It feels like there has been so much death, and it only makes me want to live better.
I am up because I can't sleep. It is 3:30 am and I have been thinking and dreaming of my husband's cousin that just passed away. She lived on the Big Island of Hawaii, and so there were simultaneous memorial services held here and there.
I am at peace with her death because I know that her life was spent in the most valuable and amazing way anyone possibly could. She is one of those people that set an example for the rest of us. Not just because she gave to others and was an activist. No, that was just one facet of one of the richest lives I have ever had the privilege of knowing.
Her name was Debbie. It wasn't because of what she did per se, or how she lived, it was a combination of that and simply who she was. She excepted people easily and she was so generous that she changed people's lives simply by meeting them.
She was an old soul that had a clear vision about what was important and what was chaff. Her family, friends and her relationship with nature were the things she valued most and she didn't just talk the talk, she walked the walk.
She didn't always live on the Big Island. She started here in Denver and moved to the Seward Alaska area, where she and her husband, lived in a one room cabin, with no running water, no electricity and had her three sons there, raising them off the land. She was one tough lady, and yet when you met her there was never anything but kindness and warmth. They moved to the Big Island 10 years ago and built the house where they live and started a coffee plantation. They lived off the land just as they had done in Alaska. Very remarkable people.
Everywhere I turn it feels like there is another death, whether a stranger, family, or friend, but this one makes me think that the purpose of Debbie's life was to remind me to LIVE.
How can I open myself more to the possibilities of pain and joy while connecting myself to the people around me? That is the deep question that awakens me and keeps me up. I am at peace with Debbie's death, but the way she lived inwardly is something I will always strive to achieve and she lived it easily all her life.
An inward peace that radiates out to affect the people around us without imposing on them in any way. That is not as easy as it sounds, but it is what my ultimate goal would be when I grow up.