From time to time when well-known people who have done extraordinary things in their lives die, I will include them in a blog. I don’t normally do this when I am personally close to a person but today I make an exception, for I am reminded that sometimes extraordinary people live simply in ordinary lives. I am thinking of Joel who died very unexpectedly in a climbing accident recently. He was in the age range of our sons and so the thought rushes up, “Wait! He’s not supposed to die before we do.” Of course we know it doesn’t always work that way, but it should. Because of our sons’ associations with him from boyhood on, we have known Joel for over thirty years, which is a big chunk in a lifetime.
Absolutely remarkable...
Joel was a landscape gardener and sometimes for his friends, he was a simple gardener. I smile when I remember that he just snuck us some cuttings from one of his yards, so we can think of their plantings as “Joel’s place.” Funny what we will do sometimes to keep those we love in sight. Joel was simply Joel; he was not like anyone else nor did he try to be, and he was as unselfconscious as anyone I have ever known. He wore his life like a Badge of Honor, as if it were a magnificent bequest. True, he lived an ordinary life, but how he lived it made his place absolutely remarkable. The thought of the loss of his presence seems at times almost unbearable. Not to hear him booming a greeting to me while working on the yard next door seems unthinkable. Soon we will celebrate his life…outdoors, of course, where he loved to be.
Extraordinary passion...
Over time we will all make our peace with the absence of Joel’s presence in our own ways. We may never get over his passing, but we will get used to it, and perhaps we can live our lives with more extraordinary passion, much as Joel did, in honor of his having come our way.
An old song flits up from my memory, and, like the singer, I feel like crying a river, but I won’t. I think Joel would feel a bit embarrassed.
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