Julie Howley

 …… Remembering Julie ……

A record of the messages received on the Group Analytic Forum

The day we learnt that we had lost Julie: 17 June 2019

I am extremely sad to have to relay to you the distressing news of the death of Julie Howley. Her friend and colleague, Yvonne Nolan, informs us that Julie died, peacefully, yesterday.

I know that many of you will, like me, miss Julie’s warm presence in our meetings and lively contributions to the life of our society.
David Glyn
President Group Analytic Society International

fuck you all!
Le gra!
Elizabeta Popovic, Serbia

I have read many comments in this forum that have both disappointed and appalled me, but none quite as dreadful as this response to the terribly sad news of Julie’s death.
Ray Howell, UK

She was my friend and I have no idea who are you!
Elizabeta Popovic

Elizabeta, Julie was my friend too. She was such a special person and I am sure many of us here will miss her deeply. I loved her and have been missing her so much these last years and all the while she has been living with her illness with such dignity and warmth. I’m very sad.
Teresa von Sommaruga Howard., UK

I don’t know who you are either, but so what? Your response to the news of your friend’s death was still crass.
Ray Howell, UK

Dear Elizabeta
I hear Julie’s voice, echoing in your words.
X David Glyn

Yes, I hear something of the sound of the middle finger too, which is currently reverberating in the Forum, something triumphant, better than many psalms sweetly sung.  Surely we recognise the refrain.

Earl, In your opinion Ray. In your opinion! And if you don’t even know who Elizabeta is, I don’t think your opinion is worth very much. She’s very well known on forum. Different people have different responses to tragedies and I suggest it’s extraordinarily pompous and arrogant to presume to judge them in the way you’ve done here without even beginning to understand the nature and meaning of the communication. The crassness here is yours!
Dick Blackwell, UK

When someone says something as strong as “fuck you all” in this kind of context, it’s a reasonable assumption that there is a lot more to the story than we may be able to read at that moment. Worlds of experience and overwhelming emotion related to who knows what. It feels like this is an area where angels might fear to tread…

Entonces, yo piso con cuidado, pero tambien le gra…
Dennis Czech, UK

Dick, You are right. I later discovered that I was being pompous and arrogant and that my earlier comment was misplaced. For that I would like to offer my unreserved apologies to Elizabeta. However, it would be refreshing if you were to recognise and acknowledge your own pomposity, arrogance and tendency to bully on this Forum. I don’t recall seeing any evidence of it in your writings.
Ray Howell, UK

Elizabeta’s cri de coeur response, fuck you all had a second part, the Irish la gra…. which is so important… . Translated it is love, isn’t it? I encountered Julie in the Dublin Shadow, and remember her and feel sad.
Julia Borossa, UK

Goodby our wonderful Julie
Marina Mojovic, Serbia

Julie was fond of poetry. I sent her this poem a year or so ago. She liked it even though it didn’t come from one of the Irish poets she loved and would share with us from time to time. Julie courageously faced death which has been a gift. Thanks Julie. I love you and will miss you.
Dale Godby, Dallas

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
Mary Oliver

Thank you, Dale, for introducing us, too, to this great poem.

The sense of excitement in it makes me think of how lively and oppositional Julie was — how very much her own person. I shall miss her for just that.
Sally Mitchison, UK

I only knew Julie for a short time. We first met on the pre-conference hiker’s group which she had led within Dale’s biking trip of the Berlin Wall before the GASi symposium 2017.

She gave me: Cead mile failte romhat. She gave so much to others and lived life with a real social passion. Whilst only knowing Julie briefly she changed my life.

The St Brigid’s cross I made after reading Julie’s post about the 1 Feb being a feast day. From Julie’s strong connection with ancient Irish history and love of Gaelic has been a gift for me. I made this cross from rushes growing on an English moor a short walk away whilst thinking of Julie and the cancer.

The Irish blessing is one I hold dear in saying goodbye.

The picture of Ireland with boundaries redrawn and filled with figures of women represents my hopes for the Island of Ireland and holds the project we had in mind together.

