Home & Remembrance

I haven’t posted anything for some time now, hadn’t the urge.

Today is the 4th anniversary of Linda’s death.

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We met at the AA meetings in Napa in 1983, we got married in 1986. We had good life together, mostly because we made each other laugh, were sober, and had a Buddhist practice informing our growth. She had Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis and in the last two years of her life also had kidney failure and underwent dialysis for almost two years when we decided to stop treatment because, after many years of living with pain, this last treatment consisted of thrice weekly round trips to Spokane with four to six hours of treatment and great discomfort. When we informed nurse and doctor that she could no longer tolerate treatment, they told her; ” Well then, you’ve got 4 to 6 days left to live.”

We were prepared. Our friend Reverend Master Zensho, a Buddhist monk and priest moved into our house, his temple was about 40 miles away in St. Maries, ID, and he had all the preperations for a Buddhist funeral set to go because we, under Linda’s direction, had already prepared everything for the event, some months previous.

Turned out she lived 15 more months, and then died in relative peace in a quiet setting very near our home.

Today, I had my home altar set up dedicated to her and have done some ceremonies and have kept her in my heart. The altar of my heart, where all reposes.

From a Buddhist perspective she lived a good life and converted her inherited and created karmas with dignity and grace. A life well lived, she died sober and peacefully.

Can you remember the first flowering …

No, not the flowering, the budding,

Of a love;

When it was soft and tender,

Full of life and not yet open

To the world. Just ours.

Then, it did blossom,

(and OH! what flowers)

And nurtured the us with Itself.

Its very nature was to replenish,

To grow.

When in time, it