My last email from her, like most everyone else probably, started out “Hello everyone,” followed always by some message we needed to hear. We are a group that is generally stressed by working crazy hours and so we all needed her. We needed to have reminders of simple things sometimes, delivered in gentle, supportive ways. This is due in two days… this is due in one day…Did you get my message yesterday that this was due today. She was so patient. We were so needy. For eight years she has always been there for us.

 

She is young. When she started this was her first “grown up” job I would guess. We have word today that she has died. If you add eight years to a "first grown up job" it equals "much too young" and not an outcome that anyone ever thought of. We do not yet know how or why.

 

We work in the field of organ donation. We work on behalf of the dying, to keep them living, by talking to the living about the plans of people that are dying. We know this by heart, this work. What loss is. We see it all the time. We are moved to tears by it. And yet, we are feeling this, all of us. This we are feeling. Stunned.

 

She was so lovely. She had a beautiful smile she aimed right at you whenever you saw her. She would widen her eyes and keep her lips closed, ready to laugh if she was amused by your story. She would laugh quickly. She was organized. She sometimes had candy on her desk. She would tell you when her boss had better candy available on his. She had copies of papers you might need before you asked. She showed me Etsy one day, years ago. She loved pretty things and she dressed in pretty clothes and on certain days you would remember how beautiful she was. She was not one to always call attention to it. So some days it would strike you and you would try to remember to tell her when the meeting ended. She was sweetly quiet.

 

She planned parties at the office for engagements and weddings and the babies of others. She collected Christmas money for our group gifts to bosses carefully in an envelope for us. I wish we had held a party for her. So far a life event had not happened for her that called for celebration. That seems for sure to be a life too short. Only now is there reason to celebrate her life. How could it have happened this way? 

 

I was just with my mother and while there we had talked about the custom in my great grandmothers time of not leaving a loved one alone when they died. My own great grandmother, when I was a little tiny girl, had died in her home and was not moved until the next day. Her adult children and spouse took turns sitting with her body overnight as it lay in the dining room. I wished that we knew her family and where she was, as I know many of our team would have been comforted to honor this sweet woman this way, our friend. For we are her work family. Many of our team saw her five times a week for years; had more lunch salads and sandwiches with her than her family might have since she was a girl. She is a part of all of our days for eight years and we are now touched with the sweetness of that.

 

I did not want you to be alone today, dear sweet friend. I wanted to gather with certain others and care for you and wrap you and wait while beautiful music played and candles flickered. We do this for all our families. Mostly the music and candles are just in our hearts, but still. It seems we are missing something not to be able to do it today, for you.

 

We will all leave this lovely earth and so we must really truly live and love in a big open way while we are here. Don’t hold back! Keep your love of others big and bold. Never let people wonder if they are loved by you!

 

I do not believe in rest in peace, I believe in dancing and singing and flying about when we leave this world. I believe everyone leaves at the right time for them, somehow, even as we cannot understand.

 

Maybe Helen Keller shines a light by showing us a way we might see this, for surely we need some inspiration. So thank you Helen Keller, for your uplifting thoughts about your own death:

 

“Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there’s a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.”

 

See how much we loved you, dear Jen.

We hope you can see how much you meant to us.

 

MLR

Holidays bring out the whole spectrum of happy to sad in people. I almost think it would be helpful to know where others stand. What if we had lapel pins, numbered one thru ten. In a perfect world, we would have them; "1” would mean you wanted to skip the holiday all together, as you were not feeling it. “10” would mean you were joyful and exuberant. 

Waiting for the bus, or riding up in an elevator, wouldn’t it be comforting to see another “2”? 

“Are you getting through it?” you could ask, nodding toward their pin. 

“Just barely,” might be the answer. 

“I am glad to see another ‘2,’ ” they might quickly add as the bus pulled up, for they did not want this tiny flicker of companionship to end.

With just the comfortable ease of common numbers you might sit together. 

You might get off of the elevator at the same floor.  

 

Meanwhile the “10’s” would meet and exchange new cookie recipes, share idea’s for perfect pinterest posts, and part with energy levels raised to new heights by contact with each other.  We envy the “10’s” sometimes, on bad days we despise them, and yet we love them.

 

 

The world is not perfect and we do not have lapel numbers, and so we are walking around all year, a jumble from one to ten. How do we care for one another? How do we comfort one another when we are feeling so different? 

 

Perhaps the key word is “acknowledge.”

 

We can serve others by acknowledging their emotions, from the "10's" who seem so very happy to the "1's" that need a quiet, dark spot.
 A few weeks ago I was shopping in a Homegoods store. Nearby there was a quiet woman who was blandly looking at clothes on a rack. She paused her looking to answer her ringing cellphone. Suddenly her face lit up. She was a different person. “That is such wonderful news! I can feel how thrilled you are from here! Oh I am so glad!” Her happy welcoming of the callers good news had changed her completely. When something good happens it is such a gift to have someone gush about it with you. Hearing her made me happier, and I bet the caller knew they was calling someone who would enjoy happy news. Try being a “gusher” next time you hear something good.

 

 

What do we say when someone is going through tough times, or when someone has died?

 

I treasure the following little story, which is the purest acknowledgment of a sad event that I have ever come across. 

 

A lovely friend of mine is raising a sensitive, caring little boy. Sensitivity is something that his mother teaches every day by her example. Children learn so much from just watching. He is learning how to “be” from his lovely mother. I will call her “Lovely.”

 

A second mother arranged a play date for her little boy with Lovely’s child. 

