This is today’s email newsletter. I don’t usually put it on my blog as some of you subscribe to both but I’m getting lots of requests for it so here you go! If you want to receive the newsletter, subscribe here. It’s free.
Last week, my friends Kim and Howard Schiffer lost their house to the fire in Santa Barbara.
The house burned to nothing.
Love blossomed in its place.
What Kim and Howard are making out of this fire is so glorious to watch, I weep as I write this.
The first thing Kim felt when she heard the house was gone was gratitude. Standing with one daughter and her husband by her side, she felt such gratitude for their safety and for the buoying love of friends.
Sifting through the wreckage of the house days later, a burly fireman approached Kim and started sobbing, telling her how hard they had tried to save the house.
He and Kim held each other and cried.
If you’ve ever lost things to a disaster or accident, you know it’s not about the stuff, it’s about memories made tangible:
the plaster handprint your child made in kindergarten,
the picture of your father right before he died smiling at the camera with an impish grin of gratitude,
the dusty teapot from your honeymoon in Ireland.
Or as Peggy, Kim’s friend said in an email,
It’s reliving every meal and tummy full. The flavors that linger from the countless meals prepared with loving hands, like wings extending from the heart, beating bright and passionate as a hummingbird’s, intent on feeding hungry, appreciative mouths.
All we really want in life is to love and to be loved — that’s what true comfort helps us do.
When we know how to truly comfort ourselves, we become more who we really are and more able to love full tilt, without holding back, even in the face of the crushing losses that inevitably come our way.
Every time we face a transition, we are offered another chance to lean back on our love for ourselves so that we can meet what has come to us with love.
I see in Howard and Kim the evolution so many of us are living, the evolution from closing to opening, from victim to creator, from woulda, coulda, shoulda to open-hearted acceptance of what is.
I see Kim and Howard living with curiosity and gratitude, allowing this misfortune to move them more deeply into trusting they really are okay no matter what.
Not that Kim and Howard aren’t grieving. Howard is the founder and president of Vitamin Angels. Kim is renowned chef, teacher, and caterer and hugely in demand. (She grabbed 12 quarts of duck stock when they evacuated!) It’s going to be very difficult to do their lives — with three kids — and rebuild.
And they will love their way through it.
I am so grateful for their inspiration to love my way through my fear, through loss, until… until forever.
I love you Howard and Kim, Austin, Zoe and Eli.
The Luscious, Nurturing Get Your Writing Done While Laughing Your Butt Off and Maybe Crying a little Too Writer’s Retreat
We’ve had two women drop out, one due to illness (heal well Anna) and a new job (congrats Susan).
It’s the most amazing group of women gathering and we’ll make writing collages and do wacky brain training and a Taos studio art tour and write write write.
For writers of all genres and levels.
Get the details here and sign up.
Comfort Wishes
I wish you the courage to pull up your anchor
to assent to let the waves toss you, even to let them dent
and crack your
beautiful life boat.
Risk the scratches and cracks, even risk the
moment you’re convinced you will be swept away
forever.
Grasp your prayer beads
made of tears,
hold the hands of those who have suffered, too,
wail loudly
and all the while
accept the invitation.
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5 responses so far ↓
1 Lynne Tolk May 14, 2009
Beautifully said!
My daughter commented the other day that so many of us seem to want life to be smooth, comfortable forever and ever.
I remember feeling that way once. Thank goodness it’s only a fantasy. Such a life would be so barren. I am grateful for every grief, crisis and challenge that has helped me grow into loving.
Lynne Tolk’s last blog post..Love the Inner Cry!
2 Hiro Boga May 15, 2009
“All we really want in life is to love and to be loved — that’s what true comfort helps us do.”
Thank you for this moving, inspiring story, so powerfully told.
May your friends find home and shelter in their hearts, and in the hearts of those who love them.
I hold the vision of a nest of love and support for them as they rebuild their lives.
Hiro Boga’s last blog post..Flourishing at the tideline
3 Joely Black May 16, 2009
This was such a beautiful thing to read in my inbox and I’m so glad you’ve reposted it.
Joely Black’s last blog post..TGIAD 30: Not your typical hero
4 Anne in Virginia May 18, 2009
Thank you for sharing this story in the Self-Care Minder and your blog. Blessings on Kim and Howard and their children. I’ll help hold Hiro’s vision, too.
5 Jennifer May 21, 2009
This came from Gail as an email and I wanted to share!
Jennifer,
I loved your newsletter as it touched a cord in my emotions. It is so true that “it’s about memories made tangible”. After my parents died and I watched the house I was raised in be torn down, I felt the loss like the loss of a loved one. As brick and wood came down, I thought of the family picnics in the back yard on long summer nights, the measuring place on the back door edging where grandkids could hardly wait to pass up their short grandma. I remembered bringing both my babies to visit their grandparents and play in the yard I played in. They flew kites in the field next door with their grandpa. I remembered the fireplace my father kept fueled in winter and the one special stormy day I came home from school to find him home with Mom ready to enjoy tea and cookies with my sister and me. I could go on and on. . .
Anyway, after the devastation, I hope your friends can begin to start reminiscing and reminding each other of those special things and memories and then write them down before they start to forget the details. They sound like very special people indeed. Loved the visual of grabbing the duck broth!
Thank you for sharing and reminding us of what’s really important and about the challenges and creativity involved in transitions. Please send my best wishes to your friends.
Gail Brokaw
http://www.embracethepossibility.org