Dear Neighbors

Dear Neighbors,

I hear you, the way you speak to your children, Lucy and Henry.
You speak to them, not at them. You put yourselves
in their shoes, stepping
into their perspective
"You really like picking flowers"
inviting them to choose respectfully
"It's considerate to ask someone before you
pick their flowers"
hearing, listening to them as your equals
"But Dad, these flowers are dead..."
"It's still important to ask, Lucy"
and she asks
and the dance goes on.

You give them so much space
to be themselves
to be
the perfection that is
every child
and then, when they insist
on firmer boundaries
you aren't afraid of honoring that request too.
"Alright, then you need to spend some time
in your room"
which I also hear as a way to honor yourself
when you've given all you can.

I'm over here in the house next door
my daughter half the age of your young son
admiring you
soaking it in
grateful to see loving and clear
communication alive and well
between parents and children
feeling affirmed and supported in my own
parenting journey.

The love that you give to your children
is changing the world. It is
landing on me and it is landing
on my daughter.

Thank you,

Jessica

To my Light Girl

My dearest darling Lusa,

This morning as I held you, your heart stopped beating. The vet gave you a sedative so you'd be really relaxed and I held you, cried and kissed your sweet soft fur, and she returned with the euthanasia injection that ended your life as we know it. 

I know you came to me from Light. I can't remember if I had your name picked out before I found you but I knew I wanted a very smart dog, one that was medium sized, one who would teach me how to find "play" in my life. I had struggled with feeling I didn't play enough in life and felt I wanted a dog who would remind me to play. I gave you a name I made up, Lusa -- Light Girl -- and later found out the root of "lus" actually comes from "play" in Latin. 

We had many long days of play in our years together. From the early days at Upper Butte Creek with Chris Trowbridge when I could still hold you in one hand and you'd fall asleep on my belly rafter tiring out learning how to swim... to the days spent with Don's dog Gus on the river dock diving or canoeing... and at the beach in Baja, endless sand play with our friend-and-dog tribe... to our time in Chico on bike rides in your own special Burley trailer, because once you were about 8 years old you could run for about a mile before you'd get wiped out and "load up" in the trailer I pulled with my bike… to the way you greeted me when I returned from India after being gone a month and I whistled your special whistle and you came running and wiggling around the corner like a firecracker on a ranch… to the days we spent living in San Diego and frolicking on the beach in such pleasant sunshine… to our last road trip together, the one we took before Helena came because I knew we'd want one last road trip together, just me and you, before the baby came.  

Gosh, I am so thankful that when I was with an ex and he didn't didn't like you and I tried to give you herbal doggie downers to calm *you* down, I eventually realized you weren't the problem; my relationship with him was. Thank *god* I didn't let you go back then. We had far too many wonderful times to share after that. You weren't a problem. You just wanted to play, to dance in the sand, to answer my commands. You were giving me clear signals I'd hear if I listened. 

I was your job. 

Life started shifting a lot in 2011 when Hjalmar came into our world. He had Rosco and I had you and we were both deeply devoted to our dogs. With Rosco, our pack felt complete. You tried to keep me for yourself in some ways, snarling at Rosco when he'd come near me for affection, trying to cut him out of my path, letting him know you were Alpha dog. And you were. But then a couple weeks ago I noticed that dynamic start to shift. I sensed he wasn't playing the same role with you and I wondered about it… Were you feeling OK? Were you depressed?

Then last week one day I looked at you and you looked skinny. Not just depression skinny… because that, perhaps, could pass now that Helena was growing less delicate and fussy on walks… but sick skinny. So I took you to the vet and sure enough, you had liver and spleen cancer. 

Had I felt you still had years to live, I might have considered surgery. But Lulu Bird, as we both know, we had been having conversations about your life, and how long you would stay. There was such a dramatic shift when Mama had a baby, it was like all of a sudden you weren't my #1 baby girl anymore, after almost 14 years. This hurt for both of us. And the new baby clung to my chest all day long. You felt the huge transition. It would never be the same for us. I would never be able to guarantee to take you out every morning for leash-free time in Lower Park to heel me, sniff and swim. I would not be able to take you with me on errands and bike rides as much as before, on days when often my top priority was to get you out to play... was your well being. Now Mama had a human baby and she became my top responsibility. 

You could feel the beauty, and that we wanted her in our lives. So you didn't protest or ever express dismay at the baby, but you definitely knew life was different now. It wasn't as fun as before, and one day when Mama was tired I even got upset with you and shoved you back in the cottage when you tried to get out. I feel horrible about that Lusa. I'm sorry. You must have felt so abandoned and, in that moment, unloved. 

