This site is in mourning again.
 Due to circumstances not easy to explain and not fully clear yet, I learned only today of the decease on May 7 of an exceptional man, Claude Neal Brady, Jr.
Neal and I had been very close friends for almost 38 years, since 1965, when we had met in my "The American Bookstore in Luxemburg". Eight months ago, through my misunderstanding, as I see it now, both under extreme stress since a while, we had stopped our daily intensive contact and started to each go his own way alone. No regret can undo this mistake, though it had helped me to feel freer, to grow and develop, and to better accept the challenge of difficulties, while he and his mate had been left facing a number of heavy strokes of fate, adding to those just recently behind them. On May 7, C. Neal (he hated his first name and always used the initial instead) had told his mate that he did not feel well, that he was going to lie down on his bed, and dead he was.
Neal was born on September 27, 1930, in San Jose, Santa Clara County, California, and he died at Olm, Canton of Capellen, Grand Duchy of Luxemburg. He had lived in my home country a couple of years more than half of his life.
A life which was exceptional in many ways, unusual, with still many mysteries. I could tell volumes, even leaving out the mysteries. When I will have discussed the matter with his mate, I will be able to decide what can be revealed. And I will eventually add to these lines. For the moment, I will limit myself to saying that he was of Irish descent, had gotten a very solid high school education with the Jesuits (with Latin and all), after which he had studied business administration to become an accountant/auditor. For a living. His art-loving personality and his generosity were in total contrast with this profession.
My websites, in particular this one, owe him a lot. Without him, they would hardly have made it through all these years. He was the only and total financial sponsor over years of the American part of my little web empire, paying all the bills, either with his credit card or with those marvellous Wells Fargo Bank checks with the Western stagecoach painting on them. And no strings attached!
He was also the one who opened my eyes on American reality, destroying many of my former starry-eyed illusions about Uncle Sam. Thanks to him for that!
We agreed on very many things, had a lot of compatible enough common interests, but our political views sometimes went in opposite directions, I being more visionary, he more practical. His tolerance towards my political eccentricities was astounding. But, all in all, he was a libertarian.
My condolences go to his mate, his sister Patricia, his nephew Robert and the other surviving members of his family I am not so familiar with, to those still alive of his many excellent friends, mainly in Luxemburg, France and the United States, to all those who had the privilege of his acquaintance. Above all to myself, if I may say so.
Of the 3406 e-mail messages in Neal's folder on my present hard disk, not counting the many thousands we exchanged before, the last one received had the simple text "§§§cnb: Sharing!" added to what information he was forwarding to me.
Sharing! I consider this to be the motto of his life.
I will still upload this obituary to my server and then go to bed. It has been a hard day. My eyes need a healthy bath of tears.
Christian Butterbach [July 22, 2003] |
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