A great loss

We awoke to beautiful blue skies today and some very sad news. Our housesitter had emailed to say that Mariko LaFleur, the wife of Bill LaFleur (John's PhD advisor and our very good friend for more than 15 years), had left a message letting us know that Bill had passed away Friday morning.

 

Bill was an incredibly accomplished scholar, of course, but he was so much more than that. He had a wonderful sense of humor, a love for his children and wife that was obvious the first time you talked to him, a dedication to his students that lasted well beyond the time they graduated, an ability to make scholarly writing interesting, and a passion for so many subjects that any encounter with him left you wanting to talk more.

I liked him from the first time he and Mariko came to dinner at our tiny Philadelphia apartment in 1995. I was flooded with so many wonderful memories of him this morning as I went to the market -- and I wasn't even the one he worked with. He cared so much for John -- the two had just exchanged a series of emails a week ago about an edited volume John is the editor of that Bill offered to write a chapter for -- and our hearts are heavy at his passing.

The relationship between PhD advisor and student is like little else I know. I have had great teachers in my life and important mentors during my journalism and teaching and parenting life... but there is no one person who I worked with for such a long and important period as John and Bill did. And that relationship has endured well beyond John's graduation. We have kept in close touch over the years -- in addition to regular emails, Bill and Mariko came to Lethbridge in 2006 (to give a paper at the university and meet the girls!) and they even offered to have me stay at their house when I visited Philadelphia last December. Bill was looking forward to traveling to Japan this spring with his older son and that son's family. He mentioned how proud he was of his daughter, a sophomore at a Philadelphia university who had grown to love and care about the city so much, how happy he was that Mariko's work as a teacher was going so well, and how pleased he was last year (but not at all surprised) to learn that John received tenure and promotion.

I am sure the religious studies world (and the Japanese studies and bioethics and Japanese literature worlds... for his work spanned many areas and he had many varied interests) is mourning him right now, and will miss his contributions to the discipline. And in the smaller world of our family living in France, well, we are mourning him too, and will miss his contributions to our lives.