Death Does Not Become Her

I attended my friend Esther's funeral today. It reminded me how much I hate funerals. Esther was remembered as a woman of uncommon generosity, tolerance, kindness, and wisdom. All true. And more amazing given the fact that she and her family were exiled to Siberia during World War II where as a child, Esther was used as a slave laborer. Yet she found humanity and life at every turn, or more accurately, she created it. She made curtains for her little room out of gauze a cousin swiped from a local hospital that she dyed in a vat of tea.

I still have the lovely cards and notes Esther sent me through the years. I now have even more reason to treasure them. But I hated being at her funeral. I hated being reminded that another generous, lovely, loving human being, someone who experienced stunning inhumanity (just as my father did), is no longer here to model for us how to be in the world. Esther lived her life to a humane standard most of us couldn't live up to if we outlived her by eons. Saying goodbye to Esther felt like losing my father all over again. Death surely does not become her, just as it did not/does not become my father. Living takes on greater urgency when those who set the bar are lost to us. Living well and purposefully takes on the greatest urgency of all.