Siblings

                                                                            


On a wintry day in January, 2018, our mother Diane left this gorgeous world. She did so in the same way she did many things: thoughtfully, and on her own, so as not to disturb anyone. We, her multiple children, were en route to see her when she slipped away.

In this way we were forced to switch our plans from saying our goodbyes solemnly and sadly to begin the process of celebrating her life, in the style of a wake, as the wondrous woman and creator she was: of children, of poems, of books, of scholars for whom she served as mentor.

This is about something that happened four months later during our official life celebration for mom, at a welcoming sacred space that felt like "home" that day, The Church of the Incarnation in Santa Rosa, CA.

As we gathered together to sing on behalf of my mother, I kept seeing her aspect in the faces of my siblings and their children. And as others continued to enter the church who shared a history with my mother, I saw her emanating out of their eyes.

As we were settling in to begin the service, one of my elder sisters looked over at me and her eyes opened up hugely like those of a wild doe hoping its youngling would make it over the river safely.

I had a sense that the boundaries around us as individuals dissolved into a webbing of  mutual regard for one another and the fortune we share in having had this extraordinary woman as our mother. And I felt that in some way we all recognized our common internal sense of motherhood and how we must extend it to one another and the world in the absence of our mother.

                                                                 Ubi Caritas et Amor Deus Ibi Est