Alive

By afternoon, last Friday felt a bit like Alexander’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Just after a difficult mid-day encounter that left me pretty bummed, my partner called with some bad news. A friend had died that morning. Her death was not unexpected, but very sad nonetheless. Sad in its own right and sad as part of this recent drumbeat of deaths in my age cohort. The reality of mortality staring me in the face. The whole day felt heavy, and I just wanted it to be over so I could wake up and start again—hopefully on a less depleting trajectory.

But as my partner and I talked about this friend, we kept returning to how inspiring she was. She and her partner of many years had spent their professional careers working in settings where they didn’t feel like they could be out as lesbians. They had a large and very loving social circle, so they never felt isolated, but their identity as a lesbian couple was never shared in their workplaces. Then, when they both retired, they asked themselves the question so many of us ask: “What can we do now that we couldn’t do before we retired?” For many folks—maybe most folks—the answers are things like take more time for ourselves, travel, grandkids, gardening, golf, reading all those things I never got to read, maybe some volunteer work. But for this couple, the answer was different: “What can we do now? We can be out!” And they have been. As retirees, they became hyperactive in LGBTQ politics, lobbying at the statehouse, prodding their local Democratic caucus to get on board with LGBTQ issues, generally making themselves heard and seen in circles that had been very unused to seeing strong, smart, committed, vocal old lesbians. Straight from the closet into the streets! And because they made this choice, I’m certain that they’ve helped change the world for folks around them and for folks who will follow.

Thinking about the legacy this woman leaves behind, I recalled a recent Bruce Springsteen song that is my partner’s current absolutely favorite song . It’s called We Are Alive, and it narrates a story from the grave, as you can see from these excerpts (you can listen to it here). 

We are alive
And though our bodies lie alone here in the dark
Our spirits rise to carry the fire and light the spark
To stand shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart …

Let your mind rest easy, sleep well my friend
It’s only our bodies that betray us in the end …

We are alive
And though our bodies lie alone here in the dark
Our souls and spirits rise
To carry the fire and light the spark
To fight shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart
To stand shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart
We are alive

The message seems so perfect to honor our friend. Physically, she has left, but her spirit is still here, still inspiring the rest of us. As I thought about that song, another came to mind, this one by Sweet Honey In the Rock, called Breaths. Resonance Women’s Chorus of Boulder will be singing this in their spring concert, and a woman in the chorus sent it along to my partner after learning how much she loved Springsteen’s song. The message is so similar—but this time, in women’s voices. And fittingly, women whose music focuses unwaveringly on social justice, just as our friends’ work has done. You can listen to it here. Excerpts:

Those who have died have never, never left
The dead are not under the earth
They are in the rustling trees
They are in the groaning woods
They are in the crying grass
They are in the moaning rocks
The dead are not under the earth…

They are in the woman’s breast
They are in the wailing child
They are with us in our homes
They are with us in this crowd
The dead have a pact with the living…

Thinking these songs reframed our friend’s death and reminded me how powerfully people’s presence, in some larger sense, remains after they pass.

And then, like gift from the universe, into this difficult day came an email from a dear, longtime (younger) friend announcing that she has achieved a marvelous pinnacle in her path toward work as an immigration attorney—she will be opening her own practice next week. I’ve watched her journey, often a very difficult one, that led eventually to a move to Grand Junction where she managed to get a job with a law firm—a job that met her needs but never matched her passion. She wanted to do immigration law—not a lucrative field, and not a direction this firm was especially interested in supporting. But she has a deep sense of social justice, and her commitment from the start was to find a way to use her skills on behalf of folks who had less opportunity than she, who were trapped in an unjust system. So she worked really hard, gradually earned the trust of the immigrant community around Grand Junction, and finally found a way to do the work she wants to do. When I read her email, I was so excited I could hardly stand it. This, I thought to myself, is amazing!

The next morning, these two stories came together for me: One friend just died and another just came fully into her own. As different as those stories seem, they have the same heart to them. Both of these women chose to be alive—really alive—to their choices and to the possibility of making a difference. It’s this that makes their time here so precious and so meaningful. There's a certain symmetry to the two stories. Endings coinciding with beginnings, intertwined somehow.

“We are alive!” The words could be sung in either of their voices. 

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