Hey Rachel,

I’m meant to be writing something for your memorial gathering. But it’s so big.

My thoughts bubble up, bump into one another, break, and spill on the floor.

I wipe them up with a cloth, wring them back into the pot, and try again.

I can’t even remember what year we became friends; it’s hidden in mists. Were we ever not friends? It’s been almost two months since we last spoke or saw one another. I think that’s the longest we’ve ever gone. I wonder where you are. I pray daily that you are resting in angel arms.

I’m right here. Talk to me now.

I don’t know where to begin. We covered so much ground. Our friendship is as solid as stone, as ethereal as light, inevitable. I was your first call, and you were mine for so long. Your name is on the emergency contact line of every form I’ve filled out in the last 15 years, at least. Our friendship is my favorite sweater, a second skin, a necessity, a safety zone. I’m trying to imagine my next chapter with no you in it. How the hell am I supposed to do that?

But I’m right here. Our connection is as strong as it ever was. I’m not giving it up, and you won’t either.

OK. Well, for starters, I want to tell you everything about the last two months. You, who are so wish beyond your years, you’re the one who will listen to all of the details and help me work through them. You’re the one to help me see the positive side of everything, what will work in the long run, how to be patient with myself while I get through it.

I know all about it. I’ll help you.

DARKNESS

I can’t talk about this without saying how shocked, confused, and sad we all are that you left us, that you were snatched away from us. You’ve got a roomful of people here that didn’t even know you were putting up a mighty fight against a fierce depression. Do you know how many hearts are broken because we didn’t know how much you were hurting and couldn’t help you? It’s so painful to realize that we didn’t truly understand where that darkness took you. We can’t understand how you could not have felt loved enough. 

Do you get that?

I know. I’m sorry about that. It wasn’t really my choice. I can’t explain… Tell them about dancing.

I’ll get to that. I will.

SADNESS

When your heart is shattered into thousands of pieces, there is so much surface area for love to attach to. But you’ve got to take care, because bitterness can attach there too as the pieces knit back together, slowly.  The scars may not be beautiful, but the tell the truth.

I’ve done the math and consulted the laws of physics, and there just isn’t time or energy enough for me to cultivate another friendship like ours in this lifetime. We brought each other to dances, to cycling, to skiing, to meditation. We brought each other flowers.

I know. But it’s ok. Go look up at the stars. I’m out there surfing. It’s amazing. You’ll see.

GRATITUDE

I believe you. 

We were so lucky, weren’t we, to have found one another and to have recognized in one another the kindred? 

But it isn’t all that surprising, when you think about it. Basically, all of your friends, and even some who were mere acquaintances would do whatever you asked, not just because you were so hard to refuse, but because we knew, sometimes only instinctively, that you were on a mission to accomplish joy and delight. You were a pied piper of the good time. The queen of the activity bag. The high priestess of party fluffing. 

It was just what I wanted to do. It was what I had to do.

And I was a fully willing acolyte, assisting with my whole heart in the ministry of fun, often with pastry in hand, dancing shoes, and maybe a little weed or something. Do you realize how much you underestimated yourself and your huge impact on your world?

Yeah. I do now. We were the best. When are you going to get to the dancing??

THE LIST

• How about that New Year’s Eve a couple of years ago that was your brainchild. We started at Bar Lago by the lake. You somehow got the proprietor to lay out a whole spread of beautiful food, candlelight, looking out over the Lake. And you lined up the DJ, and the dancers, and the whole thing came together, and we had the whole place to ourselves and we rocked that joint. And when they finally closed up, we headed down the street with some party goers that I had never met before, but somehow you knew, and we continued the party in their beautiful old apartment until 5 am.

• And how about the camping trips? We picked out a spot on the map and packed up the car. One time we headed up to Ebbetts Pass in the trusty Subie with the ever recognizable “Born To Dance” bumper sticker. After climbing into the Sierra up to 8,700’, we found the turnoff and bumped along the dirt road. Located a sweet spot by a forested lake and popped up the tent just as it was starting to dusk. It was a good thing our camp neighbors had a bunch of extra firewood, because it was bloody cold and raining, and the stove wasn’t working right. But it’s good to rely on the kindness of strangers, and we had hot stew and cornbread, and perfect pears with St. Andre. We never had to coordinate the food. It always meshed perfectly. The next day was still and cloudy, and we hiked up the mountainside to the ridge, where we could perch and look over the sweeping landscape dressed in forest and lake, all of the terrain looking like a fantasy, made all the discomfort worthwhile. It was the top of the world, for us anyway, and for a few precious moments.

