this is not goodbye
Sometimes when people die, we feel we are saying goodbye to them. But, in truth, we are not. We are wholeheartedly saying hello to those intangible parts of them that have embedded themselves in us, like splinters–sometimes painful, yes, but far more beautiful.
My friend, Gwyn Michael, died recently. Gwyn was an artist who, when diagnosed with cancer, made art of her bone scans. She was a sprite and a seeker and a friend. She created art that I so appreciate and love.
Gwyn’s memorial service is today in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. And while I couldn’t be there in person, though I longed to, I was asked to “speak,” and sent this message:
Gwyn Michael Memorial, May 4, 2014
To Gwyn and her beloved family and friends,
I was honored to know Gwyn in this lifetime—to be able to witness her human-ness, her artistic vision, her loves and hurts, her gifts. And I was honored to speak with her just before she started her new journey, one in which those bone scans from which she made such beautiful art have no meaning except as markers on an extraordinary trek. I knew Gwyn through my work in the world, and through hers, and beyond all that as two human beings navigating life as best we could.
Hers was a deeply artistic eye, and her artwork graced my books in gorgeous ways. I knew Gwyn long before I met her. And I would like to share the story of our meeting.
I was doing a book reading in Massachusetts and there was no local book store to help with selling my books after the reading for those who wanted me to sign one for them. I put a call out on Twitter, asking for a volunteer who might help—and Gwyn answered. “I’ll be in the area on travel,” she said, “and would love to help.”
And so she did. As we had dinner afterward, she told me she had bought a new outfit to wear to the event because she didn’t think her every day blue jean artist outfit would be good enough. “But the new outfit just wasn’t me,” she said at dinner. “So I took it back.” I shared with her that before this reading I had felt great angst at presenting my work in a more compelling way, and that a friend has suggested I just “come as I was,” which is what I decided to do. And so we sat at dinner, each in our blue jeans, each coming to that evening understanding more fully that we needed to show up in our lives as we are.
This is good advice, and advice that both she and I followed after that meeting. Her bone scans became art—haunting and gorgeous art. She showed up fully as who she was, and still does.
Poet David Whyte has written that “heartbreak is unpreventable, the natural outcome of caring for people and things over which we have no control, of holding in our affections those who inevitably move beyond our line of sight. Heartbreak is the beautifully helpless side of love and affection and has its own way of inhabiting time. Heartbreak is something we hope we can avoid; something to guard against, a chasm to be carefully looked for and then walked around. But heartbreak may be the very essence of being human, of being on the journey from here to there, and of coming to care deeply for what we find along the way…”
I am deeply thankful I found Gwyn along my way. I am also deeply comforted by the fact that death ends a life, not a relationship, and that through her art, I will continue my relationship with Gwyn for the rest of my life.
Patti Digh
With much love, admiration, and thanks for your presence in my life and on this planet, Gwyn.
