Water, Light, and Love. Lin, One Year On.

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

A year ago today, the water met the light.

I said goodbye, from a distance, to one of the dearest friends I've ever known. Her sister Laura, who was far closer to her even than I, lost her North Star.

And now, one year on, not a day goes by that Lin does not live on in my mind.

It's been, in so very many ways, a terrible year. She lived long enough to glimpse some of what this year would bring to the world, and perhaps her spirit decided that her body should be spared the task of navigating it.

Still, she should have lived so much longer, had so much more, and it's obscene that what passes for "healthcare" in this country is such an abomination that the system and its cogs felt perfectly comfortable dismissing her, her words, her self, her life. Lin deserved the best the world has to offer, and she sure as hell deserved better than it gave her.

But a year ago, on this day at December's end, Linda McClure slipped free of the shackles of pain, free of the fear that accompanies it, free of the bonds that tethered her spirit to this earth. And for a woman who was to me the water, and to Laura the light, I nonetheless caught an image, just the briefest glimpse, of her flying: flying like the hawk who appeared to me that December morning as (unbeknownst to me then) her escort, her spirit soaring from southern California east- and northward, soaring and circling and then wheeling tight for a downward dive to tumble into her favorite place on earth, Bash-Bish Falls. I saw her lie back in its silky waters to float, then laugh, then splash the waters skyward so the drops could join the stars.

And there is not a day that I don't think, "I need to tell Lin . . . ." And then I remember again that there will be no telling Lin anything, ever again, and then the tears flow like the falls all over again. The tears were my companion daily for the first six months; I don't think a day went by that I did not shed at least a few. It got easier, in the sense that the weeping eased, after that point, but the tears still rise up to blind and blindside me out of nowhere when I least expect it. She was one of those rare spirits who became a lodestone for those she loved, a point on the compass, a guide . . . as Laura put it, the North Star, and losing her destroyed our sense of direction. Heaven knows that in the months since her departure, the world has needed guidance. In my darker moments, I wonder how much the world has lost without her here to help steer.

Linda was not the sort of person who, as far as I could tell, ever aspired to be in charge, particularly. She wasn't about ego, didn't live her life in search of subjects or followers. She did what she did as she could, and she did what she thought was right within the constraints life presents us all, and she always tried to find ways to do a little better than that, too. She was the kind of person who did not so much learn the lessons of childhood as become them: Lin was sharing; she was acceptance; she was open-heartedness; she was a friend. There really aren't many of those in this world. Finding her was a great gift; losing her, an unspeakable grief.

Daily Kos was her online home, a place where, as Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse or PDNC, she built community daily, bringing people together in common cause. She never knew, I think, how many, many people she touched, even across the great unbreachable void of cyberspace. I don't think she had any idea just how many people sought her counsel and valued her opinion, how many relied on the sense of community and stability and, frankly, fun that she brought to everything she said and did. It's a spirit has been in tragically short supply.

I wonder, at times, whether she bothers checking in from whatever beautiful plane she occupies now. I know she checks on Laura; of that I have no doubt. About seven weeks ago, I had my own brush with death (and its fingers have not yet entirely let go). As I sat waiting the thirty to forty minutes it took the ambulance to arrive, unable to stand or move, watching the gray fading inward at the edges of my vision, praying desperately and able to voice only one word, "Please," I found myself thinking of Lin and what she would have done. Was this how it felt for her? I remember thinking, absurdly, "What would Lin tell me to do?" 

I suppose that was when I realized that no one has any answers, you just gotta go with the flow, regardless of whether you wind up in the lake or the river. I was spared the river, at least for that moment. But I had a newfound respect for what she had faced down, and I couldn't help feeling that she had won — she had defeated them all, doctors and hospitals and cancer and pain and death itself. Hers was a spirit too light, too much of the light, ever to lose, or to be lost.

And now, with my own battle ahead of me and a lot that remains unknown, I look out at what remains of the water here, and it is ice: hard, but brittle. A month ago, it was solid, deep, its frozen surface braided together like strands of sweetgrass, just enough shine to it to show the reflection of the willows weeping onto its surface.

And I thought of Lin.

Water, light, and love braided together — simultaneously eternal and ephemeral, changing form and transcending the bounds of this world.  

Like Lin.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.