By Neal Lemery
Often, a disaster turns into a positive asset, and life improves, comes into focus, and good things emerge from the gray somber atmosphere of disaster.
Such change comes unexpectedly.
The Chinese character for catastrophe is the same character for opportunity.
There was a time in college that I had lost direction, adrift despite the abundance of good opportunities and challenges from my professors and fellow students. I was adapting well, mastering my subjects and, at least outwardly, achieving great strides in my abilities and my knowledge of my favorite subjects.
Yet, I was adrift, often wondering what I was doing there, and what direction I needed to take. There were a lot of possibilities, but I didn’t have a good sense of what was right for me. Everyone around me seemed content, hard at work, and feeling directed and motivated. Maybe I needed to take a term off, get a job, and get my act together, stop spinning my wheels.
During one Christmas break, one of my aunts suddenly died. We were all in shock, as she had been healthy, vigorous in her retirement, and embracing her passion for botany and nature conservation. Her heart attack on a hiking trail doing what she loved left all of us feeling lost, shook up.
She lived far away from me, but would visit several times a year, telling stories of her adventures and always bringing a special book for me. When I was little, she’d read to me, animating the story with her voice, her laughter, and her passion for kids. We’d have great conversations, she being a vocal advocate for education, reading, and bettering the community. “Being of service” was the theme of a lot of our conversations and letters.
Her sudden passing brought my “lost in college” questions to the forefront. I recalled her wise counsel, her urgings to me to make a difference, and do something in life. Reminiscing about her life and her messages to me brought my dilemma into sharp focus, giving me impetus to regroup, to rethink my intentions of why I was in college, and what I was doing with my life.
Mourning her death, and celebrating her life woke me up. I applied that grief into fuel to regroup, to have a serious talk with myself, and strive to make a difference in my life. There were some hard lessons on not realizing the value of a person in your life until they are gone. Having my aunt in my life made a big difference in my own life, and I resolved to continue her presence, her message in my life, and our relationship.
Her funeral was on the day I went back to college, to start winter term. The eulogies, and the story telling among family recharged me, and I began the new year and the new term with a revitalized focus, looking for possibilities and opportunities. I felt her spirit and vowed to remember her with my own zeal for making a difference.
Recently, a good friend passed away, and again I am shaken by this loss, this departing of a mentor, whose wisdom and talent were bright lights in my life. We’d met for lunch a year ago, telling stories, laughing, and, true to her form, mentoring me and calling me out to refocus and regroup. She’d plant seeds with me, giving me story ideas and action items, sometimes acting with such subtlety that I didn’t realize that her seeds were even in my garden. She was a master of “guerrilla gardening”.
She was a writer, capturing the joys and treasures in ordinary life, always aiming at celebrating the community she loved and cared for. She wrote about simple things, events and happenings, but always with an ear for the deeper message, the profound experiences of friendships and listening to our souls.
She was blunt, open, honest, and passionately cared about people. Her stories of daily life were much more than a casual observation. They were deep and profound, and the reader was often gently lured into her observations, not always expecting the strong message she had set out to convey. She got her point across, with love and humor, but also with a depth and intensity you didn’t notice until you came to the end of her writing.
There were many gifts in her writings and in our conversations. She was a literary craftsman, with a big heart. Kindness was her mantra.
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Neal is talking about our dear friend Linda Shaffer, who passed away on March 7th.)
My friend and my aunt would have been dear friends, soul mates, and I imagine they would find much to laugh about and comment on. My sorrow for missing my aunt is rekindled by my friend’s passing. I’m reminded that out of catastrophe comes opportunity.
In my grief, there is renewal, there is new hunger for opportunity, for change, growth, betterment. My aunt and my friend are still there for me, still offering their gifts, and their love, still teaching me, still changing the world.
Books: NEW book – BE THE CHANGE – One Random Act of Kindness at a Time; Neal’s other books include: Building Community: Rural Voices for Hope and Change; Finding My Muse on Main Street, Homegrown Tomatoes, and Mentoring Boys to Men