Dear Editor,
I was an ardent reader and admirer of Ian McDonald from my childhood, long before the internet, when newspapers were our daily window to the world. While others simply wrote about events, Ian painted life itself. His canvas was made not of colours but of words – words of extraordinary beauty that nourished the heart and reached deep into the soul.
He possessed a rare gift: the ability to write with remarkable simplicity while expressing profound truths. Almost every sentence carried the weight of a philosophical reflection, the kind of thought you wanted to underline, cut out, and keep with you for the rest of your life.
Among all the places he loved, none seemed to capture his heart more completely than the Essequibo River. He visited it often and wrote extensively about its majesty, its serenity, and its timeless beauty. Through his writing, generations of Guyanese came to see the river not merely as a body of water but as part of our national soul.
I saved many of his articles over the years. Even today, I return to them when I want to slow down, reflect, and be reminded that there is still beauty in this world if we take the time to notice it.
In the later years of his life, well into his nineties, Ian wrote frequently about mortality. Yet he never approached it with bitterness or fear. Instead, he wrote with remarkable grace and quiet acceptance. His reflections seemed to say, “I do not want to leave this beautiful world, but I know I must. What a privilege it has been to have lived here and loved it so completely.”
Few writers have ever summarised the closing chapter of life as beautifully as Ian did.
One evening, while staying at his vacation home along the Essequibo River, he wrote these unforgettable words:
“After all these years, I look out on the great river as night falls and the stars begin to blaze, and I think how these visits will one day have an end. As the waves sound endlessly on the sand and black rocks and the wind jostles in the darkening trees, I find I am not sad. I know in my imagination there will always be one last visit, and again I will see the gleam on the restless water and feel the pure wind on my face and look up once more at the widest sky in the world as day-end gold gathers in the clouds, and I will hear again the small sounds of the birds settling for the night and the big noise of the universe all around me, and the beauty will never seem to end, and it will be the best visit of them all.”
Those words remain one of the most beautiful meditations on life, nature, and our inevitable farewell that I have ever read.
Ian McDonald has left this world, but writers like him never truly disappear. They continue to live in every page they wrote, every mind they inspired, and every heart they quietly changed.
I miss Ian deeply. Guyana has lost one of its greatest literary voices, but his words will continue to flow as endlessly as the Essequibo River he loved so much.
Rest in peace, Ian McDonald. Thank you for teaching us not only how to write but also how to see.