Yet overall, my girl, you lived an extraordinary life with me. I weaved my world around you, taking you everywhere I could, prioritizing your well being often more than I prioritized my own, working from home with you at my feet, arranging for friends to take you out on hikes and walks when we were in Sweden, feeding you really good food. 

But the most beautiful thing about us is that I knew you were perfect. Queensland Heelers are a special working breed. You are bred to herd cattle. You're one of the smartest dog breeds and that's mostly why I got you, why I chose *you* out of all the dog breeds in the world… I wanted a dog I could deeply connect with, so intelligent you wanted to constantly learn from me, have me train you, communicate with me often and well. You were all of this. Highly trainable, pretty well trained, and only pesky when you wanted someone's attention and your DNA told you to nip their ankles to get it. 

Someone once suggested I train that out of you. That's like trying to train a chicken not to lay eggs. I loved you 100% and I liked you 100%. The people who don't like Heelers or didn't like you were like water off my back. I couldn't care less... What. So. Ever. You were perfect exactly as you were. 

Somewhere in my spiritual awareness I know we are not our bodies; we are Love. We are thought, walking around in physical form appearing to have an experience. But right now my baby Pesa, my Louie Bird, I feel so sad that your body is no longer with me. I can only begin to fathom being as loving to others as you were to me, as present to serve, as open to joy, as constant… here for me… here for me… here for me. I liked my life with you in it. I don't want to go to the park without you. 

Today your heart stopped beating as I held you in my arms. Baby girl, our years have been my favorite years. Our love has been my favorite love. And you will always be my perfect, favorite Lusa love. 

Thank you forever~

Mama

To my baby girl on Mother's Day

Dear Helena Beam,

I had no idea
Well maybe a distant sense
Of what "in love" meant
Before you arrived

I'd heard parents and teachers
"Invest in the children"
If only we did, they said, we'd have such a brighter world

I'd felt blissed-out delight
While dancing in the sand
Or to Michael Jackson in my living room
Felt that infinite wonder feeling
That "anything is possible" feeling
An echo of a beautiful world inside my chest and bones
A world babies are born knowing

You smile when you sleep
In between breaths, a dream
Surfaces joy on your face
It lights up even with your eyes closed
You know this world of freedom
Rainbows and ripe peaches
Ribbons in the sky

And as I watch you
I become devotion itself
Here on Earth for only one purpose
To love you
To see to it that
When you stir in the night
You don't need to scream and sob to be heard
When your belly senses hunger
You open your mouth to find just what you need
When you open your eyes
There is light there to greet you
And your ears
They aren't troubled by loud noises and voices
And your skin
Feels the decadence of my love for you with every single touch
No hurry, no forcing, if I can instead be 
calm and allowing, following your 
natural rhythms rather than
The fabricated speed of life 
forced fast
For an economy that doesn't even 
make life better anyway

I'm not fooled by the claims
That say I should "toughen you up"
Does the wind toughen up flowers or
Simply blow with them?

I am here to love you
Not by the book
But by heart

So I see now
it starts with the children
I see that in a loving world
Every moment of a human life
From baby emerging, into
Every patience generating moment after the next

We are, at our best, here to create
A world where children thrive

In this world, my inner child thrives too
And the innocence thrown away
By so many adults is
Reclaimed, as wounds heal
Regrets dissolve
Watermelons fill the fields
Of summer mouths

Here, in our living room
Your warm face rests on my chest
Your body curls around me
Tuning into Mama's drum beat heart
And you know
Little one
That you've made me a mother
And that I can never stop thanking you
And that the oceans must grow deeper now
To make room for all this love I feel

Mama

Dear Baby-to-Be

Dear Baby-to-Be,

It's past noon and your daddy and I are still
in bed. When I woke up and asked myself,
"What would make me happy right now?"
I got inspired to set up our baby registry for you.
You'll emerge in just three months and
we are all blissed out
imagining life with you.

As soon as your daddy woke up he made me
hot tea of raspberry leaf and nettle
both super-power-pregnancy plants.
His bike outside beckoning in full view
from our bedside French doors, he is perfectly content
instead right by my side

imagining life with you.  

