The news of Parthenope's death was communicated to the bion97 mailing list by the following message (sent on July 17, 1998) by Mario Perini:
Dear all,
I'm sure many of you already know what happened to Parthenope Bion and her younger
daughter, both dead in a terrible car accident while driving towards Rome on their
holidays. I haven't got any word to say for the moment , I only find all this too cruel
and senseless. I just want to share these feelings of rage and sadness with you.
Mario
Many colleagues expressed their mourning by sending postings to me personally or to the bion97 mailing list. I have chosen to publish here some of them (I didn't edit them and I left them as they were sent to the list), as they can give an image of who Parthenope was:
dear collegues
sometimes the virtual wind of the 'net brings so sad news ... maybe many of you knew her
... I've lost a good friend of mine, but I think we all have lost someone so expecial like
she was ... I'm not able to say anything more ... excuse me ...
Marco Longo (Friday, July 17, 1998 12:55)
Two days ago the dearest among the dears, a sweet and corageous person
faxed me counting five hundred letters she should had sent me and also shared with me our
common love, music, for I had discovered an unknown Brazilian author who studied with
Brahms, and she and Luigi heard the rare CD I sent her. As usual, I was also trying to
help her with a paper that contained more than it should, and she was helping me with my
bad English and with a paper that contained not only more, but ALL that it shouldn't; her
paper is due the be published in Spanish, there were some corrections (she had an eagle's
eye to spot errors, even iof they were written in a languiagen he did not understand!!)m
she wanted to be sure that everything was OK. How could imagine that this was the last
message from her? What I must do with the paper? Oh, pain, oh, terrible pain, how lucky
are the religious people who have a comfort I cannot have, alone with my pain of losing
one of the sincerest and truth-loving persons I ever met in my life? No more, talks about
dogs, about Jacqueline du Pré (her schooldays friend), about zaferano in the
rizzo...about life and our respective families.The dignity and seriousness that she
carried on an impossibly heavy load, a load that more fragile beings would never be able
to carry (we all know that other distinguished psycho-analyts' sibships were not able to),
namely, the paradoxical luck/unluck of being the daughter of a sincere, lovable and lovely
person such as Dr Bion was, will remain as a lesson to all of us. Her daughter
"Trizia" was a friend of my daughter despite the difference of age - her last
gift to me was a course in English!
I think that we will take too much time to realize in full the dimension of the loss of
our dear friend to the Psycho-Analytic movement.
Excuse me for sharing my pain - and thank you, Marco. I connected to the WEB just to talk
with the Colombian editor to see if "Parthy"'s paper was OK, but instead I saw
your warning.
Farewell, dear Parthenope. We all owe so much to you and we could not pay the debt
Paulo Sandler (Friday, July 17, 1998 13:35)
What a terrible, tragic and cruel message ! Was it just a year ago I was
privileged to see and hear Parthenope give her wonderfully acute and subtle paper
"Laying Low and Saying Almost Nothing" in the Torino conference ? It touched me
deeply in its unassuming acuity and depth.
I was so looking forward to slowly get to know better this lady, who understood the
meaning of words and the meanings of silence so well. It is a terrible loss that she is
gone and her daughter with her. I can't find words to express my sympathy towards those
who loved her and now must mourn her.
Felix Mendelssohn (Friday, July 17, 1998
21:46)
[The following message was received on the Psychoanalysis mailing list.]
I am grateful to Marco for letting the list know about the tragedy of Parthenope Bion's
sudden death. I met her only a few times, but I was impressed by her interest and
generosity of time. When I was Director of the Cassel Hospital I got her to come and talk
about her father's ideas. She had a most extraordinary way of talking to us that was
accessible to the youngest of the nurses, and also interesting to the most sophisticated
analysts amongst us. She was immensely proud of her father but also extremely modest in
herself.
I am sure there will be many who feel very sad even though their contact with her was
slight, like mine. It is wonderful to be able to express these sorts of things so freely,
and so immediately, on the list.
Bob Hinshelwood (Friday, July 17, 1998
22:13)
Dear Mailing List:
What a sad news you have given us!
Parthenope gone with her younger daughter...
A life.
Too short an interval between two tragic caesuras:
Of birth and of death.
Robert Oelsner (Saturday, July 18, 1998 01:03)
I first 'met' Parthenope on line, on this list. She was encouraging and
helpful about the paper I was preparing to submit for Torino. When I saw her at the
conference she was so completely 'present' that I noticed her before I met her or knew who
she was, and when we did speak that dignified yet personal presence was even more evident.
She was warm and kind to an unknown stranger, in the midst of great busy-ness. To know
that she is gone is a loss to me -- what a great loss her absence must create for those
who knew her better, loved her and must now begin to mourn.
Diane Cano (Saturday, July 18, 1998 04:17)
To all of us on the Bion List:
As soon as my e-mail screen revealed a series of messages about Parthenope, I felt dread
and feared the worst.
