Losses. I’ve been thinking a lot about losses lately. Lost dreams and lost hopes occupy my mind. There is much to be said about those losses, but I’ll save that for another day. Today I’m thinking more about people I’ve lost, those who have left this world behind for another. Most of us know that those people who are gone aren’t really gone; they are always with us.

Sometimes I’m reminded about those people by the tiniest of things. Yesterday I picked up an almost empty box of cereal and removed the inner bag so I could fold up the cardboard part for recycling. I looked at the last remnants of cereal in the plastic bag, the one or two squares of mini-wheats sitting on top of a pile of crushed brown bits. I suddenly remembered our babysitter Carmela and how she announced frequently to the kids and I with a twinkle in her eye that these bits were the best part of the box and then she’d pour them into her hand and eat them up. That small act was part of her larger-than-life personality. Everything brought joy to her, even a tiny bit of cereal. I remember looking forward to her grand entrance to our house a few times a week when the kids were small and she babysat regularly. She would always have a story to tell in her somewhat broken English and usually her story involved her joy in sharing her faith with the checkout person or mechanic or whoever else she encountered in her day. I often wished I had her gift of free expression. The funny thing is that now, years after she has left this world, I do have some of her gift, and I realize that the role I played for her in listening to her stories each week, being an audience for her life, was just as important as the example of vivacity that she was for me.

Last night my husband and I drove through the wet and rainy weather to see Mary Oliver, the poet. I have enjoyed Mary’s poetry for many years. I was curious to see the woman who wrote sublime poems about nature and life. The auditorium was packed with people. We had to sit in the balcony section. My husband estimated that there were maybe two or three-thousand people in the auditorium. It was a less-than-ideal setting to hear poetry that exalts the individual and his or her connection with nature. It even felt wrong. But the most surprising part was that Mary instantly reminded me of my mother-in-law’s best friend Elizabeth. Her bobbed gray hair, her matter-of-fact voice, her interest in her audience (several times she said, “it appears you are listening, aren’t you?”) and her self-deprecating persona (as if to say, “why is all this fuss made about me?”) brought me into the quiet, peaceful living room of Elizabeth.

I remember Elizabeth’s positive attitude and her eagerness to hear about our lives whenever we went to visit. She didn’t get out much in her later years and I suppose visitors were a welcome spark of life in her small apartment. We would tell her about our latest activities, plans and trips. She would tell us about the squirrels she watched out her window or the fact that wild turkeys were now roaming about the neighborhood. Until her last day, after she turned 100, her mind was sharp and she still tried to keep up with the world, even though her declining eyesight had made it harder and harder to read the newspaper or watch TV. Last night I felt the loss of Elizabeth as I thought about how she is no longer sitting in her peaceful apartment anymore. I can’t go there and find a receptive audience for my life.

One day Carmela came to our house and said she had a big surprise. She drew me and the kids close to her and unveiled a giant plastic diamond on her finger. Look what I have! She joked that she had a boyfriend and was engaged. It was all fun and games for her. The truth is that she had been divorced many years before and had come to the United States on her own, looking for a new life. She had some male interests but mostly she was too busy blessing people to date anyone. In the last years of life her mother came from Mexico to live with her. It was a dramatic change of events as Carmela had to reconcile her relationship with a woman who had never really been a mother for her but now needed her to be a caretaker.

Elizabeth had never been married. Her friendship with my mother-in-law, which only started after she was well into her 70s I think, was probably the closest human relationship she had. When my mother-in-law died before she did, she was very sad and alone. Likewise Carmela was very sad when her mother died. They had made amends and reconciled but it had sapped a lot of energy from Carmela. Carmela died very suddenly a few months later. Out of the blue one night her vivacious spirit was taken by God. She had a massive brain hemmorage at age 67 or 68 (she never told us her real age) and she was gone.

Perhaps Elizabeth and Carmela are looking down on me now, still interested in life here on earth. The best of what they had to offer is still alive here, every time I remember them. Although they were very different people, they both shared a rare gift, an eagerness to genuinely connect with others just for the sake of connecting, nothing more or less. The world needs people like them more than ever.