• Or what about when we got all dressed up and headed over to the city to the dance hall out in the avenues. We climbed the old stairs covered with tacky carpet, the walls full of competition photos. But once there, we quietly joined the dance floor filled with tangueros in all their finery and under glowing lights, enlivening our spirits even as we anticipated that partnered glide and float and twist, balance and axis, the subtlest shift in direction and momentum ending in an ankle whipping into the air in perfect time. On the way home, we recapped our best dances and howled so loud with laughter at the misses that I’m surprised the cops didn’t stop us. You always laughed at my jokes. I am always funny when I am with you.

OMG

• And what about driving out to Spirit Rock on a Monday night to hear Jack Kornfield, settle into the floor cushions, get our mindful souls together for some learnin’, soak in what we could of his wisdom and stretch open to the old, old lessons we humans must learn over and over again.

Talk about the cycling, the kizomba in Lisbon, the dancing at San Francisco City Hall, going to see Alonzo King Lines Ballet and weeping, and hearing Tower of Power at Yoshi’s, and riding Waves to Wine, and the dozens of dance nights at Allegro, La Pista, Cocomo, Mint Leaf, Cellspace, Il Pirata, and going to Sardinia, and watching the Warriors parade from my office, and skiing at Alpine Meadows, and almost driving off the road on the way to Wilbur, and going to the Korean Spa in San Leandro, and….

I know, I know. But we have to stop, because there are other people who have to talk here today. I think they get the idea by now.

AND NOW, LESSONS

How lucky was I to be your best friend? I never doubted it. 

I’ve been thinking about your beautiful hands, which I know so well, and all they meant.

• Tenderness

• Capability

• Creativity

• Healing

• Serenity

• Patience

• Intuition

• Attention

• Reassurance

{Whisper…} More about dancing.

OK. Dancing. You love movement more than anyone else I have ever known. You saw it as a means to transformation, and you used it that way in your own day. 

When you and I danced together, we shared those beloved rhythms. We listened, opening to the music and connecting to each other, turning sound into shape and movement. It lifted us and made us lighter as we took part in the alchemy that combines sound and movement and turns it into spirit and love. Music is the rope that leads to the heavens, a dance is a knot in the rope that some of us grab onto to hoist ourselves up.

{Nod….} Yes

That last time we went out dancing together, a few months ago, we had such a good time. A time I will cherish. You told me about a bar near Chinatown SF, it was an early Sunday Brazilian Forró thing, so that worked. We parked and then I find myself following you down an alley filled with dumpsters just off Grant St. If we’d been in a cartoon, question marks would have been bubbling up out of my head. Where the heck am I letting her take me now? 

But up a few steps and into a nondescript door was a really fun bar with an amazing DJ and lots of friendly and welcoming dancers. We danced with others and then together, back and forth. Your lead was really coming together. All of the styles we know—from Cuba, Argentina, Angola, Brazil—are compatible, as they all have deep roots in west Africa. You mixed it up—kizomba and milonga, cha-cha-cha and forró, and I followed it all. It was a taste of the dream we had of mashing up all our dance styles into something of our own that was new to the world and to us. We wanted to bust it out, take it on a pilgrimage around the world to all of the original places.

For 40 minutes, we kept trying to leave and then the DJ would play another tune and we had to stay for just one more.

Did we have to leave?

For our friendship and connection to endure, maybe I can become just a bit more like you, a little kinder, more patient, calmer when the keys are lost, more tolerant when driving, more thorough in writing the birthday card, more joyous in every way. 

Just scope out the dance floor when you walk in the room and go get ‘em.

I know you’re with me; I have felt you surrounding me and filling me. I know that you are a guiding angel to me now, and all I need to do is sit quietly and ask for your help, and it will come. I just have to ask myself, “What would Rachel do?”

I’m so glad you know that.

Dance on, laugh on. Share what you know.

What I know is:

• Never take a loved one for granted. Time is always shorter than we think.

• Be awestruck at the mystery.

• See something positive in everything.

• Know that our actions affect far more than we can calculate.

• Be humble.

• Listen generously to others.

These lessons are now a part of my quest as I make the most of the time that I have left in this world. I know that Rachel is out just ahead of me, and she has saved me a place at the table and on the dance floor. Because that’s what Rachel would do.

Soul sister. I love you. I take comfort in your lightness of being.

You’re the comet streaking a blaze of intense light, searing through space, burning through obstacles.

You’re out ahead, pulling us into your gravity and momentum, and we’re the sparks in your tail, splintering off and following after you, refracting your light, magnifying your energy, grasping what the world still wants from you, and shining it out into the heavens.