I got a letter from a dead woman today. Two weeks ago I learned that a woman that I'd worked with for ten years at the big famous paper store died- very unexpectedly- at 49 years of age.
The news of her death came to me when I was in Scottsdale. We were not close- but we worked next to each other. I knew the names of her sons, remembered when she met the man who became her second husband- heard every Monday in excruciating detail what she had cooked for her family over the weekend. We talked about going to lunch one day. Or taking a yoga class. It never happened. So often I think the universe plants us next to someone who seems to grow independently of you and yet- you share space and cannot help but be affected by that time. Rilke said that we change a room merely by passing through it. How much more can we be affected by sharing a room for ten years. I try and wrap my mind around it but- my brain gives a little squeal of inadequacy to the task and I start compiling a grocery list or answering e-mails.
And today I got an e-mail. This woman had written her family holiday letter. The holiday for her was the Chinese new year and it was your basic family catch-up on all the news, graduations, passings, weddings and the rest. A big year for her as her teen-aged sons had graduated high school and started college, her boyfriend of ten years became her husband and with the passing of older relatives she had become the family matriarch. In her letter she said "I don't know if I can wait until February 7th for this year to end" I shivered as I read that. Is there a voice that whispers in your ear-"better tie up those loose ends". I don't know- my rational mind says not- but there is so much the rational mind ignores in order to get to grocery lists and e-mail. Too frightening by half to acknowledge how much is invisible to the rational mind and how little control we actually have.
Photos, there were- of her wedding, her garden and her honeymoon in China. Her recognition of the simple joys and blessings in her life. And the pride in her sons. The love for her husband, her family. In talking with her day to day I know that there were challenges in loving ALL of them all the time, but love them she did and her words echoed that. Things she missed, things she looked forward to. Now that the time of raising children was passing, that love was found and firm and she had a safe and loving home- she looked outward to the planet and worried aloud as to its fate, outlined ways in which she was trying to help.
It was all little things. Nothing huge- no mention of a Nobel Prize or a cure for cancer or a new job with a blockbuster salary, no offer from Antonio Banderas to run off and be her love slave. She had it. She saw it. And as she wrote, she appreciated it. Her letter ended with an exhortation to celebrate the Lunar Chinese New Year, February 7th.
I try hard to appreciate all the big changes that this year has brought me. And right through our own New Year I still struggled with all the comings and goings in my life. Tonight I was reminded, several times and on the most profound level that all the little blessings make a life for which to be extremely grateful. That insomnia brought on by a strange bed is ok if offset by the opportunity to watch a sunrise on a new horizon. That traffic can be bearable because for the first time in my life I'M driving- and God bless everyone else on the road. That missing someone- is really a testament to finally, finally finding someone worth missing- who misses you right back. That seeing old loves as they truly are doesn't mean you were foolish then- just a bit wiser now, and loving them still, just as they are. And when I went to the vending machine at work tonight- working another late night and pressing the button for pretzels and having the machine deliver a bag of M&M's as a little gift on the side.
My friend reminded me tonight as I spoke of something pressing on my heart; "Remember Zama." she said. And I do. Because even though she is no longer in the room. She effects me still. Only now I am aware. And I can thank her. And that is no little thing. Happy New Year Z.
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