Pure wool baby blankets
organic cotton rompers with tug boat
flower and mushroom prints
luxurious chamomile and almond oil baby cream
glass baby bottles for when Mama's not around to feed you
and because we'll keep on doing our best to
love ourselves really well
while you're in my womb and when you come out
prenatal and postnatal massages for both of us.
You move a lot when Mama gets massaged.
It's like you're saying,
"Good job Mama! You loving you is good for me too."

We'll be riding bikes together through the
sycamores and oaks of Bidwell Park
beside the rushing creek, beneath the wings of songbirds.
Your daddy found the baby bike seat he likes and now
he's cooking us breakfast.
Baby, it just cracks me up. It's like a movie sometimes.
Every day with him, I still think I'm dreaming.

We are already so in love with you.

Love,
Mama

Corporate Surprise

Dear Sports Car Driver Guy,

It was one of those moments when I set aside my
"I only drink coffee from independent coffeehouses"
cappuccino connoisseur hat and
pulled into the drive-thru at Starbucks

Dogs in the back of the station wagon
ready for our morning hike
I pulled in for a little
they call it tall
foamy vanilla latte
then almost pulled right out
poorly planned parking lot
cars all mashed in a line
some stuck in their spots until
some other drive-thru caffeine fiend
budged

You were parked
trying to reverse and, I thought, leave.
So I reversed, freeing up some car claustrophobia
making space for you but instead
you pulled into the line
right in front of me.

I didn't care, I totally didn't care, and for a second
I wondered why until I remembered
I was headed for a hike with my
two marvelous dogs
I have a baby growing inside my
healthy womb
I have a world class partner and our town has
a phenomenal farmer's market and
my family and friends really, really love me and
even when I'm broke I feel rich in the most important ways
what on Earth was there to be bothered about?

You revved up your sporty engine every time you
advanced in the line.
I snickered and pulled out my ATM card knowing
even when I'm low on dough, it is always
worth spending my last few bucks on coffee.

The perky girl at the window handed me my coffee
with a lid, which I removed as I always do
I can't stand plastic between me and my coffee
and she said
"The guy in front of you
bought your drink today."

A Safe and Friendly Universe

Dear Bike Nerd,

I was having lunch with a friend and his baby boy
crunchy Romaine and thin sliced red onions
in the shade until the sun moved
heavy on my shoulders
pushing us back
out into the day again

My creamy key lime commuter bike Felicia
rested steady on the sidewalk
locked up, graceful
awaiting another spin in the June breeze

You left a note on my handlebar
must have stood admiring
her rear internal hub
or her fine whispering hue
her way of moving you even
as she stands
motionless

Yes I ought to replace those pedals soon.
But if I had done so already,
I might've missed your
cafe sleeve reminder that we live
in a safe and
friendly universe

Thank you,
Jessica

Dear Med, the Mother of my Love, on Your Birthday

Tomorrow is your birthday and you 
across the globe in Sweden
are on our minds.
I haven't met you yet but you are celebrated
every day in our home
I can see your face in your son's face
gentle, noble 
lines of a life rich with feeling and smiles.


On our wall in black and white photos
you hold him on a sailboat
a comforting mother and
her infant whose yawn looks the same 39 years later.


As we celebrate your birthday
5,200 miles away
I want to share with you what
I imagine would be 
some of the best words a mother
could hear, things you already know
but still land with softness and light your day.


Your son is as kind and thoughtful, as loving and honest,
as playful and open-minded, as accepting and sweet
as free-spirited, patient, and confident
as I imagine a man could be. 
He rides his bike every day, he makes music and 
teaches himself new things, he cooks beautiful food
for us, often in celebration of his native land
juniper berries ... elk meatballs.
He loves his dog and mine, our home, 
and has influenced me to switch 
from daily coffee to daily tea.
I've met no one who knows him well and doesn't find him
to be one of the most wonderful people alive. 

Hjalmar Carl Henrik Hake, May 2012

For all the love you've shown him 
all his life, 
for the respect he has for women 
which surely
has a lot to do with you
for the safety you instilled in him 
as a baby
and beyond
I am in gratitude and celebration 
for you.


Happy Birthday Med!


Love,
Jessica

Dear Sun Shining Through the Windows at Tin Roof Bakery

Dear Sun Shining Through the Windows at Tin Roof Bakery, Where Lots of People Turn Away From You Even When it's 36 Degrees Outside and Move to Another Table Because You are So Bright, but I Sit Straight-Smack in the Aim of your Piercing Fire Hoping They Never, Ever Put Up Blinds to Block Your Intensely Gorgeous Heat and Light,


I love you. 