I read several messages from people who had the good fortune to know Parthenope longer and
better than I. But my sadness is profound and my sense of a cruel loss is deep. We met in
Turin and only yesterday to I re-read Taming Wild Thoughts and warmly felt her presence
and intelligence and commitment and once again was filled with appreciation for her
contributions once again. Yet more 'Bionesque' tragedy. It is so hard.
My deepest sympathy to her family and friends and to all of us.
Bob Lipgar (Saturday, July 18, 1998
04:23)
When I arrived a day early at the 97 Bion Conference in Torino, Italy, I
was wandering about the convention center pretty lost. At one moment, a woman, Parthenope,
called out to me, introduced herself, walked me down the hallway to introduce me to her
sister, showed me her father's paintings and watercolors, and directed me to the place I
was trying to find. In those few moments, I found her to be a remarkable woman and, no
doubt, a great analyst, mother, wife, sister, and daughter.
I am grateful to have met her and been at the conference with her and all that were there.
John Stone (Saturday, July 18, 1998
16:26)
Though I have not been on-line with the list in a while because I have
been preoccupied with other things, I was deeply saddened to learn of the tragic death of
Parthenope Bion and her daughter in an auto accident in Italy. I did not attend the
conference and did not know Parthenope, but from everything people have said about her
over the past months, she was a very special, knowledgeable, and kind person. I once
received a very thoughtful note from Francesca Bion in answer to a question about her
husband, and my sympathy goes out to her and other family members and close friends during
what must be an impossibly difficult time period in their lives.
Vic Schermer (Saturday, July 18, 1998 20:37)
Dear List Members:
I know that I speak for everyone in expressing my shock, disbelief, and sorrow over this
tragedy. Parthenope was such a warm, unpretentious, but gifted woman. I was very grateful
to her for her support during the Turin Conference. I'll miss her.
Sadly:
Jim Grotstein (Sunday, July 19, 1998 18:39)
I learned of Parthenope only by reading of her death here.
I was moved by the grief I saw here over and over again. I felt too distance to offer any
comfort. I felt concern for the individuals that knew Parthenope and work so hard and show
so much respect and love in this medium.
I felt that the good here might be lost as an after effect of this horrible tragedy. A
greedy thought but one that speaks to the value of what occurs here.
I cannot comfort family or friends but I cannot help to
have their loss resonate with the tragic loss of a similar
soul, my brother.
(snip)
With you I mourn the loss of all who take the time to bring individuals together for the
sharing, work and experience. Especially the ones we know and love.
Corbett Williams (Monday, July 20, 1998 06:10)
Dear List Members:
Some of you will remember the discussions that members of the list had on death and dying
issues I participated several months ago. I remember how generous Parthenope was with her
comments to the discussions and how grateful I felt that she took time to respond in great
depth and detail.
My work brings me with dying patients everyday and even as I try my best to open my heart
to the task, I need to have a screen that allows me mental space to breathe and be alive.
But when death comes unexpectedly to people you respect, as it did to Parthenope and her
daughter it leaves you in a state of shock in a different way perhaps, more vulnerable to
the fragilities and uncertainties of living. Maybe the greatest thing she taught us was
about was holding that uncertainty - the great void in the midst of shock, disbelief and
pain.
Lobsang Sherpa (Monday, July 20, 1998 06:14)
The news about the accident which killed Parthenope and her daughter is
terribly shocking. For several days I've not been able to find any words with which to
speak of it.
Perhaps my first memory of her was at the very beginning of the list when we were trying
to figure out how to communicate with all the different languages. She kindly told me it
was less confusing to simply write in English than to try to pick out Italian words from
the dictionary! Later in Torino, I met her in person, and also her daughter. Despite her
responsible position with the conference, I felt that she took the time to make a personal
and direct contact with me and I was touched and impressed by this.
My heart goes out to her family and colleagues in Torino and elsewhere.
Also to Silvio, who will receive this terrible news on his arrival home in a few weeks.
Harriet W. Meek (Tuesday, July 21, 1998 14:26)
Dear friends,
I apologize for the lateness of this response; I have been too shocked to respond until
now.
As I read of the untimely death of Parthenope and Patrizia, I stand in awe at the loss of
two individuals that I had the privilege of getting to know and learning to love.
This is what I remember of Parthenope and Patrizia.
It is a story about gifts.
I had “met” Parthenope through online correspondence and arranged to stay after
the conference with her and her family in Collegna. To this day, I can not fathom why
Parthenope want a complete stranger, college student from Vermont with a broken leg to
stay in her home. I think that it points to her great heart and sense of adventure.
With my crutches and backpack, I suppose I wasn’t hard to locate, even in a crowd of
Italians. Parthenope found me, and I use that word broadly as she became my beacon during
the conference.
