Hi Therese--haven't written in awhile...I changed the water filter in the fridge at work this week. Last time I did that was July 16, when you were still with us, and we prayed and hoped you would recover...you always were the one to change that filter and I realized, you've been gone now one water filter's worth...I miss you so much here. I've missed your dad here this week, and now I see it was his birthday yesterday. Happy birthday Dad. I know this one was awful for you. But Therese was with you all day, and I hope you felt her.
Lisa is in town next week, and wants to come visit you Therese. I told her I'd like to come with her, and then go for Indian after. Hope she says yes to that idea...
Today you've been gone one month Therese..wow...this has truly been some of the hardest 6 weeks of my life..still adjusting to you not being there everyday at work. This so incredibly sucks...ouch ouch ouch. And as if that is not enough, in a few days it will be one year since my mom died, and a few days after that will be five years since my oldest sister died. I so don't get why all this is happening at the same time, but that's just the way it is...
One of the hardest and yet most comforting lessons I've learned over and over agian in all my spiritual travels is the Buddhist teaching about impermanence and letting go... It turns out, change is all there is; everything is changing, all the time, no matter what we do to make it otherwise. Nothing stays the same, each moment is different from the last, and from the next. Each thought comes, and then goes, to be replaced by the next thought, or feeling, or experience, and then THAT one changes too... I've learned that if I slow down enough to notice each moment, not holding onto any thought or feeling I am having, not trying to make it different, but just noticing, feeling what is, and letting it go as the next thought comes, I don't get so stuck. There is a saying I really like:
"Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional."
Trying to come to terms with Therese being gone has been truly painful, but if I try to make that any different than it is, if I dwell on wanting her to be here again, it just hurts even more and I suffer. So I just try to breathe through it all, and be with what is, and see what the next moment brings me...and that's how I'm getting through all this, one moment, one hour, one day at a time...
So in honor of it being one month since Therese died, I wanted to share this really cool story about that night.
A few weeks before this, before she was even in the hospital, I had seen in a newsletter one night while eating supper that a Hungarian Gypsy Band, from Hungary no less, was going to be performing in Berkeley on July 20!! Well, being part Hungarian, and possibly part gypsy as the stories go, I decided then and there that I was going to that concert. As the day approached, I realized NO ONE was available or wanted to come with me--my family did not want to come, a friend I invited couldn't make it either, but I decided I really, really needed to go. By then, like everyone else at work, I was completely wrung-out with worry and utter disbelief over Therese being so crazy sick for the last two weeks. I really honestly felt like blowing it off, though, 'cause going home and napping was really looking good to me that day... But knowing a little about gypsy music, I knew it would be a very energetic and rousing concert, and seemed like the perfect way to channel all that anguish and upset and have some much-needed distraction from my life for a few hours...so I left and went there straight from work.
..and boy, was THAT the best thing I could have done--the band did NOT dissappoint! They spoke in Hungarian, but one of the band members was bilingual and interpreted. I grew up with Hungarian and other eastern european languages being spoken in my home, so it was like music to my ears just hearing them talk between songs, and sing in the language too! And the music was AMAZING! Very high energy, very uplifting, feel-good kind of stuff..! Before long I was, like many others there, swept up by the music--you can't really just sit and listen to a gypsy band--you must get up and dance..!! It was so much fun--I danced dances I hadn't done since I was a kid..!
So not long into the second set, I was in the aisle dancing and smiling, and feeling really so very happy I went that nite, having a great time, when all of a sudden I 'saw' Therese in my mind--and felt her very strongly there with me--she was smiling and laughing with me and even danced a few moments with me. We didn't speak--but we just looked at each other and it felt really warm and loving, and really Therese. I remember feeling really happy that she would come to me like that. And I remember suddenly thinking "oh no, maybe Therese died tonite..?" but looking at her smiling joyful face filled with love and happiness, I felt really OK and happy that she was 'there' with me doing this really fun thing. I smiled at her as I felt her leaving, and felt so grateful for those few moments, and kept on smiling and dancing after she had gone.
Later that night, Art had emailed us that Therese had died. I didn't see it until the next morning as I was leaving to come to work. When Richard wrote his beautiful email to us the next day or so about how and when exactly she died, I realized that she had come to me at the concert about an hour or so after she had died--she was saying good-bye to me in the sweetest, happiest way she could have. It was such a gift! I felt so good about that. It makes me smile even now as I think about it again...
