Death knows no season or year. We all have someone that we are mourning and missing. Someone we're learning to love in a new reality of their absence. For me, January released my friend and teacher, Patricia Moreno, at 58 years of age. And February finally let go of my dad, Sam Adams, at 85.
March starts tomorrow and it’s also the day I turn 50. I’ve given great thought to these numbers. And the thoughts have presented great questions. If I only have 8 years left on the planet how will I fill them? Who will I love? Who will love me? Am I making the most of my days? And if I have 35 years left to live, what will I be remembered for? Who will take care of me? Will I die as happy as I am now?
Have you read the poem The Dash by Linda Ellis? It’s a beautiful realization that the dash on a tombstone between a person’s birth date and their death date is what matters. The poem ends,
“ So, when your eulogy is being read
With your life's actions to rehash...
Would you be proud of the things they say
About how you spent YOUR dash?”
The in between.
That top photo is an old stump by my childhood home in Missouri that I would study every trip home. I finally photographed it in 2016. I’d counted rings on tree stumps before, but something about this stump fascinated me.
It was like this tree had A LOT going on before its tree life ended and its stump life began. It had an in between. Some good, some bad. Lots of growth, maybe a lightening strike… lots of rings, clearly many years of being a tree.
Instead of thinking about the dash of my loved ones’s past or my own eventual dash, I’m more interested in the rings of our inner ‘tree.’ If you were to take a slice from the core, what would you see?
Patricia got 58 rings. My dad got 85. Neither of those numbers make sense to me. One left too soon and one suffered way too long. So the number of rings doesn’t matter. They can not be changed. But in between the rings tells us the story of their growth, their good, their bad, their possible lightening strikes…
My dad could easily have been the mayor of our hometown. He never met a stranger and he often went out of his way to take care of others. He not only rooted for the underdog, but he coached the underdogs, and they became champions.
More than likely, if Sam Adams came into your life, he either gave you some tangible thing, or taught you a lesson that has stayed with you, or he believed in you at a time you needed it most. The man changed lives. I suppose all of this was true for me on some level, but he was just my dad. My experience of him was very different than any of his countless students, football players, or friends.
Bahamas Intensati Retreat February 2007
I moved to New York in 1994, but I didn’t meet Patricia until 2000, I finally met MY Sam Adams. She was the person who changed my life. She believed in me, gave me the tools of manifestation, accountability, and gratitude. I learned to love myself exactly as I am.
Patricia was the pioneer of combining mantras and physical movement with the Intensati practice. She cleared the path for spiritual fitness. She shined a light that illuminated a larger understanding of what it means to be aligned in thoughts, words, and actions. I am just one of thousands and thousands of lives she transformed. I was lucky to have an all access pass to her classes in New York City, but I was even luckier to call Patricia my friend.
Sam Adams and Patricia Moreno had very similar rings to their tree. They were both gifted athletes that had true methods for success. They were able to teach their methods and lead their students to immeasurable victories. They changed the room just by showing up. They had captivating speaking voices, were amazing story tellers, and they brought out the best in people. This blog post is dedicated to their wives, Kellen Mori and Rita Adams, the strong women who enhanced their greatness.
My dad and Patricia shared an ability to water the ‘trees’ of others and cultivate winning attitudes. Who I am today is largely because of their contributions and influence. When it comes time to count MY rings or evaluate ‘the dash’ between my birth and death dates, many of my successes and triumphs will be dedicated to Sam and Patricia.
My dad planted seeds of determination, hard work, and sacrifice in me. Patricia fed those seeds confidence, self love, and courage. I think the most important way we can honor the memory of our beloved teachers is to keep going. Keep growing.
That same trip home in 2016 when I photographed the stump, my dad and I made his famous BBQ sauce and I photographed that too! He would make a huge batch and give it all away. Maybe you were lucky enough to get a jar.
He wrote this recipe out years ago and made copies to hand out to people when he gave them a jar. So precious.
