Abuela is most insistent that we blog again today – no time like the present, she says, steering me towards the keyboard. No, I agree, no time at all, and it really does feel like no time since I began the tribute to Alec Wainman, which led to the film, whose stills I posted yesterday.
Abuela frowns slightly as if to say that I’m not quite getting to the point. And so I move my chair in a little and focus on what I need to say.
Today, four months after beginning my tribute, I received a small parcel in the post. One of several over the months from fellow artists and followers of the project. The idea was to ask for public responses in the form of labels, which would be pinned onto a suit, which would in itself represent Alec Wainman. The labels would contain messages to him or about him and together were to form a pin-board of appreciation with thoughts flowing back and forth across time.
Many times in my blog over on FaceBook I talked about ripples of kindness, not only did the decisions and actions of one man taken so long ago continue into the present, but further acts of kindness were generated by the project. It was as if Alec’s work was carried onwards and had the potential to reach into the future too. Talking about kindness seemed to engender it.
Abuela coughs.
Ah yes! Today this gorgeous tribute arrived from Kate Murdoch whose support to the project has been unfailing, and whose identification with Alec through his name has brought about a new sense of companionship for it and for me. Kate looks to the meaning of the name Alexander “Defender, protector of man” and creates a highly significant and personal link to her own father and his values – the other Alec in our shared encounters.
Through this process Kate arrives at a double tribute to the “two Alexanders, men of great integrity”, and the corollary to this is a delicate, yet profound reworking of the title. I can think of no better kindness nor friendship than her words of acknowledgement for the two Alexanders, “Without Whom We Would Not Exist”.
Verdad! Abuela, exclaims and pinches my cheeks as though I were five again and stepping off the aeroplane to meet her.
