“Travels to a Different Time” : August 2006 The Death of a Neighbour in Samos

The day after the Samos Wine Festival we heard a man moaning very loudly in the middle of the night. It sounded like moans of pain or someone trying to communicate or perhaps a bit of both. It was Harry the grandfather just up the way next door who had suffered a stroke a few months before we arrived in Samos. The next day for most of the day the moaning continued with two daughters who were besides themselves. In the early afternoon an older man and a preteen arrived with a stretcher who carried down Harry some 50 steps to the main street and then to the hospital. The two daughters informed us in the early evening that Harry was not expected to make it through the night. Well the two daughters were crying next morning as Harry died in the hospital in the early morning. In a couple of days the relatives arrived and Harry was buried. We learnt that doctors neglected to inform the family that Harry was riddled with cancer. A very paternalistic attitude not seen in Canada since the 1950’s.