Trying to Figure out the Parameter of GoodBye

I am on the periphery of saying goodbye these days. An artist is passing into another journey that none of us can tread. She is dying. All of her friends have built this web of support around her. This web extends to those of us who live at a distance via email. Its a spiral of support connecting all involved. Ten years ago I wouldn’t have thought that email lists would serve to connect the living with the dying as they move beyond us. It really is a beautiful process, and though the topic is morbid (excuse the pun), it is profoundly important. What a celebration of life in that in those last steps forward, you are met with a connection of folks supporting one another and you through it.

Like a rain drop falling into a river, a person leaving this world becomes the epicenter of a ripple flowing through all of us. This ripple lets us know how much the person has affected our lives. The process of connecting the people with her and those at a distance is an affect of a very powerful force departing. An artist, playwright, frontline liberation worker against sexual assault, home owner, friendship, laughter, and courage are some of the connectors in her life. As I watch this process between life and the beyond, I have realized that death is not a process of disappearing. Yes, she now has a journey different from us. She gets to see what happens when the body dies and what journey might lay beyond. But on our end, like the rain drop joins the river, her journey disperses into ours.

Of course, this is me just trying to write what this feels like. This is me trying to understand this goodbye that is welling up inside me. ~GG

And C, I hope these words greet you with comfort.