Simple (Birthday) Gifts: My Sacred Bond of Loss

The Grief That Keeps Me Soft: A Eulogy for Liv

The Sacred bond of loss, a transformative friendship

The last time I saw and heard Liv was as she was excitedly rushing out my door to a botanical seminar on the morning of October 13, 2018. She was fully alive in herself with a crisp white button-up shirt and her blow-dried hair--a very rare treat for a mama of three young boys who couldn’t seem to pull their energetic selves off of her for very long. Like most mamas, she desperately craved time for herself while simultaneously missing her boys all to crazy. Liv had spent the night at my place to attend her botanical seminar, and we had both awoken before dawn. We sat together with just one lamp on in the dark while we drank our morning coffee together and continued our hours-long conversation from the night before.  

While she began to get ready for her day to herself in the city, I was sipping my tea and listening to some of my favorite music that puts me in an autumn mood. I heard the shower stop and the blow-drying begin. Soon she came ready and rushing out of the bathroom as she realized she was going to be late. She grabbed her worn leather bag, we exchanged quick goodbyes and a hug, and just as she was about to close the door she popped her head back in with excitement as she recognized and then identified the music I was listening to, “Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring!” she said. Yes, she was right. Liv is the only one of my friends who would have recognized this piece of music and been glad to hear it. Though its title references the spring season, I am fond of listening to one of its movements almost constantly throughout the fall: Simple Gifts. Copland uses a Shaker hymn melody for this section of his orchestral suite--the lyrics of which are writ on my heart and Liv embodied them like no one else I’ve known:

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ‘tis the gift to be free
‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be
And when we find ourselves in the place just right
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight

When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend, we shan’t be ashamed to 
Turn, turn will be our delight
‘Til by turning, turning we come ‘round right.

Liv was a disciple of simplicity. She embodied it. She was known to give things away before she even brought them home, and was constantly sneaking her husband’s and boys’ clutter off to a neighbor’s or donated to local second-hand stores. She was a true spartan. Her wabi-sabi approach to beauty and life made her one of the most graceful women I have ever known. She appreciated and cherished well-made and well-worn, things that had naturally aged, broken, and scarred--including those of us who were lucky enough to be loved and known by her. Liv loved every single one of us as she reflected our best selves back to us, and reminded us that we are worthy of love because of our flaws that give us character.  

Liv was a wonderfully complex desert woman who embodied the paradoxical nature of that landscape. Though she was graceful, kind, generous, and curious with everyone, she would bring out different sides of herself as a gift for whomever she was present with. On the one hand, she was a tenderly faithful believer in God the Father and wanted to please Him to receive His blessings for herself as well as her family. On the other hand, her spiritual humility was balanced with a healthy dose of wildness, irreverence, and a romantic heart to rival the best of artists and muses. I called her “my Georgia O’Keeffe,” and she simply called me “Anne Girl.” 

Liv and I had known each other for years through our yoga teaching phases, but we became closer in the days, weeks, and months of the collapse and dissolution of my first marriage. She and her husband welcomed me into the refuge of their home as often as I needed. “Everybody needs a rock,” and Liv became that for me as I transformed from a life of should’s to a life of wants, desire, and passion. I would drive down to visit her and her boys at their desert home multiple times a year, and they all loved on me like I was family. I always felt like I was coming “home.” 

My visits felt like something out of Thelma and Louise. I’d arrive and soon we’d be off for a drive together, just she and I, to talk our hearts out as we drove “over the mountain” to a small town where a well-loved farm-to-table restaurant feeds souls as well as bellies. As my car would wind over the aspen-tree mountain, we went deep into our wounds, questions, joys, and dreams. At times the conversation could get tense as my questions about religion would push her to an edge she wasn’t sure she wanted to approach. At other times, the conversation would find a tenderness as we expressed our fragilities. We did that for each other--we pushed each other into places we wanted to inhabit but needed a companion to find our way to the places that scared us, but would heal us. She kept me soft; I kept her wild. 

My senses hold a strong memory of her. Every time I smell coffee, I remember mornings at her dining table as we turned pages of ayurvedic cookbooks, and swooned over men who smell like leather and work with wood. Every time I hear Lyle Lovett, I remember sitting in the foothills listening to live music while she asked me every detail of my love life and she would exclaim, “oh, my toes are curlin’ in my boots!” when the romance was overwhelming her. Every time I drive down to the desert, I can taste her chocolate cake, and hear her laughing with one of her boys. Every time I see anything related to Georgia O’Keeffe, I remember the day she took me to the artist’s shed she had recently got access to as she began to explore her own creativity once again. Every time I wear a chambray shirt, I remember that so many people assumed we were sisters. And now we are. My birthday is her transformation day. 

It’s been two years since she left my home as I listened to Aaron Copland’s version of Simple Gifts. And it’s been two years since her car hit a deer on her drive home, and I would never see her again. As she was passing into another realm, I was up in the mountain treating myself to a solo birthday dinner at a small resort we both love dearly. As her car was spinning, my heart was weaving. Those words have become my promise to her as I know her gift to me was the constant reminder to be simple. These are the words I wrote:

This year I want simplicity more than anything. To write. To listen. To spend my days with the people I love. I want what I want. Simple. I want a quiet life with enough, no more, no less. I want beauty--the whole spectrum and ecology of living. I want to read, to listen, to witness, to absorb. I want to love. I want love. I want the ocean--to live in its soundscape and atmosphere. I want to give and receive in ordinary and mundane rhythms. I want to see them, hear them. I want to sit in stillness and move in trust. I want to live in awe, wonder, and inquiry. I want so much laughter the wrinkles shape my face and belly with the contours of joy. I want to touch and feel and know what the textiles of earth weave together. I want to love. All of it. Deeply. 37, I’m feeling the bare beauty you have to offer this heart of mine.

That was two years ago. I asked for simplicity, and I have found the most beautiful simplicity I never could have imagined. And I have a feeling that Liv has something to do with granting my wish. We are bound to each other. This day binds us. My birth, her death. It has become a holy day that I cannot describe. Both celebration and the sweetest tenderness for the gratitude I have for having known her as I did. She keeps me soft. Still. In my grief and in our joy of friendship, we are bound. Simple. And we are both free as ever we were. ‘Tis the gift to be simple, ‘tis the gift to be free...and when we find ourselves in the place just right, ‘twill be in the valley of love and delight.

Dear Liv, we are indeed in the valley of love and delight. I feel you. I know you still. Thank you for such simple gifts.