IT'S A GOOD THING IT DINT RAIN YESTERDAY
cause mischa went out into the countryside
with a big pack of friends and there was a non stop
waterfall
all dang day long
one a them people called me to come get mischa
on accounta they thought maybe she was startin to poach
water from the
surroundin counties to keep that stream spurtin outta her
eyes
i guess them greeks got that reputation for keenin for a
dang good reason
mischa told me once when her cousin jack passed their other
cousin stevie
he just was shakin on ole jack’s metal box until it almost
crashed to the ground
that’s some big hurtin these people do
seems like mischa maybe aint never gonna let up on that
river a tears
on accounta it really’s lookin like her elizabeth
aint makin no plans on comin back home anytime soon
dana said she was incontrollable, or insoluble or somthin
like that
anyways lots a people stood up and talked about how much
they love that ole b
somehow mischa did it too! she had a string a back-up
readers just in case
her inconsolability wouldnt subside long enough for her to
string all her sentences
i got to hear all about what she said from my aunt lee
(pinky’s mother) it was like this:
Some of you know that my nickname for Elizabeth was ‘’ms.
why pay less’’. I refer to her this way with great affection, ofcourse. As a Leo,
it was, i suppose her birthright, and she lived up to it. That is why the
astrological forecast for today, is so appropriate: Leo-Today you may be
inspired to plan for the future and make permanent improvements. Appreciate the
wisdom of insisting on only the best quality when making purchases and
considering the people who are part of your life.
Beth...is the second letter in the Hebrew alphabet, it means
house and house of god.
I preferred the name Elizabeth to satisfy my own aesthetic.
The look of the letterforms, the cadence of the syllables. And i can’t stop now
because it affords me time to linger on her name, remembering her.
But I know now, I was mistaken, she was Beth.
Everyday she was filled with a desire to know god, her
efforts benefitted all of us.
Elizabeth filled every home we made with prayers and peace and
beauty.
All who have loved her and who she loved in return have
walked a path wither that was full of her blessings, and we caught a glimpse of
her vision.
We understood that she had set an intention for us
to question our selves...in an effort to know ourselves.
In Elizabeth’s heart one question took precedence: How would
she become one with, in her words, ‘’her father?’’
In our daily conversations she always arrived at the same
conclusion:
at the heart of all that is, in the unending beauty of the
truth, the answer rests: we are all pure love, everything else is an illusion.
‘’We are not our bodies” was her mantra this past year.
Perhaps as she edged closer to leaving her physical body,
she could see the truth of this statement with greater clarity.
“Sometimes I can’t wait to die!” she told me over and over.
I understood and I didn’t want to.
She was so sure, so certain, that when we were both gone
from this plane we would have another life together and another...a life
without end.
I am searching for the faith that will allow me to share her
perspective.
So far, I am still quite lost.
‘’Mischa, where did you come from?” she asked me this all
the time, smiling at me like no one else ever has.
My answer to her was always ‘’honey...you know I am not even
sure I exist, I mean how do we even know we are here where we think we are,
where’s the dividing line?”
I expect now, that Elizabeth may have the answers to those
questions.
I expect she has either found the dividing line or found
that there is no such thing.
We however are left behind to form and reform the question.
When she was leaving I said ‘’you always ask me where I came
from, now i have to ask you ‘’where are you going?”
She didn’t answer me.
I choose to believe she was going to where she already was,
to a communion with god.
She has surrendered, as we all will. And that is a beautiful
thing, not a fearful thing.
When I consider all of the wise and loving ways she was with
me in this world, I have to put down my own resistance to death and agree with
her. Our names are written in the infinite wisdom of the universe.
It is not just the memory of Elizabeth that will be eternal,
it is her essence.
And her most generous gift to us all is that her essential
being is a light and a love that she has wrapped around us. Elizabeth was, in
every way generous: with her smile, her ideas, her beliefs, her home, her
worldly possessions, her time.
Her love was infectious. She drew all of us to her.
Elizabeth was beauty in every sense possible. And with those
eyes, those hands, her kindness, she healed so many of us at the deepest
levels.
We often reflected on a line a Jane Siberry song that speaks
of our inability to know that we are worthy of love. Elizabeth knew we were all
worthy of love. She knew, for her god, was love. We are all “part and parcel”
of that love, she told me.It was by her example that many of us have risen up
from darker spaces. She turned her light on us and in her presence, we shone
and today still and tomorrow still we will shine, reflected in her light. Like
all of us, she encountered doubt, everyday. and so it was left for me to offer
her a reminder of how powerful herlove was and how she awakened so very many
people with that love.
For the opportunity to hand that to her, I am forever
grateful.
Beth, Elizabeth, my beautiful jeweler, my wife , my teacher
, our sister, our friend leaves us with all the beauty she created with her
sensitive hands, her enormous heart , her wisdom and her faith.
There are jewels and sculptures and leather bags and sandals
and stone paths and walls and gates and buildings and pottery and furniture and
photographs and poems and stories. And recordings of her sweet voice, when she
spoke and when she sang.
These tangible gifts of her creativity we hand to each other
and to all of those who come after us, remembering her.
All of those things she made all are wrapped in her deep
affection for us, her insistence that only through love will we find our way.
In her love, in loving her, I pray for all of us, to
continue to walk down that path with her, hovering inside of our hearts.
“I see your sweet side baby” that’s what she loved to say
...with a wink and flash of that incomparable smile.
Elizabeth, honey, I’m telling you now, we will bathe in your
sweet side today and forever.
I know Elizabeth would want to ask this of all of us
gathered here today:
Please find all the kindness inside of your hearts and make
a gift of it to each other.
Know, you are loved.
After that big explosion a words that came outta Mischa, she
and ole Peter lit a bonfire, full a prayers, all them gathered round and
watched it rise up into the deep dark beauty of the night.
Then we sent up ten hot air lanterns that rose up into the
sky and blended into the starry
night.
Elizabeth would have loved that.
Because we are starlight, and we are golden...
