ACTIVE KINDNESS

The day after Thanksgiving brings intermittent sunshine and random thoughts on the nature of giving thanks, gathering together, affirming family and connectedness. This is unequivocally NOT Black Friday for me, rather it is a mauve, beige, olive, sage Friday, not frantic with consuming, but overflowing with retrospect and insight.

I recently received a call from the son of an old friend of mine. He sadly informed me of his mom's death, by her own hand, after struggling with bipolar disorder her whole life. She and I were flaming radical feminists together in a women's collective dedicated to addressing domestic and sexual violence in our community. We sat next to each other when we graduated from college, both in our forties, proud as we could be that we'd pulled it off. She impacted literally hundreds of people's lives with her empathy, humor and generousity.

That she chose to overdose on pills was not an accident, but a plan. A plan she implemented after several years of confusion, emptiness, disorientation and resistence to the medications that dampened her creative spirit. She spared her family finding her; a stranger made a call to them. They had just experienced one of the best weekends with her that they'd had in years. They flew kites together, visited, ate a family dinner, looked at pictures and and they received her heartfelt embraces without knowing they were the last. She knew. They know they were loved all along, and they'll continue being loved from the other side, if she has anything to do with it!

Kim practiced active kindness; she was an extraordinary model of soft eye contact, smiling, a touch on the arm, a humorous remark with folks she worked with, lived with, shopped with: strangers and intimates alike. She made the kind of difference no one can tabulate. She lifted individuals in the moment, and her legacy lifts me in this moment to a comfort that she is not struggling any longer, and that I have learned from a master about breaking down separation, going beyond boundaries and envisioning a better world. She was a wild woman that wasn't afraid to radiate her love and she called others' love out of their hiding souls by doing so: the gift of active kindness that keeps on giving.