Your Life is Unique and Essential to the Whole

Unique Thumbprint

Recently I attended a ministers meeting at Cedarbrook Lodge in the Seattle area. In the hallway was an interesting art piece, a thumbprint created with the words or qualities that the artist valued. These values were: fair, caring, human, dynamic,and driven. As you can see by the photo, he person taking the picture is in the center of the art. What do you value? Who do you think you are?


Most of us are still in shock with the death of the great comedian and creative genius, Robin Williams. We try to understand how someone who made so many millions of people laugh could not feel that joy himself. We grieve  and we try to understand what we can do spiritually to move through our shock, grief and bewilderment to the experience of acceptance and understanding.

What I am left with is the need to let people know how much we appreciate and love them while we are alive. I am also contemplating the  value of each person's life and how we often mask the pain we are feeling with a brave  face or escape it though some substance such as alcohol or drugs.

What would happen if we recognized that the biggest gifts we have to give, come from our uniqueness?  It is easy to see that no one will replace Robin Williams, but it is just as true that no one can replace any one of us. No one can replace you! You are the magnificence of life and your being is essential to life's unfolding.

Your life is unique and essential to the whole.

Love Never Goes Away

It's painful to lose someone we love so much. I wrote this after my Mother passed away. Since then I have watched my cousins lose their mother and a few more close friends. I never know what to say.

But I do know that love never goes away.

This January I visited my friend Mary. I arrived on her snowy doorstep heartbroken and dearly in need of comfort.

It was three days after my mother died.

I hadn't been to Mary's house in years. But it was filled with so much "Mary-ness" that I felt immediately at home.

Mary told me the story of the "Lightning House." It was a story about a couple who moved into this house, recommended by the wife's father, and after he passed away the most remarkable series of house repairs prompted by lightening strikes occurred. Each time the insurance settlement was the exact amount needed for various emergencies and repairs. The couple was actually so spooked they ended up moving.

Then Mary said ... I wonder what signs you will have from your Mom. I laughed. Honestly, I wasn't ready for any signs and I don't want anything to do with lightning. I just want to get through the day without crying.

I had arrived 30 minutes after her time of death. Flying out from San Diego I had imagined arriving at the Woodridge Nursing Home to sit by her bedside, to set my hand on her pale freckled arm, to have her oooh and ahhh over her sweaters that I had worn for her.

But it wasn't like that. Not at all. I arrived at her room in time to sit by her side, but she was no longer there.

That night I got a Facebook message from a dear childhood friend, Lisa (aka Little Lisa) she had had a dream in which she visited my Mom and I. She said she had a fabulous visit with us in her dream.

I laughed, not cried, I laughed. It was just so typical. Mary and Lisa were lifelong friends. In so many ways my Mom shared my friendship with them, just as I shared her Mom-ness with them. They both loved her and they both understood my loss so completely. It made me feel not quite so alone.

Leaving Vermont on the puddle jumper to our connecting flight out of JFK Darin and I didn't have seats next to each other. I sat next to a woman who shared pictures of her grandson and said she hated to fly. But she was visiting her daughter and nothing would stop her. That sounded like my Mom. She would always say before visiting "I just want to get my hands on you."

Exhausted I leaned against the closed airplane window shade and fell asleep. I didn't wake until we were taxiing to our gate at JFK.

I heard a click click click. I looked over to see pale freckled arms knitting away. The woman was wearing my Mom's shirt. The exact shirt. And she was knitting away.

I shoved my face in my jacket and wept.

But this time I wept because I know now that she's always with me. This time I wept because I just got a little inkling of how much I was loved.

And love doesn't go away.

What is Essential to the Heart

Today my sister called me for comfort; her seventeen year old grandson had been killed in a car accident the night before. I was shocked at the news and felt inadequately prepared to be of service to her. I heard myself saying -- words meant to comfort and yet meaningless really.

Avery was a handsome young man, just preparing to start University this autumn. I prayed with her and continue to pray for her but truly words are not enough in a case like this. 

I know that life is eternal and that Avery's life continues but the fact that he will no longer show up on his grandma's doorstep (in a recognizable form that she can see and hug),  is a cold, hard  fact! I listened to my sister's heart-breaking, sobs of grief. And I cried too.

When I called my mom to let her know, she just kept repeating, "I don't know what to say." Sometimes we feel inadequate and don't extend our heartfelt condolences. Sometimes we tell ourselves that we cannot help make a difference. Yet our very being makes the difference.

It is true of the human condition that we will have times when we don't know what to say. Perhaps there are no right words to say. Perhaps we had never imagined being in such an experience. 

Antoine de Saint Exupery, in The Little Prince wrote: "Here is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

I love this little book and included a portion of it in the video above. Everything that we have taken the time to love, we have tamed and are responsible for. When my sister was a newborn, I remember promising that I would love her and always protect her from life's thorns. I haven't really been able to do that. It wasn't really mine to do. What has always been mine to do is to love her. 

Every guru, spiritual master, minister, rabbi or teacher has taught that everything begins and ends in love. When we are filled with love we are not filled with worry. When we are filled with love, we compassionately care for ourselves and each other. What is essential to the heart is inaudible to the ears as well. We hear with the inner ear.

Come to those moments when your friends or loved ones are suffering,with love, a shoulder to cry on and a listening heart. That will be enough.

When something unthinkable happens, what do you do? How do you handle it?