Up at 4:30 a.m., on the 5:45 a.m. ferry from Vashon to the Kitsap Peninsula, north to Port Townsend and the 8 a.m.ferry, getting home about 9 a.m. A quick unpacking of car and suitcase, scanning the mail, reassuring the cats, and then making a list of what HAS to be done today to get ready for tomorrow's memorial service, what needs to wait until that is behind me, and then plodding away at the list until now I am pretty well ready for tomorrow.
The hardest, yet most rewarding, part of preparing for a memorial service is preparing the eulogy, or Memorial Portrait, as my mentor Robert Latham calls it. To sit with the family, listening to the stories, making notes, asking questions delicately, encouraging and supporting and waiting out the tears---------this is some of the most important work I do, and it's both exhausting and exhilarating. And it heals; it gives us a chance to laugh together over the quirks and idiosyncrasies of this beloved but very human man and laughter is healing and soothing to a devastated spirit.
I'm ready for tomorrow, but I'm going to take a hot bath with lavender salts tonight, go to bed early with my current Laurie King mystery, and make up for getting too little sleep last night. See you in the morning!
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