Ends and Beginnings

I'm reposting an essay I wrote just over a year ago when my childhood minister passed away.  I experienced pure magic and a connection with spirit on this day.  I share this again in honor and memoriam of a man who significantly impacted my life.  His life has ended and in many ways mine began anew at about the time he went home.  Ron, here's to your end, my beginning, and the constant that is and always will be:  Our souls.

A Rose & A Recliner....
February 21, 2010

The minister of my childhood church, Reverend Ronald Place, died last week at the age of 83. His wife, Margaret, died five years ago, also at the age of 83. Ron touched my life and helped to bring joyful memories and happiness to my childhood and formative years. We even lived in the same home, the parsonage next door to the Church; my family moving in after he had moved out and built a home of his own. I last saw Ron six years ago at Mass General Hospital. He and his wife traveled to Boston for her medical care and even there, in her hospital room, Ron took to counseling me on the personal and delicate topic of the interfaith relationship I was in at the time. I was completely open, my partner was not. I couldn’t understand my partner’s point of view and it was not until I spoke to my own childhood minister – the same one who opened my mind and my heart to all people, all faiths, all creeds – that I was able to understand why my partner struggled so much with our differences. Only Ron would have cared to focus on me and my struggles at a time when his own wife was ill.

When I was a child, Ron made me laugh, made me think and made me feel like I had an ally. While I have countless stories I could share about my memories of Ron, this story is about the memorial service I had for Ron today, on my own. His funeral was held at my childhood church yesterday and it was attended by so many who knew and loved Ron – by those whose lives he touched. Many of us could not attend – and more, I’m sure, don’t even know of his passing. Ron was a mahatma and he brought peace and joy and laughter to all whose lives he blessed. 

As I woke this morning, I felt the need to take a day trip to mark the last day of my February break from school. I thought about some of my tried and true destinations on the North and South shore. None appealed to me very much. Suddenly, out of nowhere while brushing my teeth, I declared to myself that I had to go to Salem, on the North Shore, not too far from where I live. I wasn’t sure why – I’ve only been to Salem a couple of times and I don’t know it all that well. Nonetheless, I gathered my coat and camera and got ready to go.




Before heading out the door, I went to my desk where a beautiful bouquet of roses has sat since it was mistakenly delivered to me one week ago on Valentine’s Day. When I called the florist that day to inform him of his mistake, he said I should keep them because another arrangement had already been sent to the correct address. I graciously placed the red roses on my desk, admiring them day after day. I called them my “Valentine’s Day flowers from the universe”. Not a bad substitute for one who does not officially have any other Valentine from whom to receive flowers. On the fifth day of admiring the roses in their pink glass vase, I took a photo of them, reveling in how they looked as fresh and alive as they did on Valentine’s Day – amazingly so, in fact. I love flowers so normally I freshen the water, trim the stems and feed them floral food – but instead, I just let them be. This morning, thinking of traveling to Salem, I decided I would have a private memorial service for Ron with a rose from the bouquet. I plucked out the flower that hadn’t opened completely and out the door I went.

On the drive to Salem, I started to remember snippets of my time with Ron. My memories came through at first as images and then, the further I drove, more as emotion and I began to cry. I looked to the rose, laying on the dashboard, and carried along on my journey. I didn’t think to bring my map book which typically lives in a pocket on the back of the passenger’s seat in my car (I’m driving a rental while mine is in the shop so it is devoid of all of the paraphernalia I typically tote around with me). I wasn’t concerned, however, I figured I could follow the signs to Salem and I’d make my way to my final destination somehow. Oddly, I still wasn’t sure where that was.




After exiting the highway and following the signs to Salem, I decided to keep driving and find a beach. I wanted to put the rose at the water’s edge as I said my prayers and my final goodbyes to Ron. Instinct led me to the water and I passed two small beaches along the driver’s side of the car as I drove. I knew the first one wasn’t it but the second seemed right. I pulled into a parking spot but decided I wanted more privacy so I backed out and kept driving. Something compelled me to drive back and park in the same spot, forsaking the four cars sitting across from the entrance to the beach. So what if people were watching, I decided. I grabbed the camera, my coat and the rose.

