Yesterday was the anniversary of my sister's passing. I tried to share some memories so they'd feel personal. You all have loved ones, and you've all lost loved ones at one time or another...I hope this touches that part of all of you. There's no way I could do justice to a whole life in one piece...still, I wrote this in one sitting, and I admit it came out in a gush, and maybe it feels like one. But I hope I shared as much light as pain; and I appreciate greatly that you've been so receiving of what I've shared over the years...I hope this will be meaningful to you all. I'll get back to comments soon (still with a cold). Thank you for your responses to my grad school piece (twisty stuff to respond to!), you have all been grand to me. I hope you're all well, and I wish you all a wonderful fall weekend. Peace and lots of inspiration, Mark ------------------ (A memory of my sister) Though we lived hugely different lives, my sister was one of the closest, dearest people in my life. She looked out for me as a child, she understood things about me and my overly obsessive life that no one else understood. She wasn't an artist, yet she understood miraculously how art and creating dominated me from my earliest years. She understood it way down. Deeply, as if she'd lived it herself. No one understood how it effected me as she did. She understood the elations of it, and the madness and obsession. She understood the drive. She understood how it separates us from the mainstream, and is hard to explain to people who find inspiration elsewhere. (You all know this well.) When I started to mature, she understood how one can slave over a single paint-stroke, or melody, or a single paragraph of writing as if the world's fate depended on it. She understood that, for an artist, a simple 'stroke' could hold the power of the universe. She intuited it. She was 4 years older than me, and seemed to know this when she was 8. And she understood the lightning that coursed through artists and how it 'called' an artist the way a pointer dog is magnetized by the sight or smell of its prey. Or the way a dog is magnetized by the sight of a treat: The dog becomes the fiercest concentration, as if his very life depended on that treat; and, even if you call him, distract him, try to pull him away, he'll return to that treat as if the whole universe were wrapped up in it. Lynne understood that in me, and, by extension, in every artist she met (and many were attracted to her). She was watching, ready to pull me out of the chasms I fell into, ready to wave her hands in my face as if reviving me from a trance. She was there, even in childhood, with total, intuitive understanding. So while our lives and friends and her boyfriends and my girlfriends and our interests were miles apart---and sometimes we might not see each other for years, living in different cities---when we spoke on the phone, it was as if no time had passed, nothing had been lost...the strange miracle of sibling-hood. Even at 55 or 70, Lynne could bring me back to the best of my childhood in a flash, and remind me that there was light everywhere, that it never went away. She did this always. Even in her last months. A year ago Thursday, I found my sister lying on a pile of clothes in front of her bed. Perhaps she was trying to 'get' to her bed, but couldn't make it. I'll never know if she collapsed, tripped, or simply lay down to rest peacefully. She'd been stricken with cancer and chemo; and though the cancer was almost gone, the cancer and chemo did her in. She couldn't hold on any longer. And unfortunately, they wouldn't do an autopsy because the 2d wave of covid had just hit---several people had died in her building in the next 2 weeks---and autopsies were infecting and even killing many medics. So you had to have a huge reason to get an autopsy. So all I knew was that she passed of a heart attack; and that she passed in peace. That's all they knew. But here it is, I mean this is what it comes down to: to see a person who, at age 8, was like a third parent to me, who looked over me, watched out for me---even long distance---who in her 20s let me stay with her and her roommate and their wild boyfriends and parties no matter how crowded her place was, and never mind that no one else there knew me...who told me her place was my place and if anyone didn't want me there, they could go, not me: To see---in her peaceful body that final day---her glowing ever-youthful soul who was so electrifying that every friend and lover wanted to be around her just to soak her in...to see her in a butterfly position---the position you got into as a child when you lay in the snow and moved your arms and legs back and forth to make an "angel" in the snow: remember?)---to see that person suddenly so still, so unmoving and unresponsive, her arms and legs splayed like an angel who'd just dived into the clouds, and in such peace and grace I had tears, was beyond belief. It was as if she were a synchronized swimmer, graceful and diving, and I found her face down, with all the beauty and grace of a wondrous acrobat...and those had to be 'eternal' waters, as this was her final resting place...And imagine, I wanted to call her on the phone, and say, "Lynne: You gotta see this! You passed in such beauty, in such peace!" I broke down, and had my hand on my phone, frozen: I wanted to call her. One of the cruel and astonishing things about death is that you can't share it with the person who passed. You can't call them and tell them all you've been through, you can't drop them emails every day. You went through so much for them, because of them, because you loved them so dearly; and you can't tell them. Not in any normal way. It's all yours now, it's all in your heart. But that was just a moment: I immediately lunged to her wrists and felt for a pulse, shaking her gently, "Lynne, Lynne, Lynne...". No response, no pulse. So I rushed up and down her wrists, desperate to find an "alive" spot: Nothing. I then leaned to her neck, and felt her carotid artery: Nothing. Perfectly still. My heart stopped. I mean it sounds so trite, but it happens: a cold clammy feeling comes over you, you can feel your heart thump and then stop, like the blood is draining out of you...and I thought: "Lynne---have you passed? Have you died?" There are just people in our lives we never think 'can' die. When they do, you just don't know how to move... I grabbed my phone, called 911: Medics arrived in 5 minutes. (An aside: In Chicago, near downtown, in one of the most densely populated areas in America: 5 minutes? 