November 14, 2018. A Eulogy for My Other Mother on the Day of Her Memorial...
Many little winds blew me to Vera the year we met in 2005,
but it was Vera’s own force that drew me in.
Or, rather, opened the door.
I was in the midst of my Master’s research and suffering
debilitating headaches. Any physical
activity could trigger one, and yet as an avid runner, physical activity had
been my meditation. I was physically and
mentally desperate, and by the third mention of this strange process called
“rolfing”, I decided to make a call.
There were two individuals listed in town, but it was Vera
who returned my call. I couldn’t afford
the treatment on my stipend, but the kind woman on the line anticipated that
the moment she heard I was a graduate student and offered to work out a trade
with me. She had a garden, a
breath-takingly beautiful garden that needed some revision, and I was an
able-bodied person in my late twenties.
Something transformative began for me in that office space
overlooking the garden, listening to the trill of birdsong…For the first time
in my life, an elder and wiser woman fixed her gaze on my person and saw me.
Exactly as I was—not as she wanted me to be or thought me to be or was
frustrated that I wasn’t. My body (and
my mind) were an instrument out of tune, and Vera, like a master luthier,
coaxed them into harmony again.
Hers were healing hands.
Listening hands. Hands that heard
the harsh tones of muscle and sinew and followed their lead. Teaching hands.
As Vera worked on me, and as I worked by her side in her
magical garden, we shared many long conversations. Weeding, pruning, transplanting, cultivating…all
labors spent in endless discussion.
Every day, I came away with a head full of the depth of Vera’s talent
and experience—and a carload of clippings to cultivate in my own garden.
When Vera told me about her lymphoma, I felt helpless anger
but also complete confidence in her magic.
Vera could make anything that was good grow. Her roots were stronger than any cancer. But still, when I studied meditation, I
imagined her body renewed. I stayed up
nights catching the nocturnal leaf-cutters eating Nearly Wild, the rosebush she
gave me, because I somehow believed that curing the rose of its pests might
cure Vera of hers.
We were plying our trowels in the garden the day I told her
my new boyfriend and I planned to start a family. I already knew the story of Vera and Jack’s
meeting and of her previous marriage, but that day, she explained to me why
she’d never had children: Part chance, part intension, part missed opportunity. By the time she’d found the right partner, it
was too late.
As I listened, I felt a wave of deep sadness and guilty
gratitude. I knew in that moment, that
Vera would have been an incredible mother: empathic and nurturing, strong and
resilient, artistic and wise. I knew it
because she had become a mother to me. She
had changed me, had noticed all the best seeds of my being and brought them
into the sun. My yard flourished with
the daughters of her greenery, and I had flourished, too. She had raised me up.
Through illness and continuous set-backs, Vera lost neither
grace nor wisdom. I never saw her angry about how damned unfair it was. Not once.
She just kept growing and learning.
When my first son was born, Vera had recently undergone chemo
treatments, still she and Jack came to bring us food and cuddle the new one. Her gentle hands heard my baby’s cry, and
with that subtle magic, calmed him. I
brought him to Vera’s house often, spreading a blanket over the carpet, and talking
with her as she played with and worked on him.
She could enchant any child. Both
of my children loved the garden, going for walks, and visiting a friend’s farm
with Aunt Vera and Uncle Jack.
Remembering that Vera is absent from the world is the most
painful sensation I’ve ever known—Like a hole in the fabric of the universe,
slowly sinking every illusion of justice or meaning. There is no meaning in Vera’s absence, but as
I find myself back in her garden, tending her flower beds, pruning errant aguga,
pulling pesky clover, I reflect that there is meaning in the way I fill her
absence: With beauty—the light of morning as it peeks behind the fish pond;
With song—the water tinkling over the rocks, like the fluttering of her harp
strings; With silence—an invitation to listen and to learn.
The last time I spoke to Vera was just before her surgery; I
told her that I loved her, but I don’t think I ever really made her understand what she gave to me. I’m sure those around me knew. I told everyone I met that she put my body
back together. I told my friends that
she taught me to nurture a garden. I
told my yoga students that she showed me how to move. When I speak of her, I speak of her as my friend
and mentor—as my other mother. Looking
back over the past thirteen years, I see Vera’s touch on almost every good turn
my life has taken—even in meeting my husband, whose friendship I discovered when
I confided that she had cancer. He’d had
a close friend suffer with lymphoma, too.
I regret not filling Vera’s ears with just how important she
was to me. I hope she knew it. I hope she could see that I—and everyone
whose life Vera touched—are proof that her roots are stronger than any cancer.
Vera’s roots reach deep within us all.
She lives in the white and yellow of spring leaves; the pink, red, and
indigo of summer flowers; the warm umber and orange of fall; in the evergreen
of winter. Stronger than forces of
nature or human to uproot.
In deepest love and gratitude, Vera, I honor you.