Crossing the road, I was faced with a biting cold wind that made me tear up instantly. My tears began to smatter on the inside of my sunglasses. When I crested the beach, I saw the oddest thing. If I weren’t walking right toward it, I would have done a double take. In fact, I am pretty sure I cocked my head like a curious dog when I saw it. There, ten yards ahead of me, sat a beige recliner on the beach. That’s right, A RECLINER WAS SITTING ON THE BEACH. At first I was irritated, thinking that this place might not be the right one for my memorial to Ron. How could a beach with garbage on it be worthy of this moment? I decided to ignore the interruption of the image ahead of me and walked to the water. When I reached the water, I placed the rose at just out of reach of the first wave. I wanted it to stay at my feet until I told the universe and Ron my thoughts and then it was free to float away, out into the ocean. 




I turned my face away from the wind, now with a combination of the tears that formed from the cold and those that came from my heart and saw something else that stopped me in my tracks: two seagulls danced in the sky above me. Normally these birds aren’t what you would consider to be graceful or even beautiful with one another. Sure, they soar in the wind and as long as they’re not trying to eat your lunch on a summer’s day at the beach, they are a welcome presence. I thought it odd in that moment, that there were two birds. Seagulls always struck me as more solo creatures unless there is food to be swooped up. These two birds wove back and forth around each other, away from me and then back. I knew that they were Ron and Margaret. Together, again. The sweetness of the thought made me smile. A moment later, they were joined by two more birds, seemingly out of nowhere. Again, I knew: these two birds were Ron’s son and daughter, who both passed away before their parents did. 




The experience on the beach with the rose and the birds was enough for me to believe that Ron was there with me. He was communicating with me; acknowledging my presence and my thoughts of him. As I turned to walk back to the car, I saw the recliner again. I laughed. I couldn’t believe it! Ron brought me to the only beach in the world that would have a recliner on it. He had a mischievous sense of humor and this was very like him. This wasn’t trash or a disturbance, this was Ron.




Before I left my house for Salem, and before I even had my Salem-bound-Ron-Place-memorial-Aha-moment while brushing my teeth this morning, I had been searching through old boxes and photo albums for a photograph of Ron. I knew I had a picture somewhere – I could see it in my memory. I was ten or so. We were in the basement of my church. My sister and I were there, along with so many other kids my age – some younger, some older – and we were there for a fundraiser to send money to people less fortunate than us somewhere on the other side of the world – Southeast Asia rang a bell. In all the years that have passed, that’s really all I could remember about the reason WHY we gathered that day and night and rocked in our pajamas downstairs from the church. 

Together with 15 or so other kids, I was participating in Ron’s “Rock-a-thon.” We rocked in rocking chairs for hours and hours at that event to raise money for a cause near and dear to Ron’s heart. While I couldn’t remember the name of the village we were supporting all these years later, I did remember the fact that we kids got to stay up all night (or so it seemed) and all we had to do is just keep rocking in our chairs. There was music, we had blankets and snacks and our parents and other adults came and went but Ron stayed with us, rocking in his RECLINER. We all brought hard wooden rocking chairs for the event but Ron was smart enough to know that he and his bum stood a far better chance of rocking as long as possible in the soft cushion surround of a rocking recliner he brought from home. 

So there on the beach, of course, sat a recliner. Ron would have had it no other way. 

When I got home today and sat at my desk, reflecting on my day and preparing to write this story, I sat in awe of the roses from the universe. They had finally started to die. Their silky crimson petals were now blackened and dried around the edges, their heads sagging down around the vase they had miraculously thrived in, nearly unattended, for seven days. They stayed strong and beautiful and alive long enough for just one of them to take me to Salem, to find that beach with the recliner and say goodbye to Ron.





Ron, I’m doing well (not “good,” of course) and I am so very grateful for every joyful, loving moment you brought to my life. In my childhood, you were pure peace to me and I will never, ever forget what you taught me.





With love and laughter, 

Amy