order of service

My dears,

For those of you who were not able to be there, I wanted to share with you the order of service from Val’s memorial.

People came from all over: from Chicago, New York and Argentina; from Alaska and New Mexico,  New Hampshire and Indiana; from California, western Montana and eastern Washington; and from all up and down the West Coast. People came from Val’s Evergreen days; her TV work with the county; and her days making training videos for the police. They came bearing rocks for Val’s cairn and hugs for her hometown community. We gave them hugs back and the gorgeous color programs Liz and crew put together, full of pictures of Val and the places she loved. The pretty little wooden church was bedecked with sunflowers and wildflowers, Val’s favorites. It was just a wonderful gathering.

We began the service by playing a favorite recording of Val’s, a haunting Cambodian lullaby called “Phnom Penh Lullaby” (by Hun Sarath). We lit a candle for Val; and Nelly, Val’s meditation teacher, made the rim of her prayer bowl sing in an opening call.

I got to welcome the gathering, who overflowed the space of the beautiful little (former) church and stood in the vestibule, holding their babies and leaning in the windows.

Kim read “In Blackwater Woods” by Mary Oliver, a favorite poet of Val’s.

Brooke read excerpts from the last piece Val wrote, just a few weeks ago: “this terrible feast,” about trust, loving gratitude, community and letting go.

Kyla & Karen broke our hearts beautifully with a two-guitar rendition of Mirah’s song “Nobody Has to Stay.” When Val was first diagnosed, we listened to this song a lot.

Dara read a piece Val wrote called “something else,” in which she hoped that dying would release her to a place of wonder that maybe we in the living sphere have forgotten. A few excerpts:

“i will tell you that i want to find myself suddenly fluent in the vibrational tongue of all matter… i want to suddenly remember everything that the living body has forced me to forget.

“… and i think it is okay to die. it is what we are here to do. but it is hard to know how to act when you see it coming. there is no magical transformation, just love and the pedestrian march of days.

“and it is okay to live. and it is okay to stand and let the wave of grief crash over us. it won’t kill us. that is what the death of my first girlfriend gave me. i learned to grieve. to have faith in the process. it is terrifying. and it changed me utterly. but it did not kill me. it is okay to become something else. it is okay to let the people we love become something else.”

Trina graced us by singing the hymn “I Come to the Garden Alone.”

Miles, Val’s father, read us the 23rd Psalm and offered a prayer for Val.

Kyla, Karen and I led the gathering in singing “The Lord is My Shepherd,” one of the first songs Val learned to play on her bass, Buttercup. Whenever Karen was in town the three of them would get together and play (their band name is “Alive & Chicken”).

Then we all sang “I’ll Fly Away,” one of Val’s gospel favorites.

All of these are songs we sang to Val as she was leaving us two weeks ago.

Rosilyne read a letter Val wrote, telling us all stories about climbing a hill in Cafayate, Argentina with a little boy who understood the importance of vistas.

Amy brought Val’s playful voice alive in sharing an email wherein Val, writing to see if Amy would pick us up from the airport, waxed absurdly and eloquently polite and also described her dream that Tuley (our terrier) was a duck.

[… our gratitude…] for keeping our small animal in such good care. i had a very weird dream that when we got home she’d turned into a fluffy yellow duck with weepy eyes. you assured me that this was a natural phase for puppies and that at 4 months or so she would turn back into a dog. i was not excited exactly but shrugged and tried to get her to roll over or even sit. no good. she simply stared and quacked. 

Lizzy reminded us of Val’s invitation to invent art, beauty and story together by sharing excerpts from “curiosity saves lives.”

Val’s sister Sandy (elected by the family as most likely to be able to speak without crying) made us laugh and smile with several childhood stories about Val, collected from many relatives. She included one of my favorite stories about the time one of the horses, Clipper, tried to scrape off young Brad and Val (aged about 8 and 4) by walking through the door of the chicken house. The kids leaned back flat on the horse’s back and screamed bloody murder until the family came running and then all stood around laughing at them. Val used to add that there followed several lessons in how to slide off the back end of a horse.

