Instead, I prefer to write tonight about the anger I feel that another lovely lady has passed away from cancer. Her name was Cindy. She had a very rare cancer: sarcoma of the upper arm.
I didn't know Cindy in person, but I followed her blog. In February 2013 she was given 6-12 months to live. Her friend Becky posted that Cindy died on April 4, 2013. Cindy lived in New Mexico and in addition to writing about cancer, she loved to write about hiking and walking in nature. In fact, she devoted an entire section of her blog to what she called The Mind-Body Walk. I loved that part.
In honor of Cindy, I'd like to leave you with a bit of her writing....
The meditative passage below is entitled "Lovely Little Walks." This is for you, Cindy.
"How I'm enjoying the little walks I can do these days.
Had a huge pile of wood that needed stacking so bit by bit, moments at a time, it's getting done. One handed.
What was so invigorating when I started was walking back and forth from the dumped pile to the stacked pile.
Back and forth, back and forth.
This is what's so lovely about stacking wood. It's mindless. It's methodical and rhythmical. The clink and chink of logs landing together is the true sound of autumn. What's so wonderful is you can leave and come back to stacking whenever, no need to hurry. Both piles will be there. Until the job is done. And it always gets done.
So for several days I've reduced my walking to this... The hardest thing in all this convalescing is not being able to do the things that were just a matter of fact.Perfect indeed.
But if I can walk back and forth stacking wood, perfect."
dear renn,
ReplyDeleteit was so kind of you to feature cindy today. i always felt that her blog was exactly reflecting what she was like - it flowed with an easy grace of truths the way she saw them, uncomplicated and straight out. i love that she approached her death with no regrets - holy moley, did she ever LIVE! and what inspration you give us, posting her doing the wood-stacking - to live and love the ordinary tasks of our ordinary days, with relish and gratitude.
thank you, dear renn, for this lovely tribute to cindy.
love, XOXO,
karen, TC
Karen, you hit the nail on the head. I really got the sense that Cindy wrote the way she lived... free, graceful, thoughtful.
DeleteI'm glad you followed her too. We are the better for it.
xoxo
This is beautiful Renn, it really is the simple things in life that matter ;)
ReplyDeletetruly, simply, deeply!
DeleteA lovely tribute, Renn. I love that she enjoyed the sound of Autumn, the tiny steps, and the small triumphs in the wood stacking.
ReplyDeleteShe was a very descriptive writer. She wrote about a lovely walk last September, after she was diagnosed with cancer. Eight months later and she is gone. Haunting.
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