About Us

A young girl died this spring. It was seemingly an untimely death, doubly sad, for she, like the earth, was still in her first season. My tidy mind balked at the thought of the interrupted cycle, the unfinished business of her life, the ends of experience not neatly tied. Yet her mother showed me photographs taken on a trip shortly before her death. A terrible disease has melted away the adolescent softness of her face and unveiled the beauty of the full blown bloom she was to become. Blue eyes, startling large, laughing out of a tanned face. Strong nose and chin, elegant cheek bones. The unadorned beauty of the fashion model in a summer layout. And her courage. Oh, the steady going on with the business of life in the midst of pain and anxiety. It took no notice of the fall signs, life slowing down like nature itself in those months. It ignored the nip in the air of colder, darker days to come. There was humor too, leaping at you unexpectedly like the autumn squirrel from a bare branch. She had learned a winter wisdom, the peace of the very old who come to accept today as a gift and regret not yesterday nor count on tomorrow. She warmed her hands in front of the fire of love from her family and friends and radiated that warmth back onto the givers. She, in a short time, fashioned a life more full than many five times her age. She gleaned everything important a man must know to make his living a finished product. The seasons of her life proceeded, if too rapidly, in good order. When she left the world, her cycle was complete, from taker to giver, helplessness to strength, babe to sage.