"Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole...See George? You've really had a wonderful life."- Clarence, It's a Wonderful Life
It has been a week filled with celebration - tinged with sadness, but celebratory nonetheless.
The week was bookended with funerals, each for a close family friend whose life had been interwoven with my own family's for decades. Monday's funeral was for Big Tom, whose family lived across the street from my grandmother since the 1950s. Tom and his wife Rita were very good friends with my grandparents (both now gone)- there were lots of laughs around their kitchen tables, annual New Year's Eve celebrations, and frequent trips to visit my grandparents at their beach house. In fact, Tom and his family liked the beach so much, that they rented a house on the same block - so they were neighbors with my grandparents no matter where they were! Eventually, long after my grandfather died, and my grandmother was selling the beach house, Tom and his family bought it...and his own grandchildren grew up with wonderful memories of the place, just as I did.
When my grandfather had Alzheimer's in his early 60s, some friends grew distant, preferring to remember him the way he "was." Tom and Rita got closer. They watched him while my grandmother ran to the store; their sons picked up chores my grandfather used to do; they sang to him (Tom loved to sing); they laughed; they were there. They accepted that this is what life and friendship were really all about. Tom was a truly good friend and neighbor to my grandparents, as was his whole family.
The other person who passed away this week was my mom's friend, Sue. Sue had a harder life than anyone I know, yet she found great joy and beauty throughout it. As a single, working mom she raised three girls, the youngest with extreme special needs, who eventually passed away at age 14. She found love again with a kind, older gentleman she met at church, and they spent some wonderful years together before he died a number of years ago. She had breast cancer, Parkinson's, a brain tumor, a bad car accident, you name it.
But she never seemed to let it all get to her. Whenever my mom was too nervous to drive in the snow, Sue didn't hesitate to pick her up. She enjoyed her daughters and the five grandchildren they gave her. She loved the beach, and painted beautiful watercolors of peaceful vistas. She was another wonderful friend and I hope she's surrounded by her favorite view now.
It was important to me this week to celebrate these two people - who they were and how their lives touched so many others.
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