It wasn't as though we had known him that long or all that well. Before moving here permanently he was the "unique" neighbor. He always wore shorts, no matter the weather. Seemingly a bit disdainful of the efforts of the grounds crew he fenced off a few square yards of the lawn between our homes and mowed it himself with a little electric lawnmower. He would nod and wave.
After we moved in permanently he quickly became our "go to guy" for the tools and assistance necessary to fine tune our new space. When a bed didn't fit just right, he provided the know-how to get it right. When we wanted to figure out how to put our outdoor lights on a timer, he provided both the timer and the labor to get it installed and working. He seemed a man of indeterminate age and boundless energy.
We swapped stories and emails, joked across the driveways. He became our closest and most constant friend in a neighborhood that seemed rather challenged when it came to neighborliness. And then he was gone. A pretty young woman rang the doorbell and introduced herself. She was his daughter, still of the "smile-wave-nod" variety. Her father, she sadly reported, had had a massive heart attack and died the previous evening.
It did not seem real. His death was so unexpected, it was hard to believe. Sad, of course, but not the profound grief of the death of a family member or a close friend of many years. It is more, I am coming to believe, like a hole appearing in the fabric of our life in a new place. Something warm and inviting had disappeared. Like a jigsaw puzzle with a piece missing, what was growing into whole, complete and normal, took a step back.
Now several days later, watching the flurry of activity in what was previously a calm and peaceful place, I have been thinking about that metaphor - death as a hole in the fabric of our life. There are, of course, many different types of tears in the fabric. Some are devastating, leaving deep scars, like wounds stitched up by an incompetent surgeon. They mar the fabric for seemingly forever. We are damaged. Yet in many ways time really does heal all wounds, not with forgetting but with selective recall. Trauma recedes a bit, and the memories of a smile, a voice, a shared song, float to the surface allowing an answering smile. A piece of peace.
Then there are less agonizing holes. Perhaps no less painful in the moment, but with a more gentle aftermath. We had to have a beloved, 14-year old black lab put down. And no, there is nothing trivializing about considering the holes the death of a pet leaves in the fabric of our lives. Consider this; who is more constant, more loving, more forgiving, more comforting in our lives than your pet? The holes they leave are constant, but somehow gentle. The pets still manifest themselves in the corner of our eye, sleeping in a favorite spot, their paws echoing down an empty hallway. A quiet presence.
So what do we do with these holes that death leaves in the fabric of our lives? We restore them, as we would any precious work of art. We were in Italy a few years ago, maybe Venice, but I think Florence - we tend to settle into one of those two cities for the art and the food. Not sure which this was, not important.
What was important was that as we were leaving a museum there was a rather large area, portions of which were brightly lit - spotlights on a huge canvas, and perched on ladders before the artwork were several restorers. In their hands were improbably tiny brushes making what seemed invisible touches on the canvas. Gently, softly, and oh, so quietly, healing the fabric.
And so we must approach the holes that death leaves in the fabric of our lives. What did the departed entity contribute to our lives? Humor? Industry? Compassion? Love? Honesty? Sensitivity? These are the memory brushes we can take to the flaws that death has insinuated into our lives. We apply them "gently, softly, and oh, so quietly" to the holes, to heal the fabric of our life - turning something "holey" into something holy.
