New Meanings

"When a loved one dies, the process of grieving is a completion that allows us to honor that person's life and claim the wisdom we have gained through the relationship. As we receive the gift of understanding, it transcends time and space, simultaneously gifting the soul of the one who has passed over. Grieving is more than learning to live without a dear one. In many cases we are also required to forgive them and ourselves as we bring the story of the time we spent together to a meaningful completion."

--Joan Borysenko, Pocketful of Miracles



Felix and I went on a lovely, sunlit walk today. The air was November cold, but the sun felt warm and there was no wind. We were headed for the creek, but I decided to stop at the neighbors' houses we were passing to collect goods for the Food Bank. Jon Gerster down the street, in his thoughtful way, hatched the idea of doing a neighborhood food drive when he read in the paper that our local Food Bank was short on donations and inundated with need.

After only four houses, my load was already too heavy with generosity for the stroller's carry basket: I expected I would receive a can or two, perhaps a box of mac and cheese, but everyone gave so much that I needed to drop it off at Jon and Chris's house right away.

I knew what I was going to write in here today after I stopped at Matt and Michelle's house: blessings. It just so happened that Michelle had sat down to read this blog when I stopped in. Strange cosmic mind meld! While Matt entertained Felix by giving him a simulated overland jeep ride in his stroller, Michelle gave me a warm hug and we both teared up. She told me about a woman we both know who decided she wanted a change after years in Bozeman and moved to Pittsburgh. In the weeks leading up to her departure, dozens of friends came by, threw her a party, and gave her farewell gifts. The day before she left, Michelle commented to Rachel that she sure had lots of people who loved her. Two days after arriving in Pittsburgh, Rachel came back to Bozeman, certain that such love is truly a rare thing.

When I think about Elise's death, I almost always picture the fifty-plus friends and neighbors gazing up at us from our front yard at her memorial service. This image sustains me through many a dark moment. One of the things I think binds people together is a shared history. By history I don't mean simply experiencing events, but sustaining each other through the drama of joy or trauma, and more important, through the mundane routine of living with their aftereffects. I'm thinking here of my friend LizAnn's return home from rehabilitation after her spinal injury, where she can count on the continued dedication of friends to, for example, shovel snow from the ramp to her front door, help her dress, retrofit her home. I'm thinking of how my friend Ann became one of my dearest friends years ago, when she called me at 1am in tears because a policeman had just delivered her cat's body to her when it was hit by a car. I'm thinking of when my friend Cara organized a group of girlfriends to gather at Chico Hot Springs a month after Elise's death. We talked until late at night in the lounge outside our rooms, and Cara shared the experience of seeing her elder sister dead at the hospital earlier that year.

When Cara's sister died in June 2006, I didn't go to her memorial service. I thought to myself, Cara probably wants her privacy, I didn't know her sister, Cara has closer friends than I am to be with her...in other words, I was thinking only of myself. A couple of months before Elise died, she invited me to get together, and the first thing I said was that I was sorry I didn't call or send her a letter when her sister died, I was being silly and thinking only of how I felt about whether or not she needed me, instead of just being there for her.

Now we've become closer through the shared experience of losing a beloved. For Elise's birthday, she gave me a lovely card and a pendant that I wear all the time: it has a sweet ink drawing of a little Asian-looking girl on each side. We agreed that it reminds us of what Elise might have looked like had she grown to become a little girl.

And so Elise remains in my life, and blesses us all.