I read parts of one of my favorites of Val’s, something she and I used to talk about: “in the eddies of lateral time.” She wrote it in April of last year. Here’s a small piece of it.

and i keep feeling this pull to side. i am listing to starboard. the pull of an internal landscape. something to the left or right of me. something shiny swirling in the eddies of this horrible momentum.

and here is my faith. what if we are curious for a moment? what if there are secret paths everywhere? to small delicate moments. to the feel of cool air on your arm and warm across your cheek, or to let someone shave your head, or to eat the most delicious beet you ever ate, or to laugh laugh laugh because someone knows how to tease you perfectly– what if these mercies bend time? or shake it loose? or make it irrelevant?

i believe there is lateral time. that this life is full of hidden landscapes. if we explore. look straight into what is terrifying. i believe that connection is time. joy is time. and love is time.  and that i have all the time in the world.

A chorus line of friends and family read from a lovely email Val wrote to Rosilyne in 2007, about the many ways she wants to spend her time.

i want to play music.

i want to see my friends.

i want to laugh and tease deborah.

i want to smell the small dog’s muzzle.

i want to buy presents.

and maybe some new tennis shoes.

a boca burger.

i want to lift weights in the garage.

i want to feel hands moving slowly with intention across my back.

i want to try to get better at things that scare me.

i want to talk about ideas.

i want to get a little drunk on wine and ride my bicycle up the hill.

i want to see what happens next.

i want to see my mother off well.

i want to [tell my father that] i am back now.

i want to take hot showers with peace in my head.

and scrub myself with rose soap that makes me believe in imaginary places.

i want to listen to music that makes me fall in love with crazy women for minutes at a time.

i want to write words that are true.

i want to find some new way of being in this world that i hadn’t thought of.

i want to see the pathway out of guilt.

i want to bake another cake for my friend nora.

i want to visit my friend roz.

i miss you too.

love you.

Nelly, Val’s meditation teacher, spoke briefly about Val’s journey and ours, all of us caring for and being cared for; and led us in a short meditation.

I spoke of a few of the things I learned from Val, or that we learned together. (And invited people to share Val memories on the insert in their programs, monogrammed with the tree and spiral of her tattoo. Or to share here. Or via email. Or sitting around campfires under starry skies…)

Last August, Val wrote a lovely email called “mercy me thank you thank you.” Cynthia, Bigi and Mae read it to us. A snippet for you here:

Then we all rose and sang “Amazing Grace” and made the rafters ring.

I told about how early last year, when I was still mostly in my wheelchair, Val and I went out to Sauvie Island, and she pushed me up the path to the levee and we sat in the weak winter sunshine, looking out over the wetland and declaiming Mary Oliver’s wonderful poem “Wild Geese” to the wild geese and the sandhill cranes. So then we all read it at the memorial gathering in a resonant call and response.

To close our shared space, I shared the Navajo prayer “Beauty is before me”:

Beauty is before me, and

beauty behind me.

Above me and below me

hovers the beautiful.

I am surrounded by it.

I am immersed in it.

In my youth, I am aware of it,

and, in old age,

I shall walk quietly the beautiful trail.

In beauty it is begun.

In beauty, it is ended.

And we finished, in celebration, with Val’s invitation to her 40th birthday party:

and so there has been a great and impressive confluence of events in my life recently.   and really no good way to make sense of any of it. but i’ve been trying anyway.

and i’ve decided that instead of sorting it all out, i want to mark the occasion. to celebrate the fact that i will get to turn 40 by grace and fortune on the 30th of March.

Please consider coming by … so that we can make a note of the completely improbable luck of getting to hang out on the same blue marble at the same time together. Dance with me. Throw your arms out and dance like crazypants.

And then the assembled danced like crazypants.

A bit later, once we had settled down a bit and provisioned ourselves with some of the marvelous food Amy and Abby and a host of others created, we watched a mesmerizing slide show — a Val highlights reel — put together with humor, love and artistry by Karen.

And then we sat on the bricks of the patio in the early summer sunshine, cuddling babies, eating salad and cupcakes, and loving Val and each other.