With deep sadness
Fiona Parker, UK

I loved Julie from whenever I met her back in early 2000’s. The warmest person who accepted no nonsense but gave of herself to others always. Superb singing voice, committed speaker of Irish Gaelic and all things that had been almost wiped out over centuries of distinctly Irish life. I slapped my face to hear this. I last met her summer of 2018, both at her home shared with Sean in Rosslare and later that week in their house in Dublin. So hospitable. The saddest, saddest loss. And how might she be buried? And how to be there?
Kevin Power, UK

I don’t know if it’s sweet or sour but I’m shocked by Julie’s death.
I got to know her first time being together in a small group at a winter workshop at the Institute
many years ago and in the last years here in the forum. So courageous and vivid!
She posted last time at the beginning of April, passionately, in the midst of an argument and not since then.
I had no idea she was ill.
Much more it is that we don’t know about who is carrying what, then we do know..
Anca Ditroi, Israel

I knew Julie, we were friends and worked together for years. I was closer to her during her illness, especially from 2017 on and followed almost daily her last months.
Last year she fought to attend the Foulkes lecture and she, Fiona and I stayed at the same hotel.
She was a nice person, a very good and talented group analyst who had an immense passion for group analysis.
She was strong and sensible, delicate and wise. She had a special character, very honest and bold. She was good at writing. She passed away yesterday, the way she would like, surrounded by her beloved husband and son.
I was speechless yesterday and could not write to any list to inform anyone about her death.
She would HATE ANY quarrel among us regarding herself.
I just want to register to all, how she loved group analysis and how she fought as a lion for her life preserving her dignity while dying…
I will never forget what I learned from her…
it is very sad to lose a dearest friend,
Carla Penna, Brazil

I found a lovely poem Julie sent to the Berlin hiking/biking group on 12 December 2017. I think it’s a good time to read it. A beautiful and apt message from Rainer Maria Rilke:

“Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.
In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.
And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.”

Teresa von Sommaruga Howard, UK x

ohhhh….
Thanks for bringing it forward Teresa.
Much love to all of you who knew Julie intimately.
I loved to read her special Irish kind and courageous energy.
Marit Joffe Millstein, Israel

What sad news! Julie will be very much missed in our shadow events.
Linde Wotton, UK

Sad… extremely sad to know that such a personality and friend and group analyst as Julie Howley has gone. She’ll be missed and thought of with much love and gratitude.
Vida Tija Rakic Glisic, Slovenia

I would also like to add my condolences and expression of sadness about Julie’s death. I only encountered her during the Dublin shadow, but her presence and words, her passionate engagement touched me….
x Julia Borossa

Rest in peace dear Julie, le gra.
Почивај миру,
Стефан
Stefan Cereovina, Kosovo

I am shocked and saddened by Julia’s death. She was such a lively presence. Please add my condolences to the others – how inadequate words are with all this.
Sue Einhorn, UK

She died on Bloomsday.
Kevin Power, UK

Ciao Julie,
Guardo il cielo e ti cerco tra le stelle.
Alice Mulasso, Italy

I don’t know what I want to say about losing Julie. I counted her as a colleague, but more as a friend. We talked many times about life and death and the thin line between. The rage she experienced at the insult of cancer is a link we shared. I smile when I think about some of our conversations – her longing for just a little more time walking by the ocean, seeing Eoin’s life take shape for just a little longer, being with Sean and leaving him alone but also the wish to free him of the burden of her illness. All of these wishes I can understand and they come from a place of intense connection and love. I hope that I have grown stronger and more courageous from loving her. RIP Jules……. I miss you already.
Melissa Black, Dallas

Julie is gone – a relief that her transition went peacefully and without too much pain – a big pain to know, that she is no more. Her smile, her laughter, her humour, her dignity and bravery, her joy to live and to fight, her ability to put into words so many delicate issues.

Thank you Shari for the picture – that’s so much Julie, who loved the seaside so much. And thank you all, who have posted poems – they are so enriching. I regret not being able to contribute poems in English. Just one line (in my clumsy translation) from the Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad: “Remember the covey – the bird is mortal”.