Jessica

To the Girl Outside the Variety Show

Dear Amber,


You're that girl with the genuine face
standing outside the show tonight
your cheeks chilled by the bitter valley fog 
of winter
your eyes crisp in the glow of a 
dark December sky


You stopped me
to tell me
you like my art
in that go-out-of-your-way way
like a child, full of courage
"I really mean it..."


Oh, I thought, that's right
my art
I do have an art
it was like being caught playing clueless 
by a familiar old messenger
an owl who'd been watching me pretend
not to love what I do


You're that voice inside my head that
never stops cheering
sustained by the joy it finds in 
helping me remember 
the gift I came here to live 


You're that girl, you are
for me and for the art that lives inside
and I can't help but wonder
where to buy the soundtrack of 
your soul


Love,
Jessica

Dear Chico's Arms

Dear Chico's Arms, 


You reached out to me when I was 18, your creeks strung across the valley.
Blue oak. Red bud. Sycamore. Salmon.


I walked over your bridges and my heart spoke an easy "Yes."


Those college days were just a taste, a lick off the top of a Shubert's 
Chico Mint melting ice cream cone

Humboldt Park, artist: Gregg Payne

I graduated, my family came
"What a cute town..."
"This is a bubble world..."
"What do people do here, just sit on their porches all day long and socialize?"


Somedays, yes.


You didn't want to let me go and 
I resisted too, and then
San Francisco called. There's work there. I had to go.


Your arms rested, warmed by the hot valley sun, your hands dangling in the branches of almond trees, gray squirrels tickling your belly. Your arms are patient arms. 


And in between them lies a womb more fertile than any I know on Earth. I came back to you, fell in love 30 miles north in the cold Sacramento River current, and I missed you. The night sky was brighter there, your small-city lights tumbling on a navy blue blanket, dulling the radiance of stars. But in my heart, I longed for the human spirit lights, the Chico community, a tribe more starlit from within as any I've seen on Earth. 


Some say there's a giant magnet under Chico. 


Years passed and you welcomed me back to a sanctuary home, sycamore limbs cradling my nighttime breath, Little Chico Creek singing prayers around the dinner table. 

And I'd stay there, in and out for years, true to my fluttering gypsy soul, tucked in and held by you. Chico. Valley town, soil rich, rice fields in rain land of entrepreneurs giant wind chimes, earth-loving beer makers, MaMuse harmonies, bike touring adventurists. Chico. "Little boy." College town.

Your arms are so rich, and they cannot offer the ocean. Fertile river mud, not sandy salt kissed air. So I left again and frolicked in a crisp ocean way, southern sunny heaven. 


And as the mist filled my joyful heart as I slept in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, you held space for newborn Buddhas, one after another, seed by seed soaked in full sun, filling your fields. I could hear their giggles from afar, and so, one day, with no clue why, I came north again. 


And until today, I've never known the sound of stillness as it curls up in my lap, purring, soft like silky peach fuzz, eyes like crystal. We blend together beneath this giant wind chime, as summer turns to fall.


Your playmate, 
Rio

Note to a 3-year-old Friend

Dear Graciela,

Today I had the
really, if I think about it,
unfathomable blessing of spending
three hours with you
you who came through two of
the dearest friends life's given me
Nicholas and Emily

Graciela at 7 months

All of what you came to share
would splinter specks of light
to fill a thousand suns
and blind me
in this moment
if I looked

As it stands, the way you ask
"Tia can I wash dishes with you?"
at three, pulling up a chair
beside me at the sink,
soaping up the small plastic yellow spoon
"Tia can you hold this so I can rinse?"
"Be careful with Mommy's glass..."

Shy with hellos and goodbyes
you say "I'm here"
with your eyes
and tell the truth when
Mama comes home from her new haircut
blue feather braided into black hair
"Mama I can't see it!"

Truth from a 3-year-old's soul
three just on Earth
this time around
Infinite, by all other means

I assure you, passionate little angel
what you came here to
teach us, your parents, passersby, me
is being heard.

Our hearts sometimes shudder with the sound
as you shake our comfort zone reality
with the wisdom of beyond our eyes
and sometimes it will seem like
nobody is listening
our heads so far perched above
the child's
perfect presence horizon

But I promise
on some level
Your love is landing
voice of a dream bird
singing our dream song
Young friend,
your love is landing.

