One Year After: A Remembrance

Savannah got a letter in the mail yesterday from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. It was a tax form stating that she'd received services through March of last year. It was a not-so-subtle reminder that it's been exactly one year since her passing.

A Reminder

Today I plan to do the things she liked to do: read, listen to classical music, sing, and go for a long walk. Today will be about the quiet details of life. She, unlike anyone I've ever known, could live in each moment, savor the small things the rest of us overlooked: a simple touch, a musical note, or a word. She was painfully trapped in a uncooperative, and often rebellious body, yet she managed to transcend her plight and remind us that, though life me be rife with suffering, it is also full of joy and love and beauty.

Savannah as a toddler

One of her favorite works is a series of String Quartets (16-18) by Gaetano Donizetti performed by "The Revolutionary Drawing Room." She would sit transfixed and listen by herself or with me. This is not "easy" music. Though she liked Bach and Mozart and Vivaldi, she also liked the more difficult stuff: Beethoven, Chopin, and this work. Don't expect flowery gardens of froof or mathematical perfection from this music. Expect the complexity and surprise that Savannah brought us.

I'd like to ask you to join me today, March 5th, in this remembrance. I'd like you to do one or more of the following things that Savannah did so well:

• Notice the little things; take nothing for granted
• Listen to some music without multi-tasking... just sit and listen to it. Hear each note; let it wash over you; fall into it. 
• Go for a long, meandering walk alone. Don't listen to a podcast or music while you walk. Don't plan your route. Let the day tell you where to go and when to stop.
• Read in a comfortable, secluded place. Don't speed read. Read every word and hear each word in your mind.
• Hold the hand of someone you care about. Just feel the warmth of his or her skin. 

Wishing you all peace and happiness...

#mourning #grief #happiness #inspiration #zen #joy #love #beauty #disability #SpecialNeeds