Yesterday my mom lost her best friend, Kay Potter. In less than a month Kay went from no symptoms to passing away from the most aggressive lung cancer her doctors had seen in their entire medical careers. We are all, of course, in shock. Kay is loved by many, and I feel so honored to have known her all my life.
Throughout my life my mom and Kay have been an example to me of true friendship. The kind of deep, abiding connection that knit them together for over 50 years. They met in college and my dad met Kay even earlier, enjoying youth group activities before heading to Pasadena College with Kay and her future husband, Eddie. Mom and Kay have been through much together. They shared joy and sorrow, loss and hope. The walked the good days and the bad days together. There are few people I have known as loyal and loving as Kay.
Kay gave me my baby showers, we spent our family vacations together at the beach, she gave me my wedding shower…she was there for the important moments in my life. She came with me and my Mom to pick out my wedding dress and was always up on what my two children were doing and interested in my life. She helped me throw parties for my parents and had a way of making me feel important and special….something she did for many.
My mom told me that she doesn’t know how to do life without Kay. I get that. There has been so much loss around me over the past few months I feel dizzy from it today. I don’t understand it. All I feel like I can do right now is to remember that I am committed to being on the side of God’s hope, even on the most hopeless days. Loss has a way of cutting through the clutter of our lives…slicing through it with a knife and reminding us of what is important. Within loss we often find the clarity we lack when the pain is not piercing as it is today.
Chris and I were talking about our “calling” recently. He is grappling with this and remembering that his calling is not the same as his job. The job pays the bills (or we hope that it will) but a calling is what pushes us forward. A calling is the force that God has placed on our lives that builds our legacy. I feel pretty clear that my calling in life is for relationship. I am passionate about connection and authentic community. I clearly do not always know how to accomplish it, nor am I always true to the calling, but it is what moves me forward in life.
So losing people who are deeply loved is a moment when I reflect on what I have and on what I have to lose. Watching my Mom walk through the pain of losing Kay is one of the toughest experiences for me. And yet there is beauty in watching her love Kay and in observing how present she was with Kay in her final days. They said the words to each other…they knew, without a doubt, how Kay felt about Judy and how Judy felt about Kay. They had a lifetime of memories and secrets and laughter and tears and in the end, even when they did not know it was the last time they would speak, they were fully present to each other, with no regrets. That is a legacy.
I am blessed beyond measure to have deep, rich relationships and one thing is clear to me: there really is no time to waste. We do not know the days we have left, or how those days will play out. The life I have will continue to hand me loss and pain, but I will fight for the love and hope in the midst of it. I am on the side of hope.
Kay is the first among my parents closest friends to go. My mom told me she is paving the way for them all. My mom, a violinist, and Eddie, a pianist, have played many events over the years, with Kay and my Dad in the audience. That was Kay, never in the spotlight, but never missing the show. There is a song that touches my mom deeply because it reminds her of her friendship with Kay. It’s the song Wind Beneath My Wings and I put the words here to honor a beautiful woman who did not always walk the easy road, but she took each step with a grace that I will never forget.
It must have been cold there in my shadow,
to never have sunlight on your face.
You were content to let me shine, that’s your way.
You always walked a step behind.
So I was the one with all the glory,
while you were the one with all the strain.
A beautiful face without a name for so long.
A beautiful smile to hide the pain.
Did you ever know that you’re my hero,
and everything I would like to be?
I can fly higher than an eagle,
for you are the wind beneath my wings.
It might have appeared to go unnoticed,
but I’ve got it all here in my heart.
I want you to know I know the truth, of course I know it.
I would be nothing without you.
Did you ever know that you’re my hero?
You’re everything I wish I could be.
I could fly higher than an eagle,
for you are the wind beneath my wings.
Did I ever tell you you’re my hero?
You’re everything, everything I wish I could be.
Oh, and I, I could fly higher than an eagle,
for you are the wind beneath my wings,
’cause you are the wind beneath my wings.
Oh, the wind beneath my wings.
You, you, you, you are the wind beneath my wings.
Fly, fly, fly away. You let me fly so high.
Oh, you, you, you, the wind beneath my wings.
Oh, you, you, you, the wind beneath my wings.
Fly, fly, fly high against the sky,
so high I almost touch the sky.
Thank you, thank you,
thank God for you, the wind beneath my wings.

Tweens and Teens coming out of my ears….that is what I was thinking about last night while waiting in the Macy’s dressing room for Brooke and her two best friends to model their next outfit. While waiting, I logged onto my Facebook page from my phone and discovered my son, Zach, recently turned 13, had just “updated my status” to report that I had decided to become a professional football player. Oh boy. We are, for sure, smashing into the teen years.
I’ve been thinking a lot about mean girls lately. As Brooke enters those precarious pre-teen years I find myself smack in the middle of memories of my own time in that jungle. It takes a considerable amount of effort at times to not project my own experience — my own wounding — my own memories onto Brooke’s experience. She is her own gal. And a pretty great gal, at that.
Last summer I hired a business coach. This was part of an intentional effort to grow my business to a more sustainable level. Boy, I did not have a clue what that would look like. I don’t regret it. I am extremely thankful for the experience and it has transformed my business and is, actually, transforming my life in many ways.