What is Remembered, Lives

Farewell to an old friend. I just got word that Leigh Ann Hussey is dead at age 46. She was riding her motorcyle Tuesday and was involved in an accident.

We first met 22 years ago, when I moved to California to start my job at Locus Magazine. She dated another friend of mine. I went to her first wedding. Over the years we haven't been very close but she has always been someone I have enjoyed running into and catching up with. I love her music, her will and her big spirit. I will miss her.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/14596956.htm

http://ciarhwyfar.livejournal.com/238262.html

Leigh Ann Hussey

Remembering her life, here is Leigh Ann's webpage: http://www.elfhill.com/leighann.html

Google her name and you will be amazed at the variety of her work online.

Still sinking in...

Love letter

A love letter to you,

My friends,
My family,
My community.

Let my love for you fill your heart.
Let my respect in you swell your pride.
Let my delight in you lift your spirit.

Know that your birth and your life are celebrated by me.
Know that you enrich my life
Know that I am in you as you are in me.

Your faith in me gives me strength
Your happiness for me gives me joy,
Your love gives me hope.

There is no way to really convey to each of you
how powerful my feelings are for you,
how grateful I am to you for sharing your life with me.

Each time you touch me,
you change my life.
I am remade by each of you.

A Strong Voice

Oh all the comrades that e'er I've had, they are sorry for my going away
And all the sweethearts that e'er I've had, they would wish me one more day to stay
But since it falls unto my lot that I should rise and you should not
I'll gently rise and I'll softly call good night and joy be with you all
-- from The Parting Glass sung by Leigh Ann Hussey (Anarchy & Rapture, Annwn)

So I sat in the night with a love beside me, listening to her voice and her fiddle. Breathing deep the joy at having known her. Not well, certainly not well enough, but long. I have known her half my life. I was but an Okie new to California when first we met. Truth be told, she intimidated me even then. Only a year and a half older but seeming so much bolder. I sat in the night as memories filtered through, some long forgotten. One recent, meeting in the halls at Pantheacon. A brief meeting with a promise to catch up more "later."

I slept late and woke groggy with no memory as a friend dropped by to visit. She thanked me for the poem of last night. And it came flooding back. Oh, yeah, it wasn't a dream. She is really dead. Really and truly gone. No later now.

Bigger than life. Yeah. So much life, so much energy and strength. Does it seem odd that someone like that could die? Could die quickly and simply on a beautiful May day? Thirty-one years ago, May 31, 1975 was just such a beautiful May day. My dad rode away on his motorcycle. He promised me a ride, "later." I've never sat astride a bike since. Not just out of fear. I made a vow that night to my grieving mother that as long as she lived, I would never ride a motorcycle.

I can't but wonder sometimes at what my own death will be like? Will it be quick? Will I know before? Or will be sudden, leaving so much unfinished? So much unsaid. So much not written. So much not done. I would wish that I could live a long full life. My sunlight child wants me to live to be at least 99 before I die. If that is possible, then I am less than halfway there. But such should have been true of them. My dad only 36, Leigh Ann only 46.

Holding a dear friend and crying for another loss. It makes me wonder. Is there words left unspoken between you and I? If I died tomorrow, what would you regret not having said?

Where is Sean?

Anyone have contact information for Sean Smith? I have been unable to get in touch with him. He moved into his mother's place last June. It is urgent that I get in touch with him.

Going to New York for the next week!

cyan_blue and I are going to New York tomorrow. We will be visiting her family and some friends while we are out there. I will be back next Wednesday.

Can anyone pick me up at the Oakland airport next Wednesday, May 24 at 11:30 AM?