Last Thursday, one of my personal heroes was buried and my mother attended the funeral of a newborn baby. Life and death held each other's glance from Atlanta, Georgia, where 77-year-old Ray Anderson was buried, across the country to San Rafael, California, where a Latin American baby born without a brain was laid to rest.
It happens all the time. People die. But when one of our heroes dies, it hits home hard.
Our hearts become draped in dedication to carry on their legacy, to find that place within ourselves that is most committed to whatever it is we are here to do in this life. Ray Anderson founded Interface, the largest manufacturer of modular carpet in the world. He was one of the boldest ethically based businessmen alive. In 1994 after reading Paul Hawken's book The Ecology of Commerce, he set big goals to be sure his business wasn't responsible for depleting the ecological life support systems his grandchildren depended on. Seventeen years ago, he started leading in a way that most CEOs are still not brave enough to do. Yet for Ray, it was outrageous to not be bold. He set the bar high, and on Monday August 8th he ventured on from his body, leaving a greater charge for those of us who admired him.
Across the continent, my mother Carmen joined the parents of a newborn baby as her tiny coffin was lowered into the soil. When a baby dies, a stream of questions swirls within us, none of which seem to have answers. For 16 years, my mom has been an angel in the lives of pregnant, low-income Latina women living in low-income neighborhoods in one of the wealthiest counties in America. But no birth has ever been quite like this. I'll leave the details out.
What struck my mom most was not the grief experienced when a baby dies. She's faced that many times before. It wasn't how blessed she felt to have been asked by the parents to be the person to carry Baby Genesis out of their hospital room after she had left her body. It wasn't even how the woman's husband never left her side during the entire three-day labor.
It was faith.
Somehow, after living through an experience as grueling than anything I could imagine, the couple never lost faith -- in God. They never lost faith that everything is in perfect order. That their baby is not dead, that her soul still lives, as long as she is remembered. For my mother, the most striking element of the whole experience was the everpresent element of devotion to God.
In moments like these, when life in the body makes its swift transition into death of the body, it is God I ponder most. Ray Anderson was a Christian man as are Genesis's parents. For me, God does not live or have meaning in religion, for I don't believe a religious God exists in the big picture. But the God within each of us, the essence of Love itself, the pure spark of beauty at our core … how do I want to express this spark, most? With this one precious life, what is my way of extending the profound gratitude I feel for being alive? How will I claim my right to be happy, and spill it out widely into the pool of humanity, so that others may more easily choose their joy too?
To invoke extreme courage in us: that is the mark of a hero. To sit beside a woman as she gives birth to a baby who will live less than a day: that is the mark of a hero.
I smile in thankfulness for Ray, for the baby and her parents, and for my astoundingly beautiful mother. The greatest gift I can give back, to do my part in this cycle of giving and receiving -- all of which is love -- is to express the beauty I see and feel in this world. There is great pain too, but having our attention there too long just makes it grow.
We are not of this world, but we are in it. Thank goodness the beauty of the human spirit is infinite.