-Tia

What the Heart Knows

Dear Heart,


As I sit with the thought of you
and all you know
this morning
across the table from a friend whose skin
whispers
like Spanish moss
my chest expands on its own
to make room
for all you know


Your wisdom is wider than
all the world's libraries
your capacity to feel 
packs eight thousand words into none

You know wholeness
you can't break
though we might feel your power
shattering universes of feeling 
inside of us
this is simply 
our watery bodies speaking
their greatest gift
our capacity to feel




We need not fear that shattering
it is what widens our world
Let us love 
with the all of you


Passionately,
Your devoted student

Farewell to Luna

Dear Luna,


You left your body on Monday and I want you to know
how much you touched our lives
for the eleven years you shared with us.

Luna grooming her sweet self near Mt. Lassen

In Alaska, in Chico, in Baja
in the mountains, at lakes, at sea
on rafts, on trails, in sand
in creeks and under the
dining room table licking up scraps
dropped by your vivacious new
human sister Morgen


Glancing with pure devotion at Marko
Snarling ever so gently when 
children stumbled over you
Snarling not so gently when Lusa nipped at your ankles


Batting your whispery white eyelashes at
the three dozen compliments strangers gave you
every time you walked down the sidewalk
I am Luna, 
Regal Snowy White 
Star of the Dog Universe


I always felt softened
to be with you
In a world of rough edges and splintered lines
you were the perfect blend of
icicle feather, angel paw


Your Earth tribe will miss you, sweet one.
We will always love you.


Tia Jessie

Dear Baby Boy Soul

Dear Baby Boy Soul,


Are you calling to me?
I dreamt of you last night. Someone in India had asked me 
to care for you while traveling. For two weeks, 
you'd be mine to watch and care for.



And in that dreamscape
where all lines cross and 
one reality becomes another
you felt like my
little boy.

Then one day our group of travelers went to the mall. 
A tall girl I'd befriended walked beside me. 
I'd dressed in a pink and orange silk sari
wide skirt flowing at my ankles
just like the tall American girl.




Somehow
she was holding you now.
"I'm going to hold him for a while," she said.
My heart agonized
I had loved holding you 
it was heaven
and I'd waited all day to be with you again
your soft brown hair and chubby thighs that felt like
my hands were designed to hold them
as you sat on my hip


"No you're not," I said to the girl. 
"i've been wanting to hold him all day
and he's my responsibility. I'm watching him."


"Well, too bad, because I'm holding him."


I stood there, shocked
jaw dropped down toward the layers of 
pink and orange 
floral print silk.


Fighting energy does not belong around babies
I would not aggressively grab you from her arms
She would give you back later


But the grief...
Baby Boy Soul


Are you real?
Like in Velveteen Rabbit, are you real because
I love you?


Will you pass through my body someday
bewildering me with the sheer miracle of growing
from seed to full human being?


I would die with love for you every day.


Am I going to have you? And if not, why do you keep 
showing up in my dreams?


Mama

Charm, Power and the Human Heart

Dear Old Lady on NPR,


This morning as the day opened up before me, your voice crackled into my cottage. You were at a diner having breakfast with your old lady friends when a charismatic NPR reporter handed you a microphone. 


Two years ago he asked you, "How do you feel about Obama?" You were optimistic, and perhaps even as enamored with his charm as I was. Swept off your Aerosoles. 


I remember how I felt two years ago. I hope people don't expect a dozen miracles a day from this man. He is one man. We have a whole Congress, a whole complicated and complex system, a huge web that influences what happens in the political and economic landscape. It's ignorant to perceive the bulk of the power, and place the bulk of pressure, in his hands. 


We are here to awaken. And when we "go to sleep" and expect people in influential positions to "make things good" for us, we choose not to play an active role in shaping our world. And in that very moment, our world ceases to meet our deepest needs, because we are made of Source, God, Love, goodness... and we get to create what we want. To deny this gift is a tragedy. 


As you well know, Obama is criticized by every corner of the political map these days. Some of it makes sense to me because we put our faith in leaders and when they aren't able to live up to what they said, or to our expectations, we naturally feel disappointed. 


But all the rational claims and criticisms in the world, however fact based, will never outweigh the power of the human heart. And in my heart, I know Obama is an exquisitely beautiful soul with noble intentions and tremendous courage. 


In moments of fear, sadly, humans tend to blame. We don't see the power to create inside of ourselves, so we project the power elsewhere. But you didn't seem to do that as your elder-wisdom permeated my morning air. You still believe in Obama. You see his heart, and you see that he is a loving human being. Your eighty years have polished you with the sheen of forgiveness, of leaning into light. Of choosing to see the good in people.


