Ripple

Do we ever truly know our impact on others? Have you acknowledged the way social interactions we may have can cause long lasting effects on those we meet as we walk through our lives? 

Events last week have left me considering these questions.

Recently I met colleagues I had initially worked with at my first permanent professional position. In fact, they were both on the hiring committee with which I interviewed. During the five years (‘96-2001) we worked together, we became friends and enjoyed a couple of “Women’s Retreat Weekends” together skiing in Vermont, a completely new to me experience, and shared some wonderful meals prepared by one of the husbands who was an accomplished cook. 

The two women were, and remain, very different from one another, one a music fest hippie and the other a more reserved, elegant literary intellectual, they each taught me important life lessons that I continue to practice. Because of these women, I’m financially wiser and intellectually more inspired – and challenged. 

Facing down my last 6 months of laboring as a librarian has prompted a lot of attention to my finances and what things might look like when I retire. Because of the perennially dancing music fest queen, I understand interest rates and mortgage refinancing. I witnessed her life improve because of her own smart money decisions. 

I learned. 

While the hippie chick bounced down the school’s hallways, my upper grade English teacher friend fairly glided. Her walk, complete with ever so slightly twisted spine, was the most graceful thing the river town where we taught had ever seen. She fascinated me equally with her literary knowledge and the stories of being undercover with her police officer husband in the 1970s. 

She says she’s beginning to lose her memories a wee bit, but I’ll remember her always.

Two days after a most enjoyable and leisurely lunch with these two women, my youngest son and I drove to his father’s hometown for the memorial service for an important friend. Along the way, I pointed out every single landmark and shared every memory I could recall.

There were a lot.

The service was a bit of a minefield in terms of the explosions that kept going off in my head and in my chest. So many people, beyond what I even imagined. Everyone that could be there, was. 

I saw people that I haven’t seen in 15+ years. With Quinn as my wingman (a description he does not appreciate and insists that I’m misusing), I put names and memories and decades in place, introducing my son to people he’s never before met.

My heart expanded to hear old friends remark on how there’s no question that my (almost the tallest person there) baby is most definitely a Lilly. 

The service featured music and remarks made by loved ones and the only thing missing was the man whose recently lost life we were honoring. After some reflection, I shared something I had posted last month and, despite my technological fumblings, it was well received.

The jokes landed and tears fell.

The gathering transitioned from the funeral home location to a nearby restaurant that I remember being at once previously* with a shared singalong to Ripple.

It was a moment.

Over the next couple of hours, there were at least a dozen variations on the catching up convo. Kids, work, travel, retirement, shows, etc, all shared with sincerity, received with genuine interest. It was rocking in every way to see everyone.

There were people in that room whom I carry deep inside. They’re featured in some of my favorite stories and anecdotes and seeing them brought so much back to me. Ridiculous things like the image of the first sweet peas I ever bought stuck in an empty tin can on a window sill in Seattle, along with the names of children and dogs from long ago now both in much different forms than I once knew.

Oh, these people taught me things, too.

I learned about hiking and humus, how to organize a trip while not planning every moment of an entire vacation and about what one must let go of to hold on to what’s most important. And, on this day, I learned again to simply open my arms to give and receive the hugs that offered some comfort at a challenging time.

I’ve often thought about how one’s path through life flows like a river, sometimes joining others along the way and, at other times, branching off in different and new directions. But, since last Sunday I’m imagining the movement of water, and life differently. Instead of streaming from one place to the next with companions, be they short or long term, maybe our journeys in this world radiate out in ever expanding rings.

We remain connected.

We ripple.

Sing me sweet and sleepy
All the way back home

Fare thee well, MHK.

*also following a death