What Really Matters

Tonight I'm thinking about a friend of mine who passed on about 4 years ago.

This past summer, I was at Arlington Cemetary in Virginia and happened upon the Women's Memorial there. You can't really miss it, as it's right there at the entrance way. On TV people saw it when Ted Kennedy died and his hurst drove past it, before turning into the cemetary, but most don't people don't know what it is. The tourists scarcely bother with it, preferring the more well known attractions.

I was in a mood that day, and didn't much feel like visiting the graves of people I've never met, and now never will. I've got a bit of a grudge against the military when it comes to gravesites, as my father, who was a WWII vet never got a military headstone for his grave, due to the records of his service being lost in a federal fire.

Anyway, in my funk, I discovered the Women's Memorial. Something was nagging at me, like "I've heard about this before, but where?" As I walked through the halls, I remembered. It was my friend, an elder female who served in WWII. She'd died some years before my visit, but I remembered her being excited about this memorial finally being done.

I discovered that they had a registry of women who'd been in the military, and so I looked her up and found her record there. They had a beautiful picture, too, of her during her service days in the 1940's - one that I wouldn't have recognized as my friend, only first meeting her when she was in her 70's.

But this isn't a post about military memorials, really. It's about the lovely lady that I knew. We'd met through a mutual friend, and she'd call me sometimes to check and see how our friend was doing. We'd run into each other at events, or talk on the phone. She always amazed me with her attitude. She was unapologetically herself, and spoke plainly and clearly her truths. She'd had, by some accounts, a hard life, one that could easily have been a made her a victim of the world. However, she never took that stance in all the time I'd known her. She was a God loving woman, but not a poser or a proselytizer. She knew my belief system wasn't her own and never once questioned the validity of my ways.

I've known a lot of elders over the years, and she struck me as refreshing in not buying into the standard party line of how she ought to see her own life experience. Given up for adoption, she'd gone to boarding schools and been converted to Christianity. She might well have found this offensive, but she didn't. Other people I'd known who'd gone through similar experiences were filled with anger, regret or self-pity. Not once did I see this occur for her.

She had a certain way of looking at things that I really appreciated. We'd talk about her life and she'd update me on her family, and was sad to see some paths chosen by her children, but in no way felt she owned responsibility for it. She was neither martyr nor enabler. She'd lived her life as best as she could, and left the rest up to God.

It was always refreshing, talking with her, because you just never knew where it would go. She talked about what really mattered, in the keenest and most eloquent sense. Most people don't do that these days, and frankly, I miss it.

I saw that they didn't have that she died on their records, and they gave me a form to complete. I've had it with me the better part of 7 months. Took awhile to find the obituary, then in the flurry of my own personal dramas, I'd set it aside. When I was at the memorial, I purchased a silver pin of wings, to remember her by. I didn't set that aside, instead, keeping it on my backpack or nightstand, and now it's on a hat a friend gave me.

I never forgot I needed to get the memorial her death information, and did so tonight, mainly because I'm feeling up for it now. Thinking about her, she showed me what really mattered through how she modelled it and talked. She enjoyed life, it seemed to me - did her best by it, and didn't lament a thing that ever happened. I loved her straight forward, unapologetic, but compassionate ways. Her compassion wasn't for show, and she had no need to impress people. She had her unique interests and ways, and enjoyed them completely.

What I was particularly struck by was the many ways in which she rebuked and almost laughed at, the ways in which people sought to define her through her life challenges, or what some might call tragedies. There was a confident, low level defiance to her, like "don't make me out to be the victim when I'm not."

I can relate to her in that regard, and it's probably one of the reasons that we were friends. We knew how to let go of the things that didn't serve us well in the past. We were both equally compassionate with ourselves and other people. We didn't really care much for people defining us by our life challenges and telling us how we ought to think, see things or feel them. We squarely and head on viewed things as they actually were, rather than how we'd like them to be. So, in that sense, we were firmly grounded in reality. We were both deeply spiritual people, but viewed that as a personal relationship with our respective faiths, not one all out on display or for show.

We weren't, to paraphrase Shakesphere, acting out roles on the stage of life. We were more to the point standing there watching the others and wondering what made it so terribly difficult to be present, aware and authentic? Then we'd shrug and move to stage left, but only because it suited our fancy, not for anyone else's benefit.

She gave me a lot to consider, a lot of good wisdom in the brief time I'd been lucky enough to know her. She taught me something of a brazen approach to challenges in life. There will be people lined up to decide who I am, judge what I do, the decisions I make, like some great morality play. Others will attempt to sit at the feet on the newest martyr they think I have every right to become. After knowning this friend, there's just a part of me that can't be bothered with either role definition. There's life to be engaging in, people to be talking to, serious matters needing attending to, and a glorious set of life experiences to look back on and say, with a smile, "I learned a lot from that and it made me better today."

Cheers to the renegade angel I'm sure she must be!