5 lousy minutes? Usually it takes forever! Someone must've been looking out for us that day...) The medics came; and, within minutes, they said: "She passed an hour ago. You couldn't have done a thing...but know: she passed in peace..." Then the awful revelation, which I'd utterly missed: They pointed all over the room: There were bodily fluids everywhere. She'd excreted fluids of every kind all around the area. Hard to write this, but it's simply part of what happened....they said this wasn't uncommon for people who pass suddenly...but, more agonizingly, she may have had covid---the beginning phases; and, mixed with chemo, it could've effected her whole body. "You must be very careful," they said to me. (I got tested the next day: I was covid-fee. I got tested several times after as well.) And the thing was, she hadn't let on that she was that ill because she just didn't realize it; it was all so jarring. Then: "Mark, you should wash your hands---now---" I woke up as if from a trance, trounced to the bathroom and poured alcohol all over my hands and arms (and clothes) while muttering---in rhythm with my washing---"I can't believe she's gone...this is too quick..." The police examiner came next, and asked me to wait outside. (It was to see if there were violence, poisoning, etc.) I waited by the elevators. He came out 5 minutes later, and, with the utmost gentleness, said: "Your sister died in peace, sir. No struggle...she died of a heart attack and maybe some covid. But there was no struggle. I can promise you this." "Amazing how much you can see," I said. "Oh, I've done this many years," he said with infinite sadness, "I've done this with many people...The medics will concur: She died of a heart attack, and in total peace." He patted me on the back and handed me the death report, a white piece of paper that could just as well have been a hardware store invoice. "I know," he said, "it's hard to see, but we have to do it..." He patted me with gentle compasion, then left. (He too said I shouldn't ask for an autopsy, incidentally. And I thought: In her final day, she did what she'd done all her life: Done it her way, hand up to death and its institutions and fussy legalities and crazy strictures: "Nope, you're not for me," she seemed to say: "I leave without any of it...now let me make my journey...away, away..." The funeral people then came, with their gurnee and body bag (that strange crinkly garment-bag-like thing that suddenly transforms a life into winter garments stuffed into a garmet bag. It's always so hard to see, so unreal, so jarring. God I hated that thing...) And after sitting with her alone (quiet parting thoughts, silent whispers), they took her, solemnly, as I stood in the hallway like a lump, a hallway which was dim with "mood lighting" which was so intrusive to me (why would they make a public hallway so dark?), and I watched the director roll my sister---my sister---down that long hall, soon to never be seen again. (Lynne wished to be cremated...) When the elevator closed and she disappeared, I stood there feeling like a child who'd been abandoned. I turned in circles, then took a deep breath; then the sounds started to flood in: the quiet music of a high rise hallway doing its thing: the whirrrrrr of the vents, the occasional creaks, the mutterings from inside apartments (all muffled), and the sounds of elevators cranking away, many floors away. And you think: Everything is so 'packed' when someone dies; but one hour later? pure silence...... I needed air, so I went outside. It was early October, and omg: The sun was setting and the sky was aflame with glorious luminous pinks and radiant, deep blues. And the air was pungent and crisp with the smell of still-fresh leaves and fledgling yellow and red ones. The fragrance of fall---pungent, stinging and sweet---was everywhere. And the bracing cold was miraculous... I walked (knowing that the next months would be filled with legalities, calls, calls, calls, letters and more letters, the crazed dance of settling the legalities of a life, this time with covid-shutdowns in the equation: madness...): You've seen where I walked in my photos, here...I walked past all those gorgeous trees, and gardens, and beautiful wrought iron fences, and the old architecture, etc: as splendid a late-day as I'd seen in my life. And I thought: "Lynne---look: Nature put out its most splendid wardrobe for you! Just for you. It wouldn't just 'receive' you---no: It put out a pageant for you, in the most splendid hues and fragrances, in silks and brocades all to roll out your own private red carpet, your private couture...just for your arrival, Lynne, just for your passage...do you see it? I hope you do...it's just glorious..." And I thought back to a moment many many years ago, when I was ready to give up the arts forever: I was desperate, I wanted to cut it out surgically and never hear from it again. But I was also terrified that, if I did that, it would never return. The first person I called was Lynne: She knew immediately I was torn and out of control. She replied, in utter calmness: "You need to let it go, Mark...but it will never let you go...never...so don't worry: Just take a break; refurbish, seek comfort---even counsel if you need it---but when you're through, your art will be there waiting, patiently, it'll never abandon you. Like me...like me...you can believe that..." I remembered that "like me"...that's what my sister was. She came into this world like an angel, and left it as an angel; and the illness, the chaos: It's all nothing in the shadow of such a rich soul. I'm more grateful than I can say that I was given her gift in this life...and in her memory I dedicate this little piece, in gentle sadness yet deep humility, and endless gratitude and love... ------------------