Six Months

Lori died at suppertime on January 27th, six months ago this very day. I think of her pretty nearly constantly, but find that the shape of my thoughts now changes. Apparently grief, too, has its rhythms. In the early months after her death the thoughts focused on her her last hours and months, the long slog blessed by all of you with prayers and pink flamingos and cards and casseroles, and on my own shattered feelings of misery and loss. More recently I find myself focusing on our four decades of life together, on the people she touched, on her ever flowing spring of energy and good will, and on her creations.

Throughout her days, good, vibrant, inclusive, fecund things flowed out of Lori, first among them her children, Kate and Tucker.

She made friends and retained them. Two women from her childhood in Des Moines, Carol Ramsey and Nancy Sartori, stood with her at our wedding in 1976, and flew in for her memorial service last February. As did Mica Deangelis, her first friend in California. At Lori’s first job in San Francisco, as a teller trainee at Sanwa Bank, she befriended a recent Stanford graduate, Renee Filice. Both hated the work, but loved one another, and remained friends for all her days. The job which set Lori on her career path was at the Stanford Court Hotel on Nob Hill, where General Manager Jim Nassikas sprinkled pixie dust on a brilliant young staff and made the Stanford Court the City’s finest hotel. Long retired, Jim Nassikas enjoyed Lori’s visits for as long as she lived. You.

She loved small world stories — occasions when she connected with people in unexpected places and situations — and from that she grew a business where she made a decades-long career of connecting people with opportunities where they could thrive and grow.

She made things. A scarlet bathrobe and a sweater of Greek wool both of which I wear to this day. Sea shell mirrors. Christmas wreaths. Knitted baby caps which have adorned the noggins of squadrons of newborns for decades. At the holidays every year she invited in the neighborhood imps to bake Christmas cookies and fashion craft-y gifts for their parents. Food! Wow, could she cook. This home, yet stuffed with her projects and collections and furnishings.

Lori forbade me from including this photo on the blog I posted from Skiathos last year. Too much cleavage! But having known her for forty years I include it here confident of her forgiveness. It is one of my favorite pictures of her, displaying both the radiance of her affection and the delight of being embraced by that affection, an embrace she extended to all.

I am at present facing a six-week hiatus in the therapeutic travels which have occupied me in recent months, until I return to Skiathos with kids and grandkid for a sojourn in September. In the meantime, stillness, and patience, and gratitude.