Memorial

On 4 October Max would have been twenty-five had he not died so desperately prematurely. As his birthday approaches I am filled again with disbelief that such a vital personality could have come to an end in such a sudden and shocking manner.

On his twenty-fourth birthday, the first after his death, we were given a memorial in stone made by the sculptor Emily Young, Louis Russell's aunt. Max had visited her studio and was remembered there.

It is an onyx disk, about 60 cm in diameter. I have tried to photograph it many times to put it on the blog, but it changes so much with the light that it has seemed impossible to catch it in any real way. However, below are two of the better attempts. It stands in front of the window in Max's room, the window from which he kept an eye on the street and through which he used to climb when he had forgotten his key. Sometimes the disk is completely opaque. At other times, when the sun shines through, it is almost translucent, and on a sunny windy day the shapes within the stone move and glow.

The carving on the disk is short and simple but tells a story: "Max - son, brother, friend, lover".

On the base is a poem by Raymond Carver:

And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.

We are so grateful to Emily, to the other people in her studio, and to Frank Russell, who all worked together to create this beautiful memorial.

Victoria