,
don’t weep. Don’t say, He’s gone. He’s gone.
Death has nothing to do with going away.
The sun sets and the moon sets,
but they’re not gone.
Death is a coming together.
The tomb looks like a prison,
but it’s really release into union.
The human seed goes down into the ground
like a bucket in a well where Joseph is.
It grows and comes up
full of some unimagined beauty.
Your mouth closes here
and immediately opens
with a shout of joy there.
~ Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, 13th century Sufi poet
My Joseph, we will never stop holding you firmly in our hearts.
And we will find joy in you and in ourselves.
Oh, Joe, such an empty space
Oh Jay honey. My heart aches as I read your “Time Passes”. And then my heart sings as I read the profound poem below your words. My heart bursts with the sadness and the song. And this is but a tiny seed of what I know YOU are feeling. Sending you my open heart now and every day.
I love this picture for the empty space where Joe should have stood. I can’t believe my fragile body can withstand how much I miss my little brother.
Sending love to you and Robin.
Our friends, David and Emilie, bought 12 copies of Little Gorilla, and asked me to sign them. They have been sent to Kasiisi School in western Uganda. David and Emilie’s daughter, Caroline, one of Joe’s favorite classmates in elementary school here in Madison, NH, works at Kasiisi.
The need for education in Uganda is great. From the Kasiisi Project website, “Uganda has been racked by war and internal strife since independence in 1962. Life expectancy is 45 years. Annual per capita income is about $380 USD. Primary school is free, but a good secondary school education costs $400-800+ per student per year. This is far beyond the means of the subsistence farmers and plantation workers who make up some 75% of the populace. Most girls do not complete primary school. Just 12% of students go on to secondary school. Only education can fuel urgently needed economic growth.” When the school administrators discovered that many of the students were walking long distances to the school on empty stomachs, they realized that the children would not be able to learn without a nutritious meal each day- for many children, the only meal they would consistently receive in a day. Thus began the Porridge Project.
Please, in Joe’s memory, consider the idea of helping with the important work being done at Kasiisi to further education, and therefore economic opportunity, and also health in this rural corner of Uganda. Joe, so lucky to receive a great American education, would love this project so dear to the heart of his old friend, Caroline.
Caroline reading to nursery school kids.
Jay and I met at school when we were 14. We remained friends over the years and about a month after Joe was born, Jay brought him over to meet me. I shall always remember his sweet, cherubic face and his happy, contented smile and calm energy.
Each time I saw him as a baby and small child, Joe exhibited that same tranquil nature and quiet inner contentment. I saw the innocent, open-hearted child and I also sensed a wise old soul. With his sweet round face and sage expression, he reminded me of an oriental emperor. One day when Joe was still a very little boy, I said to Jay,”Doesn’t Joe look like an oriental emperor?” She smiled and paused only slightly before replying, “Yes. He does.” Thus, little Joe became ”O.E.”
Hello Rancourt family:
My name is Jeremiah, but everyone calls me JJ. I knew Joe through my best friend Tucker. We first met briefly a number of years ago, I can recall it as a very friendly introduction. I only really got to know him well last year. You see, Joe and I were there with Tucker on his final day, and we played music that we knew Tuck loved. It was in those hours that I really got to know your son, and we became very close, very fast, given the circumstances.
I cannot begin to express my sadness, and condolences for the loss of your son. In the short time that I knew him, it was obvious that he was not an average young man. He “HAS” the heart and soul of someone who has been around much longer than his age would indicate. I say “has”, because Joe is not gone, but his journey has just led him elsewhere, and it shall continue eternally. I truly believe that. I am not a religious person, but after the experience I shared with Joe last year, I can say with certainty that there is more to us than our physical bodies. Joe is a perfect example of this, he is an old soul. I have no doubt in my mind that he has moved on, and whatever form his soul has taken will enhance the lives of everyone he encounters, whether it be in this world or the next.
One of the most difficult days of my life was shared with your son last year, and he made it less traumatic for me, and everyone else there with Tucker that day. For this, I am eternally grateful. You managed to raise one heck of a young man, and for that you should be very proud of yourselves. I only knew him briefly, but in that short amount of time, I “really” got to know him. I can’t think of him without smiling, he had that kind of influence on me, and I am sure everyone else he came across in his short life.
I was heading back to CT from VT a few months ago, and was in a rush, but had wanted to stop in NH to visit Joe. I wasn’t able to that day, but I certainly wish that I had. It’s strange how the Universe works, just a few days before Joe passed, I had met a girl from New Hampshire, and I of course immediately mentioned my buddy Joe, so I literally thought of him the weekend before he passed.
My thoughts are with your family during this terribly difficult time. If there is anything I can do to honor him, or help you, please let me know.
Joes friend always,
-JJ
No one was more comforting than Joe. Thanks for sharing, JJ. We miss him so much.
Notes for an article in the Reed College Alumni Magazine, written by Joe’s supervisors:
His colleagues at Dartmouth Medical School grieve the loss of Joe Rancourt. He joined our research group (called the Psychopharmacology Research Group) in October, 2007, as a Research Assistant in the Department of Psychiatry. From the first, he showed us the zest, enthusiasm, dedication and collegiality that continued and even grew during his time with us. Initially, he worked on a number of research studies seeking better treatments for those suffering from alcoholism and schizophrenia. He was a quick study and just terrific – organizing the studies, working with patients enrolled in the research. And he was very inquisitive: he quite quickly learned about the neurobiological theories underpinning the studies.
He earned a major promotion in April, 2010. At that time, we asked him to take on the role of Project Coordinator, managing a highly complicated neuroimaging study exploring the effects of cannabis in people with the psychiatric disorder named schizophrenia. Normally, a study like this would be coordinated by someone with an advanced degree, but we just knew that Joe, with his quick mind and willingness to learn, could handle it, and handle it well. We were right. Joe led our group, and a series of research subjects, through the pilot phase of the study and set the stage for the main component of the research that is just beginning. It’s sad that Joe won’t be with us to see the study to its completion. But its success will be due to Joe’s work at building the scaffold on which the study will be undertaken. Ultimately, we hope that patients with schizophrenia will benefit from this research and from Joe’s hard work in getting it going. Recognizing what Joe did — our research group has dedicated this important study to Joe’s memory.
All of us — the faculty and staff within our research group at Dartmouth – miss Joe. We miss him for his hard work, for his smile, for his jokes, for his constant talk about Reed College and about movies, music, books or his latest adventure. And we also miss him for his unusual ability to work with patients, to comfort them and to help them through their time within our research studies.
Our group is struggling to fill the hole he left. But we’re grateful for knowing Joe Rancourt and for having the good fortune of working with this “mensch” – with this wonderful young man.
Hi Jay! Great photos, thanks for putting these up for all of us to see. Such a thoughtful guy, I miss him dearly. I really wish i could ask him about that duck! How??