Many people are enquiring about Alice Herz-Sommer, (Gigi to her friends — pronounced with hard “gs”), expressing sympathy and assuming that she would have been severely restricted in her later life and activities — as a consequence of her great age. Some have even presumed that she would have been bed-ridden. In fact, she lived totally free and entirely alone in a small apartment in London until two days before she died at 110 years and 3 months — on 23 February 2014 — and she played the piano every day until shortly before that. In her final years she used a Zimmer frame to get around and to reduce the danger of falling — she nevertheless got around well and survived two serious falls. Her physical powers were nothing short of incredible for her age but her mental powers were even more so and her powers of perception were astonishing. She was one of the deepest seeing people I have ever met. She reminded me, many, many times, of Wordsworth’s words, While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things. Gigi Sommer saw into the life of things. More about that later
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 16:06:19 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015