A Death in the Family

JoAnne Frances Fabian died yesterday December 1, 2017 about 6:30 AM. Her heart which was not terrific in life, just wouldn’t quit! She lingered for many days first on morphine and then the more powerful Dilaudid (super-morphine) drip, no other life support. The medicine was just a means for her not to have pain from her arthritis and other pain problems.

Daniel, Phaedra’s husband came up with the idea that we should come together for dinner at one of her favorite restaurants, the Left Bank in Larkspur. What a superb idea! We seven family members gathered and laughed, and compared memories and had good food and decent wine. Rosie and Joseph decided they would not join us, but they were invited. Dan, Phaedra, Rosie and Joseph had gone earlier to the Shabbat services where JoAnne was remembered as part of the Kaddish.

I had started a preliminary draft of an obituary and made copies for everyone to take a look at – I gave it everyone to review, and after discussing it with Gaby asked Phaedra to get it into shape. She is our gifted writer. What I tried to do is to present her the way she wished to be seen. However, I know that the draft had lots of problems, and I depend on the kids to make it more presentable. We hope to have the obituary in the San Francisco Chronicle and The Marin Independent Journal on Monday or Tuesday.