This morning, my wife and I attended a very moving ceremony in the memory of my good friend, George Olah, who passed away earlier this year.
George’s daughters decided to dedicate a tree in a public park in Ottawa to their father. A little marble plaque at the foot of the tree bears George’s name, the dates of his birth and death, and the Hungarian word for cheers, “egészségedre”.
A violinist was also present. The sound of a solo violin during a cloudy, rainy day was especially poignant and it helped set a somber mood. At one point, when the violinist was asked to play one of George’s favorite tunes, I was able to capture a few seconds of it with my cell phone.
Yet we also had plenty of laughs. George, after all, was a very happy person and his stories were always delightful. My favorite moment: when one of George’s daughters told us that the city permit would even have allowed them to set up a trampoline, several of us exclaimed, “Why didn’t you?” That is because we all knew that George would have loved something so unconventional.