Mireille Day

And Jean said, Dear Mireille, I am Jean Kay's daughter and I'm writing to you with terrible news.

My father passed away on the night of the 23rd of December and that we are all beside ourselves with grief.

He had escaped all that, but not his own heart condition.

I think that he was 69, I think, when he died.

And it was like he'd used up all his heartbeats when he was young.

I've wondered that.

In a way, the fact that he died before I'd finished writing the book freed me up.

I mean, I had always intended to write the truth as I saw it.

The fact that he was my friend, I was also a writer and I was going to tell this story as authentically as I could.

It's been an amazing friendship, a friendship that, you know, spanned hemispheres and decades.

My life is absolutely richer for having known Jean and for the places that not only he took me geographically but emotionally and in the writing about him, where that took me too.

I have had other adventures, but these were two of the big ones.