<p>I find myself feeling that we are glimpsing a bit of the future of the world and it is a great view. People from around the world grow to care for a person through her words. When she is gone we are physically/emotionally hurt by our loss. We want to help; we want to do more; we feel bound to one another through our common experience. Our children are growing up in a global world. They talk to kids from around the world and play games with them and get to know them through keystrokes sitting in their homes in front of their computers. Maybe, just maybe, we are headed to a global understanding of one another and will get to care for one another. Maybe, just maybe we are on our way towards a beginning of world peace.</p>
<p>I miss your voice LTS. Thanks for bringing this glimpse of our future.</p>
<p>For all those who want to do something tangible for Late to School, I encourage you to look up your local hospice and become a volunteer. It is a wonderful way to help a family at the end of life.</p>
<p>Thinking about LTS, and especially her D, as she prepares for the memorial service later today in Florida. I was wishing there was one held in the DC area so I could attend.</p>
<p>I only have 6 pairs of red shoes for the collage. I’ll send that if it’s all we have, but would anyone like to include theirs still? PM me for an email address and I’ll try to include yours also. (At least 3 folks told me they’d be sending a photo but I did not receive it.)</p>
<p>If anyone is attending in person, please PM me so I can send you the collage for printing and taking along tomorrow… thanks.</p>
<p>I wish I could accept the death of friends and family with more peace than I do. The haiku, although breathtaking in their beauty and simplicity, leave me feeling sad and empty. The fact is that after 9 years I still miss my dad, and although the daily pain has lessened a lot, I miss the special give and take we had. He was the youngest of nine and in his later years he was filled with sadness at having to watch all of his siblings and friends pass away. Now that I’m older and seeing more and more of my family/friends passing on, I understand how he felt. I think of LTS and her daughter, of my daughter’s friend since preschool who died of bone cancer when she was 15–and it’s just sad. They’re gone, and even though “they live on in our memory” they aren’t here to interact with. I was naively hopeful that I would somehow receive some message from my dad after he passed away, that we could still communicate with each other–but it just isn’t so. Gone is gone. Yes, we have been enriched by their lives, but their passing leaves an emptiness that lingers. I’m feeling very sad today.</p>
<p>–I’m not sure that there’s any reason to expect to be able to “accept death” with more “peace” than you do. As you put it, accurately: “Gone is gone.” </p>
<p>–I don’t read poems, or look to other art forms, in the expectation that they will diminish the “sadness” and “emptiness” that accompany the experience of death. Rather, I look to them, in part, because they help to give shape to that experience.</p>
<p>–William Maxwell, the great New Yorker fiction editor, novelist, and short story writer, said toward the end of his life (when he was well into his 80s):
</p>
<p>–And King Lear, upon discovering the dead body of his daughter Cordelia, said this:
<p>Like many, my thoughts are with LTS and her family today. While I mourn her passing, I am thankful for her generosity in sharing her journey with all of us and humbled by her strength and sheer energy. </p>
<p>epistrophy, thank you for the wreath of poems</p>
<p>I’ve sent the Red Shoes collage below to LTS’s D’s email. If anyone would like to add their images, please contact me and I’ll be happy to expand. (One photo was very tiny and I could not expand it without making it look pixelated, so the pink shoes are smaller than the others but not on purpose. )</p>
<p>epistrophy, thank you so much for the continuing poems. I find them poignant, moving and healing. I think people draw healing from many sources…some with straightforward words, some with symbols and images, some in other ways. I seem to draw from all.
I have been watching some beautiful videos that remind me of LTS’s wonderful spirit. I think they are worth watching.You can find them by searching names moondust (my favorite…I can really imagine her spirit in this one) and … butterfly (love the glamor of the red dress) on you tube. I’m not sure we can mention specific sites, but the beauty of parts of those 2 ads so reflect my vision of LTS’s spirit, that I want to try to pass them on to others. Especially today.</p>
<p>I was in the DC/Baltimore area today for a wedding, and my mind often turned to those who truly were with LTS in life and in her final days…knowing that her memorial service was extraordinary…as she was in life and on this board.</p>
<p>Mootman, the collage is beautiful. I found it to be a moving metaphor for the experience we’ve shared here. The photos are so intimate and yet there are no faces and no real names…</p>
)</p>![http://i79.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/albums/j154/mootmom/RedShoesCollage.jpg[/url]](http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j154/mootmom/RedShoesCollage.jpg%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
