Hazel Rand

I will tell you that today was Hazel’s memorial service. And that should impart some kind of information to you. So that you can picture the buffet table and the BBQ pork. The outside tables set up at a friend’s house. The cooler of Coors Light. The smokers over by the tree. Two other women with Hazel’s eyes and chin sitting toward the front.

The pictures from her life lined up on a table. The one of her with the biggest fish ever caught on string. Many with her and her Ricky, the high school sweetheart she never stopped being sweet on. Both of them out in the world finding joy. Finding fun. Loving everyone around them. In almost every photo her eyebrow is arched and there is a half-smile that says “I dare you”.

We are never so visible as in our grief. To let on that this life has taken a little piece out of our hide. And there is no heroic plan, no place to run, no recourse from this. There is no way around this moment. It is so achingly beautiful to see how hard people try here. Show up and try to compress what a person meant to them. In the hot sun. While their voices fail them.

Family and friends stood up and told the best ribald stories of Hazel and her antics. Told how she changed their life. Was a best friend to so many. Helped them become better people. Gave them a second chance. Was a second mother.

And each one of them knew it wasn’t enough. There is no way to say who a person is. Who a person was. But we still try.

She was sad to leave. It wasn’t on purpose. She wanted to stay and take care of us. In our conversations about cancer she kept saying – “but I worry about you. You’re so young and you didn’t do anything to deserve this”.

“Oh Hazel nobody deserves this and we’re both too young.”

58 years old.

This life mattered.