4— Wednesday, April 1, 1987 - North Shore News

Bob Hunter

@ strictly personal @

MORE THAN a hundred people showed up for the me-
morial service on North Pender Island. It was a grey,
gloomy day. We watched the clouds rolling about. And

we waited for a Sign.

It seemed just last summer we
were celebrating his 40th birthday

and now he’s gone. It was actual- |

ly two summers ago, but you
know how time tends to blur
after a while.

I’ve got a bit of him captured
on video tape from that party.

He had a lovely gentle smile,
self-deprecating, you might say,
but F don’t think he was ever just
mocking himself. He was good at
mocking life. Not bitterly. Just

- realistically. With a sense of
humor..

1 found it hard to take myself

f too seriously when he was
around. He had a way of taking
things in his stride, absorbing the

f energy around him and
transforming it into something
useful.

| Above all, he had perspective,
and he could share it quietly,

without having to grab the stage.

A person who can help you keep
your ‘sense of perspective is a
valuable person indeed.

- I can’t honestly say I ever
heard him putting anyone down,
complaining behind anyone’s
back, saying anything cruel about
anyone. I wish I could say that
about myself, but I ‘can’t.

I refer to a sailor and film-
maker and craftsman and farmer
named‘ Karl Begrich, who died a
couple ‘of weekends ago while
playing badminton in Victoria.
He was in some kind of competi-
tion, 'At a certain. point, as

though a finger had been snap-
ped, he was gone.

He was a tall, soft, blonde,
blue-eyed Bavarian who didn’t
smoke and who drank with great
moderation but wasn’t abstinent.
He had been known to get into
the schnapps with gusto.

He’d made several films about
sailing. Well, not just about sail-
ing. They were about being free
and being young and having the
skill and the fearlessness to head
out on the ocean.

He had a fabulous eye. “In the
last few years, he made short
films about Clam Bay Farm, the
huge bio-dynamic agricultural
operation that he managed for
North Shore News publisher
Peter Speck. We got to see these
films every year around
Christmas time. Each one was
better than the last.

He also did films about the
annual North Shore News
sailboat race, ‘ :

There was humor in them, lots
of movement and color, lots of

_ beauty. He caught the ballet and
the whimsy of it all. As an artist,

Karl was just. coming into his
own.

I knew Karl for seven years.
Worked on scripts for film pro-
jects with him. And spent more

* than a few fine days and nights at

Clam Bay, watching, sometimes
helping a bit, as the farm grew
and changed. Buildings . were
erected —- all of them with a

peculiarly alpine charm. Karl's
*rademark in wood.

When someone goes so quick-
ly, and just as they are ap-
proaching their prime, like Karl,
there is a shock wave. Here was a
guy who was so vibrant and
alive, an athlete and artist, miss-
ing nothing that was going on
around him. It seemed like a
crushing, malevolent blow that
he should be knocked off like
that.

He kept showing up in my
dreams for about a week after-
wards. Maybe not surprisingly,
these dreams came in the form of
movies. Movies starring Karl.
And in these movies he was talk-
ing to me.

Each time I awoke, it felt as
though he had really been there. I
was overwhelmed by a feeling
that he hadn’t wanted to die and
that his spirit was still casting
about, as shocked and confused
by what sad happened as the
friends he left behind.

So at the memorial service, |
was hoping, like a lot of other
people, that there would be some
shred of evidence, some Sign,
that Karl’s soul had either moved
on or at least found -peace,
whatever a soul does after it
leaves your body for good.

The service started promptly at
2 p.m. on-a field that Karl had
tilled. There was an eagle drifting
in slow circles overhead, but that
was just natural.

By my watch, the first full
blazing ray of golden sun fell

upon those of us gathered there. |’

precisely two, minutes after the
service began, like a switch being
thrown. From grey we were
plunged into a wonderful clarity.

And the rest of the day was-

perfect light and perfect warmth.
We went down to the ocean
and Karl’s ashes were spread on
the water, along with flowers,
and finally I found I could really
cry. Thank you, Karl, for. that
Sign. It was as beautiful and true
ign as 1 have ever seen, and |
was able to go home feeling that
even a death as bitterly untimely
as yours, had to have meaning.

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