Today I listened to “Helplessness Blues” by Fleet Foxes on my way to pick up the kids from camp. It’s the song that was on in my car as I drove home late the night of June 29th eight years ago. Eight years ago my head was spinning and the tears were pouring from a source deep in my gut, a wound in my soul. For eight years that song brings back that memory in a very real way, but also lots of memories of Laura, not just the way her eyes met mine right before she breathed her last. Today, as I drove through streets more than a thousand miles away from the road I took home eight years ago, I was relieved to feel the warm tears on my cheek. I was relieved to know that while time has changed much, it has not extinguished my love for Laura.
In fact,
a couple of months ago I found myself reaching for my phone to text Laura. It
was an instinct, but one that I thought faded years ago. It’s been many years
since I had that instinctive thought, but my husband sent me a picture and I
knew she would appreciate it more than anyone else. My husband was on a retreat
with other Episcopal priests and one of the priests showed him a tattoo on her
arm, it was of the Woman at the Well but as a voluptuous pin-up girl. And I
LOVED it and I knew Laura would too. So I reached for my phone, but when I
realized what I was doing and that I couldn’t communicate with Laura through a
text, I smiled and appreciated the movement of the Holy Spirit in such
unexpected ways and places … like through a tattoo on a stranger’s arm. Those
who were in our Bible Study at the coffee shop in Woodville or those who
remember the scripture she chose for her funeral or those who knew her ability
to embrace the sassy woman within … will understand. She was sassy and honest
and sometimes said the thing that made other people squirm. When I say “she” I mean
Laura and the woman at the well. But it wasn’t the kind of “in your face” or “gotcha”
kind of questions that put up people’s walls or make people defensive. It’s the
kind of questions that come from a heart wanting to connect, wanting to
understand, wanting to be vulnerable. The kind that make the walls come down,
that chip away at defensiveness and create an opening for genuine connection.
Time can
change things. And sometimes, as time beats on, we may find ourselves
misremembering, or idolizing or morphing someone we lost. But, I have to say, I
am pleasantly surprised to find that the characteristics and traits that Laura
and I connected through have only become stronger in me. Age has made me
appreciate who I am more and has only lowered any level of intimidation I may
have still had in my early thirties. I ask the questions that sometimes make
people uncomfortable, I love deeply and I crave genuine connection with others.
Those are the places we still connect. I also make tons of mistakes and say the
wrong thing. She did that too and she was honest about it, which made everyone
feel that they could be themselves around her.
I still
miss her. And I am still so humbled and grateful that I got to be part of her
journey. I am grateful that the tears still fall, that her children are now
teenagers and are loved deeply and that I remember her in so many ways and in
so many places and through so many relationships.
