'Lovely Day For A Wee Duet’

Geoffrey Bunting - Fully Human, Fully Alive

30.06.’69 - 06.10.’05

It was a morning in July. For three days it had rained steadily. ‘Cabin fever’ had turned us all except Geoffrey into ‘morning grouches’. On top of that my car was in the garage for repair so it was hard to welcome Geoffrey’s relentless ‘joie de vie’ and insatiable appetite for relationship over breakfast.

For Geoffrey questions were a doorway into relationship and he was the master of - What, Where, Who, When, & Why. That and his fascination with cars made me a sitting duck that morning.
“Wh..wh..where is Maria’s car”?... “It’s in the garage Geoffrey”. “Wh..wh..what for”?... “Because it’s broken down”…. “Wh..wh..why”? … “It just is. I don’t know why”. Wh..wh..who broke it? … Nobody broke it, it just wouldn’t start … ‘Wh..wh..when will it be back’? … ‘Maybe tomorrow Geoffrey. Now you’d better eat your breakfast or you’ll be late for your bus…’
Reprieve for a few more bites of cheese on toast and then he started all over again. Eventually when I couldn’t face another round I answered: “I swear Geoffrey if you ask me one more question about my car today I’ll leave it in the garage altogether”. Totally unabashed, he cast his eyes upwards at the raindrops dancing on the skylight and then looking at me with a twinkle in his eye he proclaimed - “Lovely day Maria”
In that instant the morning’s misery dissolved into laughter and it became “a lovely day” in spite of the rain.

Geoffrey was ‘an alchemist’ with a gift for transforming what seemed unremarkable or worthless into something precious and valuable and bedside him the ordinary became extraordinary. With simple questions like - “You want a wee cup of tea”? “You have a mobile phone”? “You play the guitar”? he managed to transform strangers into friends and all of us into musicians. His love of Elvis, Abba and ‘Whiskey in the Jar’ meant that he wasted no time before inviting everyone who came into ‘a wee duet’ and through him we learned how to recognise harmony in discord, to see ‘microphone potential’ in every wooden spoon and to make music on an out of tune guitar with only four strings! Life sparkled with possibility and we had fun.

In his short life Geoffrey never managed to come to grips with pronouns and for him ‘You’ and ‘I’ were interchangeable. Maybe that’s why creating community was so natural for him – a space where ‘you’ and ‘I’ becomes ‘Us’ He was not a ‘solo’ player. He was naturally part of a ‘wee duet’ that gave birth to an orchestra.

For a very short time Geoffrey belonged with us and to us. Now he exists in us. Because he lived we are more - more free, more simple, more extraordinary, more grateful, more welcoming, more joyful, more musical and above all, more human.

From this tiny ember of ours Geoffrey’s life lit a spark of love that spread and created a community of friends that knows no boundaries. We remember him in our food and in our friendships, when we love without limits and when we recognise the ‘lovely days’ of our lives.
In remembering him we seek to hear again the ‘wee duet’ that was God and Geoffrey together in our world and to let their music ‘play on’ in our hearts, our lives and our world.

Geoffrey - You reminded us of the best of what it is to be human and the mystery of the divine in every human being. – Thank You.



Maria Garvey – Spring 2006