The second little boy had just had a death in his family. The second, sad mother had wanted him to have some play relief with a friend. She was not looking for a rough and tumble friend though, but rather a friend that might be sensitive to his needs at a sad time. Second mother called Lovely and they made a plan.

 

As she drove him to the play date, Lovely only told her own son that his friend might be sad. 

She did not explain why. 

The play date occurred. When Lovely picked her son up, the sad mother expressed her thanks as it went so well and had been so good for her son. As they were driving home in the car, Lovely asked her own son how it went. 

 

"He told me his stepfather died," sensitive son answered.

"What did you say?" Lovely asked.

"I just fell to the ground."

 

He stayed on the ground, and sad friend stood. When he was ready he got up and life went on. They just played. 

 

What a gift, to show such pure empathy, to allow his body to demonstrate what his spirit felt. There were no words, there was just a holding of grief space for a time that felt right. How good it must have felt to have a little time with a sensitive friend.

 

Our "numbers" shift by day and season, for many different reasons. We have all worn all the numbers. May we all be sensitive friends to each other, in the best of times and the worst of times.

I live just off route 611 and a few years ago there was a plane that used the highway to crash land. It occurred right there where 611 intersects with 313... And there is a car dealership right there .... And this was daytime so the buildings had employees and customers. They were startled to awareness when they heard a plane engine somewhere above that sounded all wrong. They ran to the big tall giant windows and instantly knew the struggle of the pilot with that sputtering, coughing engine. The plane never seemed to gain proper height and now it wheezed lower and lower, approaching the highway with intermittent cars in both directions. There were people that could be suddenly killed by simply driving, unknowing, each side of the highway. Coming down, the small plane hit wires and broke in half and collapsed down with scrapes, crunches and thick black smoke.



And the people in that car dealership, who had stood at the window and had seen another human struggle, saw the smoke and knew the danger and perhaps hopelessness the pilot faced ... what did they do?

As one, they moved. Like schools of fish they darted about. They ran for fire extinguishers. They ran for buckets and their fastest source of water. They ran over to the courtesy area and grabbed bottles of water and ran toward the accident. 



How beautiful is that. We talk and hear about our differences all day as if that is all there is. 

When we have to act fast, we just love one another.

I am not sure how to get to where you are from here. And yet I know today you might be needing something. So I have a little boat that can cross the sea. I have a pigeon that can carry a basket and fly across mountains. I have a little cart pulled by two companionable oxen that can tirelessly travel the roughest roads. Listen carefully over the next few weeks and you might hear the bells they like to wear around their necks, as they get closer.

For all you need to do is expect that relief is coming. Anticipate that things will be better when your package arrives. Feel hope, imagining that even before you needed something, what you needed was on its way to you. 


What will you find? There is a handmade mailbox filled with notes from everyone that has loved you, the living and the dead. The notes are reminders of wonderful moments and how much you mean, or meant and still mean, for even if people are “gone’ they still touch you in a breeze. Some notes have dried tears on them. They are always tears of happiness though, even if we would not think it so. There is such love in these notes. Just imagining what they contain fills my heart up.  Think about who might have written.  What might they be remembering about you? I wonder what you would write to them if you had a chance.

What a lovely idea, to write; for eyes that can still drink in your words or the breezes that might dance across each letter on a page.  The breeze might even take the page home.

 

I have sent you three Paperwhite bulbs, in a little pot with some pebbles from your favorite place. At first only the pebbles will please you, how they feel, what they make you think of. They bring you to a place you love. The bulbs look lifeless, brown, uninspiring. But once they hear your voice and are within your sunshine, once they have been greeted with some water to quench their thirst, they will begin to send out little roots. They will begin to send out green arms, reaching up to wave at you if you spend time with them. They will rise, taller and fuller than you could imagine. They will bloom, and you will try to name the beauty of their fragrance to your friend who has a stuffed up nose. You will breathe deeply, trying to describe this simple thing, and finding it impossible. All this was within those dormant bulbs. It had been so hard to see any possibilities in these bulbs. That such beauty could come from such bleakness might make you smile.

 

Oh, an orange too, you might think as you shift it in the box. It might take a bit until you see it. For here is a beautiful orange. Your hand will naturally cup around it. It is as bright as the sun and as round as the earth. Why are they always so perfect I wondered, as I thought to put it in your package. It comes with its own protective covering so that I know it can travel, its little sections secure side by side. It is safe even though each section contains hundreds of fragile little pillows of liquid. It will not leak. Your mouth might water on the day you start to peel it. Your eyes might rest on the beautiful color, your nose will be eager, your mouth ready even as you read this, even though the package is only on its way. Your hands will be great tools and will remember how to open it. Oranges are easy to share.  You can share sections with a companion be it a man or beast. As I packed it, I sent with it the fun of my own dog when I share an orange. He takes his piece gently from my hand, as if he remembers what a miraculous treat it is. As if he is honored to share.

Oh dear friend, what else might you be needing? For if you are reading this, there is a package making its way to you. I am almost done with what to put inside, just a few more things… I added a box of new crayons yesterday, and a sketch book and pencils, for I have always loved your creativity. I am surprising you with an instrument, so that you will play and sing. I have filled the box with reminders to dance more, move your body with pleasure. Hiking shoes, a stick from the woods to walk with, wool socks and a scarf knit stitch by stitch with love…The boat, the oxen, and the pigeon are all excited. They know who they will be seeing. They are so ready to surprise you. Is there anything else you want me to put in? Send me your wish on the next breeze. Stay hopeful. Feel the ease of knowing that something is always on its way; something is always on its way, no matter what.

 


Book pages with illustrations are from "The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet" by Reif Larson