Memories of a 94-year-old friend...

Hey everyone,

I grew up without grandparents.

3 of the 4 were dead before I was born and the remaining grandmother—Mata Ji—spoke a different language and lived an ocean away. She gave me my first "Om" necklace and squeezed my hands with loving, watery eyes the few times she visited but when she died in 1996 I felt like I barely knew her.

Maybe I've tried to fill that "grandparent hole" with other wise elders I've come across. Like "Aunt Jane" who was the 94-year-old up the hill from my mother-in-law's cottage. My wife Leslie had just told me she died before I got this text from her son the next morning:

We just had a wonderful ceremony and funeral for her where somebody accidentally called me her son-in-law and I felt myself grow a couple inches. I mean: 94 years old—wow! I saw her hike and swim two times a day, every day, last summer. Heard she did the Wordle in 3 the day before. Housekeeper found her the next morning where she'd apparently died while changing her sweater. Lived alone till the end in the house she raised her five children. Husband of 62 years died a decade ago from cancer.

I replied to her son's text with a few memories below and I thought I'd share them with you, too.

Treasure the elders in your life.

We never know how much time is left.

Aw Andy. I am so sorry. I heard last afternoon. I audibly gasped. My heart did a tilt. My brain and stomach felt momentarily, for a second, unconnected—in a way I've rarely, if ever, felt. She was such a wise woman. 94, right? Wow. And I somehow got so lucky to know her for a blissful 15 of those. To think she was a spritely 79 when we met—doing her backstrokes beside Don every day around the island. I have so many memories and they race across my mind like pictures. Sitting beside her telling her about the ​American Robin​ or ​​White-crowned Sparrow​ I saw on the end of the island—or updating her about the ​Herring Gull​ or ​Turkey Vulture​ nests. Her holding a pencil and telling me how she counts the ​Common Loons​ for nationwide record-keeping purposes. Her flapping red and white flag. I loved her non-fiction in the morning, fiction at night tendencies. I loved that she always had a book. It was sad the day she switched to the e-reader and ​Libby app​ but that was also part of her ability to modernize, stay cutting edge, and confidently embrace the future. I loved her spartan wooden room full of sparkling lake waters and tall skinny pine trees with my kids jumping on the trampoline down below. Her white hydrangeas, orange lilies, purple wildflowers. All filtered through a thick screen haze. In the Don days, maybe there was opera playing. For sure the totem pole cast a glow. One day I asked her about the different sections and she said "Oh, just a minute!" and pulled open a drawer which held a piece of paper she kept specifically to answer that question. "Aunt Jane," as I hilariously knew her, was my wife's mother's father's brother's beautiful wife— wow. She was so deeply and truly awesome. Truly. What a woman. Full of light and a warm learned energy of understanding, respect, solitude. A generous ear. A kind hello. A daily traipse down the rocky slope to the dock. Later with a cane. Then with ski poles. Always in her black one piece swimsuit and, even later, after I almost hit her once in the boat, a bright white swimming cap, purchased within the hour by Mary. I asked her last summer, after she spent a minute climbing up the dock ladder, "How was the swim Aunt Jane?" and she replied right as I finished, right as she sat down in the Muskoka Chair, "Ohhhh, wonnnderful!" Jane seemed like a forest spirit to me. Tall. High up there. Windy, blowing. Full of life, full of energy. Often quiet but so many clever retorts—always wrapped in kindness. The way a forest reflects a deeper mood. In her I also I sensed a rugged individualism. A steadfastness. An always. An every. A reach back to that deeper wisdom. To me, in one spot in my bird-loving heart, she was my favourite bird: ​an owl​. ​Great Horned​ or ​Great Gray​, maybe? Big eyes, full of wisdom—with her beautiful salty-black bowl cut and big round glasses magnifying her eyes. Humans have been here 3 million years. Owls? 60 million. They are apex predators. The only birds with feathered talons for silent travel and forward-facing eyes that penetrate deeply—which goes well with 270-degree neck swivelling and the ability to see behind, and around, corners. Jane. I love you. I miss you. I feel you. I'm near you. Thank you for so many years full of wisdom. I saw you as a distant soul that somehow felt so close. A wonderful nest maker to five inspiring, smart, and exceptionally kind children. To Aunt Jane. With love.

More reflections on death?

When Leslie's grandmother died ​I wrote this​.

When my friend Chris died ​I wrote this​.

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