Its a good thing it dint rain yesterday.

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...