I found out today that my very first private client died a couple years ago at the age of 29. I watched her funeral mass online this evening, trying to better wrap my head around her death.
I don't plan on trying to articulate any overarching narrative about it. I'm just trying to process my shock and the pile of emails that have sharply reminded me of how intertwined strangers' lives can be, and why it is critical to choose words wisely.
I had forgotten how much my work was an expression of care. We never met – never even spoke – but as I reviewed those emails, I realized that outside the transactional aspect of our correspondence, there was an unexpected tenderness at a particularly dark time for both of us.
I had somehow forgotten that. I had forgotten just how sick she was, and, in the periphery of her pain, I had also forgotten how patient, how strong, and how kind.
I had not, however, forgotten her.
In Greek mythology, the souls of the dead were required to drink from the river Lethe (literally "forgetfulness") before they could be reincarnated. Conversely, I think death often awakens the living to the forgotten qualities –both good and bad, to be repressed or recalled as demanded by our personal temperaments – of those who've gone before us.
So tonight, as I sit and drink grief's anti-lethean salt alongside my bourbon and stir the wellspring of memory, I remember E's light and everything she illuminated.
How patient. How strong. How kind.