A dear friend died this morning. As I was about to lead a Celebration of Life for a community member, the text came through that my friend was in ICU requesting hospice care. That was two days ago. I feel like I have been hit in the solar plexus.
Years ago, I read Necessary Losses by Judith Viorst, in which she encouraged the acceptance of losses as inevitable because this allows us to engage with all of life more fully. I did not realize how much she had written since then, much of it about the process of aging and eventual death. Her poem “The Pleasures of an Ordinary Life” resonates with me about now. The final verse reads:
“Young fantasies of magic and of mystery
Are over. But they really can’t compete
With all we’ve built together: A long history.
Connections that help render us complete.
Ties that hold and heal us. And the sweet,
Sweet pleasures of an ordinary life.”
My friend had been the most physically active person I’ve ever known. Yet even as her body began to fail her badly she maintained such a peaceful countenance about it all. Though I am comforted by the memory of the attitude with which she approached life, I think what will sustain me is “the ties that hold and heal us, ” the connections “that help render us complete.” I am so grateful to be part of the network of friends that loved her over the years and surrounded and supported her in the final months.
May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter. Shalom, Kate
Hope’s Café Bonus: And a verse from her poem “Happiness (Reconsidered)”:
And on Saturday nights
When my husband and I have rented
Something with Fred Astaire for the VCR,
And we’re sitting around in our robes discussing,
The state of the world, back exercises, our Keoghs,
And whether to fix the transmission or buy a new car,
And we’re eating a pint of rum-raisin ice cream
on the grounds that
Tomorrow we’re starting a diet of fish, fruit and grain,
And my dad’s in Miami dating a very nice widow,
And no one we love is in serious trouble or pain,
And our bringing-up-baby days are far behind us,
But our senior-citizen days have not begun,
It’s not what I called happiness
When I was twenty-one,
But it’s turning out to be
What happiness is.
Hope's Cafe 