What You Mean to Someone

The question is not "if" you matter

My friend died yesterday. I suppose a feel a little strange using the word “friend” in that I haven’t seen her in person since the late 1990’s when we worked at Lasertron together, I couldn’t tell you what city she lived in nor what she did for work. Still, we followed each other on Facebook, occasionally dropping hearts on posts.

I love you, too.

When I learned that she was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in her early 40’s, it hit me hard. Colon cancer has been the primary cancer reaper in my family… and people my age are not supposed to get cancer. Right? Especially not when they lived like Jackie. Right? She was fit and healthy. She traveled the world and was a hardcore Buffalo Bills fan (because hardcore is the only way Bills fans know how to be).

Jackie was one of those people where it would have been nearly impossible to take a picture of her where she wasn’t smiling. From what I remember in our high school years and hours together spent penalizing 10 year old boys who insisted on running while shooting lasers, Jackie always had a smile. When she died, my Facebook feed was flooded with people remembering her and every photo had her well-known grin. What a way to be remembered!

Each message was an outpouring of emotion about Jackie’s light—her kindness, her humor, her thoughtfulness. They wrote about her zest for life and how she seemed to squeeze every last drop of adventure out of the short time she was here on earth. As I read each one and as I write this now, the tears keep flowing. How is it that someone I haven’t talked to in person since my teen years has me feeling so sad?

I didn’t realize how much her shining soul mattered to me. And she couldn’t have realized it either…at least not while earth-bound.

A beautiful morning in Jillville.

Eating Weeds and Reminiscing

The week prior, I convinced my dear wife, Jen, to join me on an “herb walk” with Dr. Bob Linde at a local farm near our home. I put “herb walk” in quotes because the last time I went on one with Dr. Bob, it involved strolling a park and pulling weeds out of the ground where he would say, “Here, eat this” and then share a dazzling amount of knowledge, stories, and lore about what the plant could do. One plant made my mouth go numb.

Now, 15 years later, I was ready for another weed-eating fest with Dr. Bob. Although I only live about 40 minutes from his acupuncture and herbalist office, I hadn’t seen him in many, many years. Perhaps our last encounter was when I was still a student in massage therapy school (circa 2008) and also worked has his front desk receptionist.

I was a terrible employee for multiple reasons including 1) only working Saturdays and calling in at least one Saturday per month because I had a “thing” to do, 2) I struggled to perform the basic duties of managing a front desk because my brain struggles to do anything that involves routine, details, and organization, 3) Bob taught his herbalism school on weekends and I was more interested in learning Chinese medicine diagnostics than calling patients with appointment reminders.

I bought all the text books he used for his class, convinced that if I read them on my own time I’d be able to make sense of pulse reading and auricular therapy by looking at pages. I sold those books a few years later. I didn’t have enough desire or fortitude to learn.

Let’s Return Back to the Future

As Jen and I concluded our recent herb walk with Bob, phones full of identification pictures and notes and bellies full of hibiscus flowers, he sat down in a pile of nasturtium and bidens alba and questioned why he does what he does. He mentioned that most people who attend his herb walks never go on to be herbalists. They may not even remember a much of what he said or use the knowledge in their own health. Why keep sharing this knowledge just for a bunch of middle-aged hippy folk to nod their heads, scribble tons of notes, and then return back to life as usual?

I grew this! Me! From seed!

The reality is that Bob couldn’t have imagined the seed he planted in my mind over a decade ago. It’s true that I didn’t remember more than a tiny fraction of all the things I heard him say, but I did remember something and it was enough to keep me interested. It wasn’t his delivery, but rather my own story of who I was and what I could do, that kept me from doing anything with what he taught. I told myself I didn’t have a green thumb. I told myself I had an awful memory and would probably die by plant misidentification if I tried to implement anything that he taught. I told myself that I just wasn’t “that person” who could ever learn what Dr. Bob knows or do what he does.

I’m still not sure that I am, but at least I have dropped my need to go from zero to perfect in whatever field I’m in. I’ve realized that when it comes to nature, I could study for a lifetime and still be more wrong than right in how I do things. What hasn’t changed from my first herb walk til today is that I still want to learn… and he is really the person I credit most to sparking that interest. And if you could see the ecosystem Jen and I have created in our yard this year, with bananas and papayas, mango and peanut butter fruit, a trellis full of luffa and Chinese wing beans, raised beds filled with strawberries and lettuce, and more Jamaican sorrel in my freeze than I will ever know what to do with, you’ll see that I was able to change my story and my relationship to nature thanks to Dr. Bob’s work.

*Note to self- email Dr. Bob and tell him this.

What It All Means

Let’s get cliche for a moment, shall we? We’ve all heard that we may never know how much we mean to another person. In the past week I’ve had that message thwack me upside the head twice.

More than a decade later I am spending time on my vacation to hike and tour a permaculture garden in Kauai.

It’s really so very nice when we hear from someone who shares with us what we mean or meant to them. The reality is that there are so many more out there who will never tell us, but whose lives have been changed for the better by our existence in their world. That change may happen right away or it may percolate in their memories for decades. You might be that voice that occasionally pops up in their mind and affects the way they make their bed every morning, or reminds them to shake their mustard bottle vigorously before serving. Your voice may have been the one that helped them feel seen or “normal” when they felt alone, or safe when they felt afraid.

You can’t possibly know all of the people you inspire in your everyday words and actions. So, you just need to hold on to the knowledge that who you are and how you move through this world does make a difference.

#ChooseToBeTheGood