I just reread the poem about friends –
People who walk with us for
“A reason, a season, or a lifetime.”
I reflect, at this Thanksgiving season,
On the gifts you gave me
While we walked along together,
Shoulders touching, arms encircling,
Love between us flowing freely.
I will be forever grateful that you taught me
How to be a friend --
To share openly our feelings,
To serve lovingly each other’s needs and thoughts,
To treat myself with kindness as you treated me.
You taught me well, and now I must walk on alone,
Sharing what I learned with others.
You were my angel.
Though the pain of losing you wells up in tears and memories,
I’m also blessed by knowing friendship such as this.
Reflections:
I don’t know why this image is arising now. I’m picturing our California commitment ceremony. We had already vowed our lifelong commitment to love, support, and learn with each other. We deeply wanted to convey to our family, friends, and neighbors that we had made this pledge to each other – that we weren’t just “companions,” “roommates,” or “buddies.” We were spouses, even though we were not legally allowed to assume this title. So we decided to stage what was, for all intents and purposes, a wedding. Our beautiful house in Berkeley, newly completed, would serve as the site. Our friend Harriett, who had gotten an online ordination that would allow her to perform weddings, would officiate.
We set up a memorable party with a caterer, and sent out over a hundred invitations, to everyone we each knew. Just about everyone came! Our families, from the corners of the United States, were represented. Our friends, from New York, St. Louis, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, Florida, Colorado, and California, also converged on our house in Berkeley for our joyous celebration. The neighbors, of all ages, from our whole block attended, and our new California friends.
We wrote and rehearsed our vows, and designed and commissioned our wedding rings. Our nephew and niece, Wayne and Christy, gave us the lasting wedding present of a professionally produced DVD on which they had recorded the occasion, with greetings from everyone who attended. The garden had just been planted a week before the ceremony, minuscule plants surrounded by wide swaths of empty ground which they would grow to fill within the next several years. It represented the growth that would mark our relationship over the same years. Wine flowed and food delighted – a real wedding feast. The Irish musicians from the corner pub, joined by Liessa playing her fiddle, played “Havana-Gila” with abandon, as we danced in a joyful wedding circle -- then they regaled us with wonderful Irish tunes. Liessa’s new husband, Russ, whom we grew to love over the years as a wonderful family member, amazed us by getting to know by the afternoon’s end every single person who was there.
We always felt that our commitment ceremony had been our official wedding, and that it had succeeded in communicating to all who needed to know “who we were for each other,” as you so gracefully expressed it.
Our vows said it all: “I love you wholly and without reservation, till my heart stops beating and my eyes cease to see.”
The private pathos of the ceremony, and its significance were heightened dramatically by the fact that we had just learned, two weeks before, that your breast cancer had come back, metastatically. Your life expectancy at that moment, was suddenly reduced to less than two years. We didn’t say anything to anyone, and went on with the ceremony as planned, allowing its joy and resonance to ring out fully for all. In fact, you lived for more than six more years, most of it time that you could enjoy, and that we could both appreciate deeply, although the cancer was symptomatic, causing some pain and sapping your energy. The “other shoe” was always there waiting to drop, and yet we lived each day, each moment, together, as fully as possible, growing in love and learning to live more authentically and mindfully.
We truly became “Roellen,” the name that you coined for us. Together, we shared a healing practice, and witnessed to the power of love to shape a couple without regard to gender. We became a positive example for couples old and new. And we provided inspiration to those who otherwise might think that they were too old to achieve their dreams. People stopped by the house constantly. It was a “second home” to many, who felt nourished and supported there. The spirit of that house radiated love and comforting acceptance. It was a blessing to find ourselves the nucleus of that growing, loving community.
People still tell me, long after we moved away , that they went by the house, , to see it again – and that the energy they remembered has changed. It’s no longer, for them, that magical place where they had felt happy being friends and enjoying fellowship. That would also, of course, be true for me if I were to rvisit it now. Now it’s just another house on an ordinary street -- unknowing, anonymous. The enchantment lives on only in our shared memories. And the past, like the future, does not really exist – only the present is real.
Ellen, Harriett, Rosemary
"La Guillonnee," tune and dance from French Missouri
Commitment Ceremony, August 31, 2002, Prince St. House, Berkeley CA
"A Reason A Season or A Lifetime" ( author unknown).
People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.
When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed outwardly or inwardly. They have come to assist you through a difficulty, or to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally, or even spiritually. They may seem like a Godsend to you, and they are. They are there for a reason: you need them to be with you.
Then, without any wrongdoing on your part, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. Sometimes they die, Sometimes they just walk away. Sometimes they act up or out and force you to take a stand. What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled; their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered and it is now time to move on.
When people come into your life for a SEASON, it is because your turn has come to share, grow or learn. They may bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it! It is real! -- but only for a season. As spring turns to summer and summer to fall, the season eventually ends.
LIFETIME relationships teach you a lifetime of lessons: those things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lessons, love the person/people (anyway); and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas in your life.
It is said that love is blind, but friendship is clairvoyant.
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