“A Safe Journey into the World of the Unseen”
With words filled with love, emotion and gratitude, Irene Galanou-Boufidi bade farewell to Katerina Giannatou, capturing in her eulogy an entire lifetime of creativity, resilience and service to others.
Drawing on images from the late artist’s poetry and paintings, she spoke of Giannatou’s tireless youthfulness, her artistic and social journey, her profound connection with Kalymnos, her husband Spyros Giannatos and her two daughters, Sofia and Savina.
Galanou-Boufidi also recalled their first encounter on the streets of London in August 1968, when she was an 18-year-old student. That chance meeting grew into a lifelong bond spanning almost six decades of shared experiences and memories.
“Today I do not weep for you; I weep for myself,” she said, describing Katerina Giannatou’s passing as “the end of an era” for everyone who knew and loved her — and for summertime Kalymnos, which will never feel quite the same without her.
The eulogy ended with a final symbolic offering: a fresh bouquet from Kalymnos in every shade of green, a pebble from Massouri and a little seawater drawn from the island’s crystal-clear depths.
The full eulogy by Irene Galanou-Boufidi follows:
“My beloved…”
My beloved,
Bound as you were by human nature, this was the one battle you could not win. And merciless time, which had worked with you and lavished itself generously upon you, stood astonished before the phenomenon of your tireless youth — then betrayed you and severed the thread. Quietly, it unravelled the strand you had wound and unwound so valiantly through the labyrinth of your life for an entire century.
Was it perhaps at the moment when the birds fell silent “on the back veranda” of your own poetry? When the watercolours on the walls grew sombre? At the very moment when something suddenly turned pale in the neighbourhoods of Rizoupoli?
Or was it the hour when the Attic light flickered through the shutters of our Estia, which bears the name of your generosity? Or perhaps it was precisely then that the sea around our island shuddered — there, where the stark shadows of Telendos opposite form strange shapes, the very shapes your artist’s brush captured with such awe?
Life is a meditation on death. “Act of God,” “Hurricane,” “Tremor of the Soul,” “Submission to Fate,” “Erinys” — as the pen of your poetry tells us. And through life, you studied death… Yet every time you encountered it, you gave life a knowing wink. “It is you I want,” you told her.
“A voice” — it was your father’s voice! With your unerring instinct, you knew it. Papa Ilias! He had missed you… Your ever-watchful companion throughout your studies and explorations, and in your artistic achievements. Papa Ilias, more serene than ever, three days after his feast day, struck the semantron — the bell of your life. “Fear the Lord and the King…”
And you — eternal woman, thoughtful daughter, creative spirit and restless mind — weighed everything carefully. You knew that you were leaving behind two worthy branches, tightly bound shoots who, together with the tireless Marina, gave everything they had during the most difficult days. With courage, realism and “the serenity of a decision already made,” you became the wind — a fervour of freedom. With “eloquent silence,” you answered the call.
The clouds lowered in reverence — ah, those clouds you loved so dearly. You touched them with emotion. You passed beyond them. “Clarity.” Gazing upon the unseen, you plunged into the “song of silence,” into time beyond time — you are laughing… Nothing could represent you better. Always outside time in life, and even in death. You departed at your own pace, despite your longing to join the great absent figures of your life.
And we, poor and bewildered, stone figures upon your pebbles, remain behind, listening for the sound of your passing, for the echo of the bracelets of your virtues — blood-red drops upon your fingertips.
Deeply wounded, we remain here, earthbound, mourning the end of the fascinating fairy tale we lived beside you. We remain here, learning letter by letter your vision, your generosity, your passion, your fighting spirit and your Humanity — with a capital H.
Where, truly, did you find that intelligent, inexhaustible, self-deprecating humour? You would search for and single out the most fitting — almost miraculous, I would say — word for each of us, to soothe and encourage us. Because that was your way. Or rather, that was the fragrance of your soul.
Wherever you may be, keep casting your glance upon us — that sharp, yet disarmingly philosophical gaze of compassion. If ever there was a word that was truly yours, an exhortation that defined you, it was that one.
Katerina, can you hear me?
It is that 18-year-old student speaking to you — the young girl who was fortunate enough to meet you by chance one August day in 1968, almost 60 years ago, on the London streets that felt so inhospitable to her.
You were a radiant, accomplished and pioneering woman, the visionary wife of Spyros Giannatos, living amid the seven-year maelstrom. The moment I saw you, the sun rose over the damp loneliness of my world. From that day onward, the image of an honest, courageous woman and fighter took firm and undeniable root in my adolescent heart. We met and met again, and in this way wrote our own small history.
I watched and I learned.
From the classrooms of Kalymnos’ Nikiforeion School to the laboratories of the Athens School of Dentistry. From your artistic apprenticeship with the brush to your married life beside the emblematic Spyros Giannatos. From the maternal tenderness you were denied to the love you bestowed upon your two girls, Sofia and Savina, and with the same affection upon your wider family — always through the sweat of your own labour. From your ideological convictions to your activism and social contribution.
I do not speak in figures of speech, but through the language of your own poetry, using your own codes in my precious apprenticeship — the apprenticeship of our daily communication.
Today, I do not weep for you; I weep for myself. Yes, together with my granddaughters — Stavros and Irene are here — for the hats, the songs and all the amusing moments. They, too, cannot comprehend that the soul of the Armeos veranda is fading away. The end of an era! For them and for all of us, summertime Kalymnos will now be different…
“Day has dawned.” Rest now, our Katerina, in your final berth, in the smallest cabin you ever knew during your beloved journeys to our island. Free. A blue-grey light fills the Aegean sky.
And how can I say goodbye to you? You never liked farewells; they were not in your nature. So I will simply say: have a safe journey. Into the world of the unseen.
Here, I place a fresh bouquet from our island, in every shade of green — your natural and abstract greens. Yes, the green created by the gifted brush of your soul. A pebble from Massouri, collected and decorated by our dear little Sofia as a farewell. And a little seawater, filtered through our eyes.
It was gathered from the crystal-clear depths of our sea.
The words and phrases in quotation marks are drawn mainly from the titles of her poems.
