Česká Lípa

One of my favourite places to be is in the garden of Arn’s family’s cottage just outside Česká Lípa. The first time I went there was with Jarda and the rest of the kids 11 years ago. Yesterday was perfect, and it made me very sad to think that Jarda would have loved to have been there with us too.

We drank, we ate, we played with the kids (it was good to have little children around yesterday – they lifted my spirits), we talked about Jarda, we talked about other stuff, we drank lots more, we ate again, we drank and drank and I think Arn kept the barbecue going till about 3 a.m. Sometime, very late, it must have been around 2, the guitars came out and Arn and Tom played and we sang. I think everyone else had left or gone to bed by then except me and Jeanie Weenie. And somewhere in there I wandered off further into the garden and sat in the grass and cried and cried and cried. I don’t think I had ever cried that much before in my life.

We figured out that the last time I had seen Jarda was March 2004. The last thing I ever heard from him was a text message he sent a couple of months ago telling me that he was getting married on the 9th of July. I had hoped he might finally be happy. Arn said that even if he only saw Jarda once or twice a year, it was still incomprehensible to think that now he will never see him again. We all felt the same way.

We talked about how Jarda had been when we all had first met him 12 or 13 years ago. A good friend, funny, entertaining and kind were on the list of his attributes; we also talked about his depression and drug use, and the other group of friends he had on that darker side of his life.

Arn has already put a tribute to Jarda on the Lingers website - see link at right.

I want to thank everyone who has called or sent a message. All of the support has really helped. Jarda’s death is turning out to be a lot harder for me than I would have thought, being that we had split up over 6 years ago.

And thanks especially to Arn, Tom and Petr for yesterday. Absolutely perfect. XXOO