Afterwards, in Parthenope’s home in Collegna, I discovered another, more intimate
side of her. Still overwhelmed by the tsunami of the conference, I began to relax in the
presence of Parthenope, her husband Luigi and their daughter Patrizia. I remember being
amazed at the level of interest that fifteen year old Patrizia had in American culture as
she and I became close through our discussions of what life was like for my own teenage
sons back home. She was an extreemly talented and well spoken young woman and I am glad to
have known her. It strikes me as horribly unfair that her life is over.
Parthenope herself was simply incredible. Though she too was intellectually exhausted, she
opened her heart and home to me, and it wasn’t long before I felt like a part of the
family. We had long talks about the Conference, theories and her father’s work. I
feel a deep sense of appreciation as I recognize the gift she gave me as she illustrated
the Wilfred Bion’s life through her own perspective.
Though she could have been reserved and distant, Parthenope was the essence of kindness
and compassion as she made room for me in her home and life. I will always have a special
place in my heart for memories of Italy, and Parthenope will always be the symbol of that
experience.
Mary Fiorini (Sunday, August 30, 1998 15:25)
Without a shadow of a doubt.
I found it very difficult to digest the impact of her sudden and unexpected death- let
alone speak of it on the list.
It was, unlike some of the hair-splitting musings of this list, very real - too real.THe
problem of her death could not be solved on the intellectual plane alone. Upon the
nonrational plane, her death appears in symbolic form as a vision revealed to those of us
who are from time to time lost in the blinding blizzard of life.
It helped to take in the responses on the list, but I still could not gather within myself
the psychic energy to express how deep a dilemna, my grief over her death was and is --
the center did not hold and an enormous complex of feelings burst -
sadness,anger,helplessness, meaninglessness and a void opened up and in the void resonated
the deaths of all family and friends who I knew and did not know. A situation where the
knowing had been foreclosed upon.
Then I slowly regained my senses and began to attach the experience to the center of my
self - with the help of others of course.
I was able to transform the feelings and gain a deeper sense of a more durable and
complete self - a self that death does away with and survives in the poetical dreams of
the child. Or to put it another way the self as a symbol of the great work that remains to
be accomplished - that always remains- - woven into the common precarious reality of the
everyday. This list will hopefully continue to comprise a company of others who also
fumble through in an honest effort to more deeply understand O and experience a certain
inner submission to life.
My apologies for this late respone to the death of someone I never knew.
Sanford R. Pepper (Wednesday, October 14, 1998
22:05)
Dear Listmembers,
I came back to Italy (not yet at home, though) a few days ago, but it's only today I feel
I can try to write down some words to the list about the death of Parthenope. I felt (and
still feel) overwhelmed and empty: unable to find any suitable words to talk about it and
thoughts to think about it. That sounded really strange, because I recall - when I was
told Parthenope has died - I thought the friends of the bion97 mailing list were the first
ones I wished to share my mourning with. Actually, I made some attempts to get into
communication with you via the Internet, but I couldn't (Cambodia and Vietnam are not the
best at the moment for what concerns phone lines and modem connections).
I was this morning at Parthenope's home in Collegno, Torino, and met Luigi - her husband -
and Alessandra - her eldest daughter. All what remains of her family. - They asked me to
thank you for all what was written in the last month on this list about Parthenope. They
felt their mourning was shared ... I offered them my personal willingness to take care of
all what Parthenope left from the psychoanalytical and scientific vertex: a lot of papers
and files, creatively and chaotically gathered together in a lot of folders ...
Parthenope had become a very special person, for me. I was very close to her. In those
last six-seven years, her personal project - to study, to develop and to spread out the
work of her father - had become my own too, and I did my best to help and cooperate with
her. That was, for example, the explicit meaning of this mailing list, the Web pages
dedicated to the Bion project and the organization of the Centennial Conference. She
taught me a lot and we learnt a lot together by working in close contact.
I'm designing an Internet Memorial page for Parthenope. I'd like to put into it some
photographs of her, a short biography she herself recently wrote, the full bibliography of
her writings (actually she never prepared it, as far as I know) and a selection of the
mourning messages some of you sent to this mailing list. I'm also considering the
possibility of helping her family to gather all her unpublished writings (papers, notes,
'cogitations' and such) and to publish them. If you have got some stuff that could be
published on the WWW page or in a book, please let me know at my
private address and let me know if you are willing
to make it available (credits will be sure acknowledged). Please share this invitation to
your colleagues not subscribed to the bion97 mailing list.
Much should be done for fulfilling the original project of studying and spreading the
thought of W. R. Bion: this project is the legacy of Parthenope to all of us. And all has
to be done for setting up a comprehensive framework of the thought of Parthenope Bion
Talamo. I will try to redirect my personal mourning towards these aims. I feel you will
help me ...
Thanks,
Silvio A. Merciai (Thursday, August 27, 1998 23:18)