My sympathies go to the family.
With sadness
Regine Scholz, Germany

I would like to honour and express my sadness at Julie passing – she loved participating in the shadow group. She enjoyed so much meeting her European colleagues and brought her great knowledge, generosity and intelligence to the gatherings. She will be sorely missed.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.” / “May her soul be on God’s right hand.”
Kind regards,
Maryrose Kiernan, Ireland

Julie and I performed after a workshop. She changed the American song Lazybones sleeping in the sun how will you get your dams work done to me I curled up in a wheelbarrow.

A lot of fun for us all. Her idea.
Malcolm Pines, UK

This poem is actually worth learning Spanish for, or at least the trouble of finding a decent translation. Neruda at his best.
Dennis Czech, UK

Si de pronto no existes,
si de pronto no vives,
yo seguiré viviendo.

No me atrevo,
no me atrevo a escribirlo,
si te mueres.

Yo seguiré viviendo.

Porque donde no tiene voz un hombre
allí, miz voz.

Donde los negros sean apaleados,
yo no puedo estar muerto.
Cuando entren en la cárcel mis hermanos
entraré yo con ellos.

Cuando la victoria,
no mi victoria,
sino la gran Victoria llegue,
aunque esté mudo debo hablar:
yo la veré llegar aunque esté ciego.

No, perdóname.
Si tú no vives,
si tú, querida, amor mío, si tú
te has muerto,
todas las hojas caerán en mi pecho,
lloverá sobre mi alma noche y día,
la nieve quemará mi corazón,
andaré con frío y fuego
y muerte y nieve,
mis pies querrán marchar hacia donde tú duermes, pero seguiré vivo,
porque tú me quisiste sobre
todas las cosas indomable,
y, amor, porque tú sabes que soy no sólo un hombre
sino todos los hombres

If suddenly you don’t exist,
if suddenly you don’t live,
I will continue living.

I do not dare,
I don’t dare write it,
if you die.

I will continue living.

Because where a man has no voice
there, my voice.

Where the black people get beaten
I cannot be dead.
When my brothers go to jail
I will enter with them.

When victory,
not my victory,
but the great victory arrives,
Even if I am mute, I must speak:
I will see her arrive even though I’m blind.

No, forgive me.
If you don’t live,
if you, my dear, my love, if you
you’re dead
all the leaves will fall on my chest,
it will rain on my soul night and day,
the snow will burn my heart,
I will walk with cold and fire
and death and snow,
My feet will want to go where you sleep, but I’ll still be alive,
because you loved me about
all things indomitable,
And, love, because you know that I’m not just a man
but all men

I feel sadness we lost Julie. I wish I had a chance to know Julie better but I was aware of her struggle with her illness for a long time. I admired her courage to carry it. I wish Julie found that peace after all.

All the best,
Tija Despotovic, Serbia

May you rest peacefully, Julie.
Love, Martha Gilmore and Haim Weinberg, Sacramento, California

O Great Spirit
whose breath gives life to the world
and whose voice is heard in the soft breeze:
We need your strength and wisdom.
Cause us to walk in beauty.
Give us eyes ever to behold the red and purple sunset.
Make us wise so that we may understand what you have taught us.
Help us learn the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock.
Make us always ready to come to you with clean hands and steady eyes,
So when life fades,
like the fading sunset,
our spirits may come to you without shame.

This is a picture taken at the Hill of Tara, during a trip in which my family and I spent time with Julie, including an evening in a pub, where Sean and Eoin’s band was playing. I think the picture capture’s Julie’s ability to hold joy, sadness, beauty, pain, and creativity, as did this moment of time.

with love to all the Howleys
Anne McEneaney, USA

I only had the sad news of Julie’s death today. It hurts me deeply. She was the kindest and most wonderful person, and we all loved her. I’m bidding her farewell with the words of another great lady who has just left us.

Dame Vera Lynn, whose song We’ll Meet Again became an anthem of hope and resilience during the second world war, has died aged 103. Lynn’s wartime popularity was boosted by the signature song released in 1939 and written by Ross Parker and Hughie Charles. Its wistful melody and determinedly optimistic lyrics – ‘I know we’ll meet again some sunny day’ – proved powerfully uplifting for departing soldiers, and it has endured as the defining song of the British campaign. It re-entered the UK charts this year at No 55 amid the 75th anniversary celebrations of VE Day. https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=share&v=6X1D2h8AheU
Juan Tubert-Oklander – Mexico