About Liz

There is a part of me that remains in deep disbelief that my aunt Liz has ended her stay on the planet. I have never had such a reaction of disbelief -- to the point that Tuesday and Wednesday I was without question functioning but feeling very disconnected from reality. The information was sluggishly and reluctantly accepted. How can this be?

It's not that I can't believe death itself. Nor that Liz would die. I've been expecting this for months, but this was a phenomenal woman. If there's an ability to will oneself a longer life, I can tell you she had it and employed it until a gasket somewhere simply blew out where the pressure of her will to live met the body's limitations. I just don't want to believe it's so.

A week ago, the day before she died, I had a conversation with Liz about many things. Some of them medical, some of them mundane, some of them family things. All of them very real and vibrant, because she was saturated with an alert life force so powerful and present that there was *NO WAY* she was dying that night. Of course, it's true. She did.

I struggle with that disbelief still. But the evidence that was missing in my environment is beginning to find me. My friends are looking at me with the faces (and showing me the patience) that you employ with someone who has experienced an immense loss. Someone gives me flowers. The Buddhists offer their chants. The best friend says the things someone should say. The mentor tells me to express my grief in an artistic work (and adds that I should incorporate art in my therapy practice).

Gradually, it is sinking in.

And yet the sadness evades me. It surfaces in the most delicate and fleeting way. It comes more as a brief knock on the door than in a wave. It lingers for 10 or 15 seconds, as if to say, "Yes, I am here, and you will have to deal with me soon enough."

But there is something altogether different playing out against the skies of my interior.

There is the most magnificent sunset within me. My mental sky is filled with the warmest sunset, an endless gradation from pink to orange streaking across the ocean, striations of advancing clouds deepening the horizon. There in the west lies the most brilliant sun, nine-tenths of it already beneath the ocean's edge. I am at sea in a boat, and it is an endless and unobstructed sunset. Surely the most beautiful I have ever seen.

And yet there is also the approaching storm, which concerns me a little. I know I will survive it, but I am not looking forward to riding it out. The water is already a bit choppy.

I see this visually in my mind's eye, but it's also a description of my mood: Rather than feeling sadness, I am at this point feeling the most conflicting emotions I think I know. It's deep, immense love vs. deep, surprising anger. The warm sunset, the choppy water. Alas, my feelings of anger are a little more visible -- surprising and brief, but still obvious -- than is the competing sense of love.

Liz was an especially cherished and engaging person in my life for the better part of my youth, from age 8 through the end of my five years in college. I have always loved her and my uncle Rick with a special sense of delight. They are my favorite role models of what decent, fun-loving, welcoming, adventurous, caring, kind-hearted, funny people we humans can be. No one's perfect, but in my book, these people are FABULOUS.

There are many places I can go in tribute of my aunt Liz. But I would like to tell this little story:

The day before she died, I talked to her on the phone. I had called her cell and my aunt, who has always enjoyed flauting the rules, answered it even though it was forbidden in the ICU. Part of our conversation included her description of the view of Oahu from the lanais at the end of each hospital hallway and how she was missing the opportunity to visit the lanai. She mentioned that she liked to look for the older buildings with Spanish tile amidst the towering hotels.

There was a certain tone to her voice when she told that story -- one of immense pleasure -- that stuck out to me. It is so simple a pleasure, and yet she had a sense of excitement in her voice.

Earlier this week, in an attempt to get in touch with my feelings, I listened to Isreal Kamakawiwo'ole's version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," that beautiful Hawaiian version with the ukelele. It came to my mind the night my uncle told me she was dead -- he asked me about doing a ritual for her, and I said, "What about this song?" On Thursday, I had a conversation with one of my professors about my aunt's death, and later she approached me in the hallway and told me that after I'd left the room, she suddenly heard Kamakawiwo'ole's version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" in her head.

(As a side note: Almost every day for the past two weeks, my home has been filled with small rainbows. Liz made me a suncatcher with a large, multifaceted crystal pendant, and when the sunlight hits it, dozens of rainbows pepper the walls and ceilings, casting color into the darkest depths of my loft. After she mentioned the song, I told my professor about the suncatcher. She liked the coincidence.)

I went home and listened to the song (this one the version combined with "What a Wonderful World") for the first time in a while. When the line "... high above the chimney tops, that's where you'll find me ..." played, I suddenly saw the view of Oahu that my aunt described from the hospital's lanai, specifically a home with a red tile roof. The first twinges of grief knocked softly on my heart. And then, like that, they were gone. There was a feeling of warmth in their wake, a soothing sense of love.

Yesterday, I talked to my uncle. For whatever reason, I told him that Liz had mentioned missing her visits to the lanai. His reply captured my attention:

"Oh yeah, she loved the lanai. It had a great view. But there was this one old Spanish-style house that -- I don't know -- for whatever reason Liz was captivated by it. The light always seemed to be catching it just so. It had a special light. A couple times, it looked like rainbows were touching it or passing over it. When she was stuck in the oncology ward for all those weeks before they put her in the ICU, she would go out onto the lanai three or four times a day, do her exercises out there and look at that house. She seemed to meditate on it. It became a real beacon to her. She had decided that when she got out the hospital this time, she was going to go visit that house. It became her little prize for getting out of the hospital."

I don't have the words yet to describe what this story means to me, but it means a great deal. I keep thinking about Liz's outlook, her love of life, her appreciation of beauty, her ability to find something special to cherish in everything (not the least of which, me).

Even before Rick told me that story, I have felt as if Liz's particular brand of love is present in me, as if she is here in spirit sometimes. Our relationship covered a 30-year span and countless memories -- all of them good; some of them among the best -- and there is clearly something of her that lives within me.

I'm not sure what the anger is about, but I can see the storm coming. That waning sun, though, looks to me like Liz's tenacious, lingering spirit extinguishing itself beautifully in the Pacific. I'll deal with the storm when it gets here. Right now, however, I am overwhelmed by the beauty of the sunset.