You stand for that. Thank you for seeing with forgiving eyes. 


Jessica

Dear Self-Doubt

Dear Self-Doubt,


You spent the morning with me. Even after a bowl of fresh fruit, delicious gourmet granola and fresh local goat milk yogurt, even after a big cup of coffee and a walk with the dog, you were revved up and ready for the day. Disappearing during moments when I was being fully present, you returned when I turned my attention toward the past or the future.


You hung out with me as I searched for a place to live, and creased my forehead wondering if I'd ever find a place I loved as much as my Cardiff cottage. You considered which actions I should regret from the day before. You held a sermon inside my head scanning for ways I could be a better daughter or a more loving mother to my dog. You wondered if and when I'd ever live my dream. I almost let you take the reins again all day.


Then you met my friend Dresden. Within minutes of showing up, she and I were engaged in a Gmail chat session about living our dreams: about writing. We made a pact that every day for the next 30, we'll each spend 30 minutes writing. And publish it. 

Writer's Pact Girl

An hour later, you met Serra. She texted with an invitation to come swimming in her huge pool on this hot Labor Day. Swimming with bright-eyed children whose presence is like Buddha. 


And by noon, you met Randy. And like a parched field during the first few minutes of rain, within an hour spending time with this exquisitely beautiful friend, I could barely hear your voice at all. 


Self Doubt, I'll never hate you. You are welcome in my life; I am having a human experience. You are a facet of my perception and you want to be loved. That's the only way you'll find your place, wherever it is, at peace.  I'll just make sure to spend more time nurturing the friendships that help me to feel peace too.


Jessica 

Glance of Devotion

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. 

it's ethics, at the center

My uncle, Dr. Louis Rios MD, is going through a transition. As a general surgeon for more than 30 years, he's now reflecting big time. Between New-Yorican (Puerto Ricans from the Bronx) style joke after joke after joke, as his siblings and he are known for, he asks himself: What has this career given me? How is society better off because of what I have done? What are the ethical issues at the center of medicine, that I might speak to in my later years? How can I help make the field of medicine less focused on money and more focused on caring for the sick?


Yesterday we barely made it out of a late afternoon Florida thunderstorm, parking the boat as the heavy drops began falling. For hours while still out on the water, I stared at the dark clouds on the horizon, letting thoughts float up from within. Somehow, during this week spent traveling with my dad to visit his siblings on the east coast, I have been struck by the power of ethics in my life. Not ethics as enforced or designed by anyone else -- but ethics stemmed from the core of one's own being, from the mind-boggling internal, intuitive guidance system we have all been given.  

This afternoon Uncle Lou (left, with my dad) asked me to read an article he wrote a year ago. In it he expressed, with vulnerability, the sense of abandonment experienced by physicians who don't get the kind of emotional or moral support given to, say, police officers, when someone dies. Doctors lose a patient and are paged on the hospital intercom to perform two more surgeries. Policemen, on the other hand, are substantially consoled and given paid time off to cope with the loss.


Where is the justice in this equation? What might Uncle Lou voice, in journals of medicine, to help bring about a place, an organization, that provides the kind of support doctors need when a patient dies under their watch? 


The power of values flashes through my mind. Sesame Street values like kindness, respect, generosity, care, and appreciation for cultural differences. 


I think of my primary college mentor, Bruce Grelle, who inspired his students to reflect on the values and ethics promoted by major religions like Christianity and Buddhism. Are their spoken values genuinely held by their representative religious institutions?


So tonight in southern Florida at Uncle Lou & Aunt Martha's house, after some California Cabernet and fried Puerto Rican 'tostones' (tohs-tohn-ess), I feel a joyous sense of comaraderie with my uncle, a man of great humor, integrity, class and sensitivity. And I can't help but notice a shared strain of ethics at play in our path -- a strain shared with great passion, as well, by my father, Lou's older brother. 


One thing is for sure. I am not promoting "one right way" -- that there is one dictatorial "rightness" in any human voice, in any one religion or in all of them combined, or in any book ever written. 


When it comes down to it, what I'm saying is personal. My own life is about spotlighting that no matter your age, Sesame Street had a point. And if all we do is focus on being kind, celebrating this astoundingly precious gift called life, being human enough to mess up madly and forgive ourselves, having the courage to ask questions and speak up when something just doesn't resonate with our own internal moral compass... that, I pose, is the primary substance of a life well lived. 


Hats off to the Uncle Lou's of the world.