Eulogy

 "So often in life, things that you regard as an impediment turn out to be great, good fortune."" -RBG

2020 has been a strange year... by any measurement that I can imagine. There have been times where you feel no choice but to turn even things like my 4 letter word hope and declare it a delusion. While the thoughts running through my head right now have been ringing for a while, there were prompted by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg death Friday night. I received a text telling me about it and it is the only time in my life I've had an audible reaction to news. I have no shame in admitting that I literally cried. 

I'm not a liberal, heck not even a democrat (not a republican either just for the record, an actual independent that is proud of the votes he has cast for most people of both parties and ashamed of a few for both with how they panned out). But RBG was one of those people that is too good for our times and therefore made our times better. 

Two of the strange times this year have been when I left the ARC presidency. They were kind enough to compile some paragraphs about what I had done for the running community over 5 years there. They presented them at my last board meeting as I was transitioning out. There were clever ones and funny ones but my two favorites, if I must admit, were ones acknowledging my connection with Kiana and running and another one that seemed to suggest that I may have done nothing individually other than getting the right group of people to gel to get collective wins. For my 40th anniversary, Jackie was kind enough to put together videos of people wishing me well for the birthday I thought I wouldn't arrive at. All 3 of the women in my house whom I love dearly and emphatically also made a skit video making fun of my mannerisms. They were the ones I spent the day with and if that kind of love isn't worth staying alive for... I don't know what is.

But as I watched the videos with them at the end of the day where people said different things, again some comical, some more serious, it felt as awkward as I did pleasant because since this was celebrating my 40th birthday, the one I thought I'd be dead for I wondered how different the speeches would have been if they were at my funeral. I hope they skip me having a funeral but if they don't, I hope they would say something similar. But it has inspired me to continue a path I began long ago which is to say things to people for no reason at all. I don't always have the courage to say it to them in person when prompted so something it's the cop out (for me) of a text or an email or a social media but I have a 97% batting average of saying it to them. 

I've watched the statements people have said about RGB from people who opposed her views etc but realized that we are more than the sum of our views (I wish that was a little more prevalent). I wonder if they ever said them to her; I hope so. 

But just a few days before, at an age similar to RBG's, I was at my grandparents 70th wedding anniversary (an event of a very few people in person and a lot of people on social media and zoom and facetime). They were 86 and 89, so respectively 16 and 19 back when they got married. There were speeches and toast. I gave mine quoting my grandfather to take it one day at a time, you'll get tired if you do two. That's how I've gotten here. When it was time for him to leave, he's not able to walk or drive anymore but he rode his scooter out to his van and with stubbornness and strength and pride, he refused out help and got himself into the passenger vehicle and as he struggled but succeed to get there, I realized that's how he got to 89 and likely how I got to 40. 

The quote above from hers is to recognize your good fortune. In her case, she shared it with literally the nation and time and history. Most of us won't be that fortunate. But I've never met anyone who didn't have great things in their life it they just took a second to let them sink in. They make fun of me at the house because I misquote a song (which inspired Kiana's art in the garage);

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got til its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Eulogy is what people usually associate with funerals but it actually comes from the greek meaning good word, no more no less. So may I remind you some and above all me that if there's something good you have don't wait till it's gone to know what you've got. Send them an email, sing them a song, write them an emoji, call them but give them a good word long before they're gone to them not about them and maybe even if they're in a parking lot they'll be reminded that the connection the two of you have is part of paradise.