Thank you, Michele
Thank you, Michele, for making my friend “whole,” for sharing your smile and your infectious laugh, for asking “how are you doing?” and really caring about the answer, and for forcing those who met you to look deeper into themselves, even when that wasn’t comfortable–holding their hands as they looked.
You were unique in many ways. Challenging, but not obnoxious. Serious but not stuffy. Committed but not inflexible.
I learned some lessons Friday at your memorial that I don’t understand yet, and may not for a very long time.
I’m not sure how seriously I had considered reincarnation and past and future lives, but I thought about it a lot on my 9 hour drive home. I had heavy doubts about whether such a thing as a “soul” existed, but the appearance of a single monarch butterfly when Mark and I were alone by your pictures that flew a figure eight around our heads, hovered over what we had laid out in memorial for you, then disappeared…and the gust of wind that came 1/2 way through the bag piped “Amazing Grace” that pushed over the floral arrangement and both of the framed pictures without damaging either makes me wonder.
I didn’t say goodbye Friday, and I won’t today, either. I don’t believe that your leaving us physically meant you have left us. You gave of your life until the last day, and we will carry that on.
Or another way:
豊かな生活によっては住み、よい死が死んだ
Pete Van Dyke