"I Don't Know What Happens When People Die"
Where did you go, Christine?
I woke up this morning to the news that my friend Christine died late last night. Oh Christine, you will be missed. Helene and I learned only a month or so ago that Christine was sick with cancer. She’s barely 60. When we went to see her in the hospital just over two weeks ago, she wasn’t feeling well, but was talking about her plans for later in the summer. A few days later, we visited again and her affect had shifted - she mentioned that she just drew up her will, and that all she wanted to do was leave the hospital and go home. I believe she knew that she was dying.
Knowing that Christine is a super fan of the Grateful Dead, I brought my guitar with me on our second visit and sang the song Ripple. She seemed rather far away as she listened, like a part of her was somewhere else. Maybe she was thinking of the many times she heard Jerry and Bob and the rest of the band play the song live, as she often spoke of the many Dead concerts she went to. Maybe a part of her was melding with the song’s sweet melody and lyrics, kind of like becoming a part of the song, and drifted into the Universe with the music. I don’t know, but I’m glad I got to sing for her one last time.
Christine lived her life fiercely and got every bit that she could out of every day. She loved to ski, she loved to mountain bike and kayak, she loved to hike, and she did these with fearless passion and gusto. In her work as a college professor specializing in physical and outdoor recreation, she loved to turn other people onto to these activities, and onto to the natural world. When I was running the Mountain Park Environmental Center, Christine and I worked together on many programs and projects. She helped me develop a program called Mountain Pathways for Young Women, a program that used the natural world as a catalyst for teaching girls skills for safe and healthy lives. She also shared her deep love of the Earth as a participant in Helene’s Green Women program.
Christine’s passing has been with me all day. So has Jackson Browne’s song For A Dancer:
I don’t know what happens when people die. Can’t seem to grasp it as hard as I try. It’s like a song I can hear playing right in my ear, But I can’t sing it, I can’t help listening.
As the song says, I don’t know what happens when people die. I don’t know where you are now Christine. I am sad that you are no longer around. But I do know, and I hope you left here knowing, that you touched countless lives with your passion for the outdoors, with your love for life and music and education and Nature. And that you will live on in these many people as they bring what they learned from you to the people in their lives. What you taught all of us will continue on and on. The world was made a little bit better because of you, Christine. Good-bye, my friend.
Christine has been a part of our lives for 2 decades. Dave and I sang at her wedding, we served the environmental education community through the leadership at the Mountain Park Environmental Center and she was a part of the Green Women Leadership Program. I love Christine and always will. She left too soon.
"Ripple"--my father-in-law's favorite song from his many-long-years Church guitar group. I sang it at his funeral. Like Christine, he loved the outdoors, was an avid skier, sailor and marathon runner. Where do all these people go when they die? Nobody can really claim to know, I suppose, but a part of them is always with us as long as we are around to hold the memories. I hope your friend was at peace when she passed.