Remembrance

It was time to switch from the summer purse to the fall/winter purse. Which also means cleaning out and often finding lost or unexpected items. Crumpled down in the corner of a small, zippered compartment I found a smudged sticky note that I realized I had been carrying around for over two years. Scribbled on the note were the words I said with sisters Martine and Pamela when we dispersed Cullen's ashes and remembered his life. We shared a beer and launched many flaming origami boats into the creek in our version of a Viking funeral. I wrote an acrostic, the first five letters denoting qualities I admired in him, the final letter representing what I suppose is the ultimate mystery.   

As we return to the Earth that which remains of your physical self, I am reminded that we don't have souls, we are souls. We have bodies and when we are finished with them we must move on. But we will never forget what passed between us in this life and will no doubt recognize each other when next we meet. The following, dear brother, is what you left behind with me.

C - Courage. How you grew into a wonderful, generous, kind man with no role model.

U - Unrelenting optimism.

L - Lightness of your humor.

L- Love. That touched so many.

E - Your understanding of the Essential and dismissing what was extraneous.

N - Knowledge that you now possess of what is Next after this world.