So dear Art, David, Michelle and Stephanie; Richard, Lin, Michael and Celine--I hope you are all doing OK, as OK as you could be right now..know that this too shall pass, that the hurt will come and go and come again, and eventually will lessen somewhat. I know that seems impossible right now, but it will. Sending you all love and hopes for more ease each day. Holding you all in my heart...
Dear family and friends: I'm finally geting around to writing these here..! I have some Therese stories from work, where I knew and worked with her and Richard, for the last 10 years. In fact, Richard and Therese were the very first people I met when I started at the County July 2000. I love them very, very much..
I have a nick name for Therese, I've had it for years: I call her St. Therese, because she could work absolute miracles for me here in the office. If I struggled with printing large maps, or burning CDs, or any one of a number of things I frequently called on her to help me with--she would always stop whatever she was doing and do my task, and do it well. She saved my butt on more than one occassion by her thouroughness and attention to detail.
Here's a great example: on her last day here at work, I was heading up the coast with my family to meet other families for a 3-day camping trip. Richard and Therese had been diligently helping me for days to get some documents and CDs ready to send to the printer. When I finally left work that Thursday nite (the nite before) I left them with instructions to PLEASE CALL ME if there were ANY problems with getting this out the door that Friday. We had all worked SO hard on this project, and it was finally getting out the door!!
Well, sure enough, my phone rings as we were halfway to our destination, and Therese said she had found a huge and important part of an EIR chapter MISSING. I coul NOT BELIEVE it..!!! How could I have done that?? That couldn't be right, Therese. So we talked for problably 15 or 20 minutes trying to figure it out, which we couldn't, not with me being out of the office. So I finally said "It's OK, let's just leave it till Tuesday--what's a few more days..?" I think I wished her a good holiday weekend. I say I think, because I was really upset (with myself) for the mistake and was kinda grumpy on the phone..I'm pretty sure I said to have a nice holiday weekend because its something I would have done, I wanted her to enjoy herself and forget about all the work stuff, and most importantly because I knew I was frustrated on the phone, and I didn't want to leave her with me being grumpy. She would have thought it was her I was grumpy with, but I wasn't. I had planned on talking with her, making sure she knew that on Tuesday when I got back to the office.
When I got back on that Tuesday, sure enough, I had COMPLETELY messed up the chapter in question, which was a BIG DEAL, and THANK GOD my ST. THERESE caught it before we printed documents that would have resulted in lots of explaining on my part among other undesirable consequenses...I hadn't asked Therese to do that, to review my final work product, but she did--that's just who she was. She totally saved my butt big time on that one..I never got to thank her in person for it, we never saw her here again at work..
Here's another Therese story: The last few weeks she was here, we ended up being in the kitchen at the same time making our lunches, which was unusual that we both kept going there at the same time. We would trade food or give each other food--she always wanted to share her food with everyone--so generous. Therese was always interested in what folks had brought to eat. Well, I usually would just make my food and take it back to my desk and eat while I worked, but those last few weeks, every time we were in the kitchen making lunches, for some reason I stayed and we would talk and laugh and have lunch together. Those were such sweet times--sometimes others would join us, and it really felt so good to be hanging together like that--talking about our kids, about whatever it was we chatted about....now I know why something made me stay all those times so I could enjoy her and spend time in ways we didn't normally. I am so very grateful we had that precious time together..
..I have been spending a lot of money on buying lunch these last few weeks, cause I cannot bear to be there doing it without her smiling cheerful conversation and connectedness, her warmth... I've noticed others here at work are doing things differently because of the pain of not being able to have our Therese with us in all the warm and loving and kind and sweet ways she was...
I had one up on Fr. Jeff--at her funeral he challenged us to live our lives like Therese had lived hers. I had, in the days before, started to think about and trying to do just that--I even posted about it on my FB page--how in many situations I now ask myself "What Would Therese Do?" (WWTD) especially when I don't know what to do about a problem. I resolved to be more kind, and cheerful, and patient, and positive in my moment to moment life, because she that's how she walked through her days here at work, and I want to be more like that. Thanks Therese for being such an inspiration to me, and all of us here in the office...someday this pain will lessen, maybe, but I will never forget you Therese, or how deeply you touched my heart and my life. Holding you in my heart babe..always. Your Pal, Cindy
