Good-bye to Sheila Lodge

Sheila was one of the most generous I have ever known...not only giving her hugs, love and support, her fierce, mother-bear protection, but also her disappointments, resentments, sorrows, and unbearable grief, connecting us to the full meal deal of being human...both the awe and awful of our breathing beating coursing existence. A section of W.S. Merwin's poem:

"...I have to trust what was given to me
if I am to trust anything
it led the stars over the shadowless mountain
what does it not remember in its night and silence
what does it not hope knowing itself no child of time

what did it not begin what will it not end
I have to hold it up in my hands as my ribs hold up my heart
I have to let it open its wings and fly among the gifts of the unknown..."

AND

When Giving Is All We Have
Alberto Ríos, 1952

One river gives
Its journey to the next.

We give because someone gave to us.
We give because nobody gave to us.

We give because giving has changed us.
We give because giving could have changed us.

We have been better for it,
We have been wounded by it—

Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet,
Big, though small, diamond in wood-nails.

Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too,
But we read this book, anyway, over and again:

Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand,
Mine to yours, yours to mine.

You gave me blue and I gave you yellow.
Together we are simple green. You gave me

What you did not have, and I gave you
What I had to give—together, we made

Something greater from the difference.