Monday, May 20, 2013

celebration

We celebrated Tom's life on Saturday.  Friends came from all the corners of the earth and from all the parts of our life. The ceremony was under a big tent on a blue bird day in Vermont.  We faced the woods and the sugar house. The speakers were former students,  child hood friends of our children, his brother,  his best friend and our megs.  We were led in our comments and deliberations by our dear Shin Buddhist friend from Hawaii.  We chanted and prayed prayers of love, grace and gratitude. We sang songs from the Muppets and one about the beauty of firewood.  The kids did a Kalua pig in a stone immu they built in the ground.  It was amazing.  We toasted him under the dark night sky with good scotch around a blazing fire.  Folks came together who had not seen each other in years and years and they came together because Tom and had touched their life in so many ways.  As one speaker said,  all the really important things i learned in life, I learned from Tom.  Others said that Tom was a father when my own was not.   It was glorious and painful.  Some one asked me to explain what happened and how I felt about all this.   As a former boater,  I explained in the most accurate metaphor I know.  Tom had a dangerous mandatory drop, he ran it hard, fast, and with incredible grace and skill.  But in the end it was too much he just lost the brace. 

Only 50 percent of people with his illness survive a BMT.  The disease is rare and treatment problematic.  We gave it everything we had and left nothing on the table. For that I am grateful and proud of us as a couple.  As in life, we paddled hard finessing drops, boulders and keepers. We had one hell of a run.  Now I have to figure out how to paddle this boat solo.  It will be a challenge but one that he would say.. birdie you can do this - how hard can it be?   we will see.

2 comments:

  1. Beautiful, Bird... you captured it all so perfectly. I love that you gave us a chance to connect with your land. I'm missing your garden, your open space, and your wonderful friends and family. And of course, I'm missing you.

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  2. Thank you so much for being among us.. and I am missing you as well ..

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