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| Sunrise on the salt marsh. |
As I typed in the title of
this, I had one idea. But a couple of minutes
later I realized that it isn’t the sunrise on the Eastern Shore of Virginia that
I wanted to write about.
It hit me as I went into the
kitchen of a home I hadn’t been in until yesterday, making coffee with a pot I
had never seen. It became even clearer
as I took a piece of lemon pound cake as my morning meal. Like my attitude about chocolate chip
cookies, (they're not just for breakfast anymore,) this morning just like I do at home, that piece of cake will be breakfast and I’ll enjoy it. The fact is, with all of the strange things I
mentioned there is something else surrounding me that I have been blessed to
recognize in a number of different places all of my life. It’s that feeling of “home.”
Here I am in a new place,
with over a dozen people spread out over two houses at this moment, only five
of whom I knew before yesterday, yet I feel totally at home. Where am I and why do I feel so comfortable
and connected?
It’s a story that started two-dozen years ago, but one that is as old as friendship. In this story, one woman is the keystone. But I hope and believe that anyone reading
this will be able to identify someone similar who has touched his or her life.
Mary Copes came into my life
those two-dozen years ago as an angel’s helper.
I was between houses, living away from Mitch only because we had sold our
house in Stone Mountain and weren’t able to move into our new place in Atlanta for a couple of months. Mitch
sneaked our two cats into his “crash pad” in Charlotte and I needed a place to
stay while we waited to close on the new house.
I had been acquainted with
Mary Copes since starting the Atlanta job.
She was an executive assistant in the main office of the organization,
and I would have known her for that reason alone, as did everyone else. But it was her unwavering aura of friendliness
and patience that made her stand out. It
also led to me having the courage when someone suggested it, to ask her if I
might be able to stay with her while I was between homes. And that was where our relationship moved
from being cordial acquaintances to a beyond life-long friendship.
We sat down over coffee, for
the first of literally hundreds of times, and she invited me to stay in her
basement bedroom until Mitch and I had our place together. That was her way…she took in strays.
When I moved in, I found to
my surprise that also staying in this “safe house” was her ex husband. At first I was taken aback. But she was matter-of-fact in explaining that
his new place wasn’t ready for him to move in, and like me, he needed a
temporary place to stay, too.
“No matter what else has happened,
he’s the father of my children” she told me, to explain his presence. And as I got to know her, it did. That was her way, graceful and generous
always. I got to know and appreciate
him, and before he moved out, we had many enjoyable dinners at his favorite
buffet restaurant. To this day, I can’t
pass that brand without thinking of those days, and how I came to see that the
end of a marriage didn’t need to be the end of civility and compassion.
There are literally hundreds
of stories that bring me to today here at the Eastern Shore. Most of the memories are wonderful, but the
reason I am here is to honor her life, a life that was tragically cut short by
a driver who lost control and crossed the median into oncoming traffic. In a moment, her life was ended and many
lives were changed forever.
I can still remember and very
much appreciate the call about the accident from her granddaughter. While so difficult for me to hear, how much
more difficult it was for Ashley to have to say the words, “...she didn’t make
it.”
Because her passing was so sudden, and coupled
with the very serious injuries of her husband, there wasn’t a public
memorial. I heard from Ashley (who by
the way has turned into the extraordinary woman her grandmother had envisioned
she would become) that in July they were going to sprinkle some of her ashes in the
water at the Eastern Shore. I asked if
the family would let me attend. She
asked her mom and her aunt, whom I have known through all these years and
thankfully they said yes.
My GPS deserted me without a house in sight, but with my call for help, the girls hopped in
their car to come and find me. Her son,
whom I knew of for years, but had never met, welcomed me with a hug, as open and warm as his sisters had been. And, also special, when I got into
the house I received a big hug from a burly, teddy bear of a young man I would
never have recognized as the toddler I had played with on the floor of his
grandmother’s house so many years ago.
The granddaughter I had watched
grow up in photos and stories, a new daughter-in-law, and the step grandson,
who she would most certainly have loved as her own, also welcomed this stranger
that was me into the family with barely a ripple.
So here I am at their vacation home rental at the Eastern Shore of Virginia, a welcomed member of the family. That’s one of the things I have been given the opportunity to see…that her ability to welcome people into her home and into her heart was passed on to her children. Immediately I felt I belonged, in this place, at this time, with these people.
So my new view is not of the marshland of the shore at sunrise, as beautiful as this setting is. My new view is that family extends beyond birth and blood. I know that my family has been expanded, even at a time when I am formally acknowledging the loss of the physical presence of the special woman who is the loving energy that connects us all.
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| A dolphin pod, not seen before by anyone in the family, appeared just as we prepared to spread her ashes on the sea she loved. |
I will forever be grateful
that Mary Copes was in my life, and that in spite of, or perhaps as a
compensation for her passing, she has given me a wonderful gift. It’s the gift of a new branch grafted
on to my family tree.
I can remember the
last words we said to each other, just days before she died. “Copes, I love you bunches!” I told her.
“I love you too.” She’d replied. And now, because of her, I continue to feel that that love through
her family.
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| Sunset. The ebb and flow of life continues. |
What’s Zen got to do with
this? Zen teaches that nothing is
permanent. We will have times of suffering. It also teaches that when we
are given this “precious human life” we have the ability to make a positive difference. The precious human life that was
my friend, Mary Copes, indeed made a difference.
May I live up to her example.
