Yesterday I was sitting in a medical facility waiting room while my husband was undergoing tests. I was trying to ignore various worries common to such tests while also attempting to ignore the wall-mounted television’s prattle. I normally bring a book but had forgotten this time. So I scrolled around to see what friends recently posted. I watched a few art process Insta posts that reliably soothe my fluster. I read several of the longform essays I enjoy on Emergence,Aeon, and Nautilus.

Still waiting.

I did another look around. There was the slumped teenager with headphones on, carefully avoiding eye contact. There was the expensive overcoat guy on his phone sounding bossy. And there was a gentle-faced man in a wheelchair. Whoever brought him (daughter? caretaker?) sat looking at the TV while he gazed around him with a look of quiet wonder. Maybe he was what some might call developmentally disabled or maybe he had dementia or maybe he was a saint, because few adults allow themselves such open and endearing expressions of interest in everything. I wanted to go over to sit by him. Heck, I wanted to kneel by his side and ask him for a blessing. When I caught his eye we indulged in a long smile at each other. His name was called soon after: Moses.

When I went back to scrolling. I came across this:

What a beautiful place to take one’s mind.

I started with the easiest person for me, my mother. I loved most her hugs (oh, for another hug), her genuine interest in everyone she met, her endless committment to stay in touch, her detective-like pursuit of what she wanted to know, her storyform memories, her intuition (that woman could with great accuracy tell who was calling well before caller ID and invariably got in touch with people saying “you’ve been on my mind” only to find out there was a good reason for that). 

Then my dad. I loved most his ability to offer undivided attention, the way he put children first, his more-spiritual-than-religious views (which he hid well in a lifetime of regular church attendance), his quiet presence, his wry sense of humor, the way he whistled when he was happy.

Then my friend Leia. I loved her soft laugh and bawdy humor, her light-up-the-room smile, her interest in exploring our mutual meaning of life questions, her insistence that everything was “perfect” despite the multiple sclerosis that put her in a wheelchair in her 30’s and nursing home in her 50s. Our meaning of life conversations got far more serious after her beloved daughter was shot and killed by muggers.

All of these listed qualities are far fewer than the many things I most love about these people. “Love,” I realize, remains a present tense verb because death doesn’t subtract love.

On nights when I can’t sleep, I try to remind myself to engage in this practice of listing qualities I adore most in people who are now gone. (There are, unfortunately, many.) And, yes, in animals I adore too. I don’t know if I can “be” these things. But recalling some of their finest traits helps me love those I miss in a way that goes beyond grief. It reminds me I still love them and will always love them. This is the way I suspect any of us would like to be remembered.

If you’d like, please share some traits of a person who has died that you’d like to emulate.