Be What You Love Most

/ Laura Grace Weldon

The other day 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:

Be the things you loved most about the people who are gone.

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 the (too many) people who are now gone. 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.

23 thoughts on “Be What You Love Most”

  1. I needed this, this exact day, for my coworker who sat with her father yesterday as he got his cancer diagnosis. And my dad, who died last year, loved to whistle as well. Thank you.

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  2. I am so touched by the beauty and power of this essay. Each person from my life that I honor in this way starts to become part of me, merge with me, live in me, even those still here – I could not ignore them. Like you and Moses, I kneel before each one and melt into the goodness they are and thank them for sharing, even briefly, my little corner of a world gone crazy. So many good people redeeming civilization in their own quiet ways, inspiring my journey as I stumble toward the light. I feel my tears consecrate their gifts like candles on Christmas Eve.

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    • I love love love the way you’ve deepened and expanded this. We are kneeling and melting into the goodness they are, as you wrote so beautifully. And that you choose to see “so many good people redeeming civilization in their own quiet ways” is also how I go on (sometimes drag myself on) when it seems cruelty abounds. Thank you so much.

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  3. Goodness, Laura… a wondrous post. I felt like I was sitting next to you in the waiting room, and it reminded me of last December, when I was in a lobby waiting for my dad at the VA Clinic in San Francisco. While patients sat waiting, phones in hand or watching the TV, I did lunges to stretch my legs after a 2-hour drive to be my dad’s driver. One veteran, who had matted hair and appeared homeless, smiled at me so big as he exited the lobby, saying, “Wow, you’re really alive.” I was touched, and I felt the spirit of my Uncle Cheo, who died with AIDS/HIV. He was big in the San Francisco gay rights movement when I was a kid, and his courage was unparalleled. Even though he knew his dad would beat him if he “came out” gay, he lived his truth. When he died, in the Mission (a neighborhood in SF), he gave me all of his houseplants. I feel like his fire burned so beautifully into me, lighting up my life with vivid authenticity. Thanks for your writing, Laura, and your heart.

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  4. It is lovely to think about all those we have loved and feel them with us. As I age, I have also begun to think more about those who may have caused me some discomfort in life. With so much life behind me, so many of my own mistakes cataloged in my mind, I am growing in understanding of what their lives were really like and why they may have been as they were. I find myself growing in compassion for many of them as well.

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  5. If I would have read this 30 years ago, I don’t think it would have resonated with me at all. In fact, I think I might have felt insulted by this idea… in the stupidity of my youth and trying to “be all that I can be” in that miserable “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality. Ahh, what a bit of distance and life experience can do for a body… right? Today, this speaks directly to my innermost being and I can hear the echos of a much loved grandmother who set my feet on the “making path” 60 years ago. I hear the approval of a grandfather who quoted poetry to me every time I saw him… and while I never “got it” then, he laid a foundation for poetry to become a very vital part of my life. There are many more voices inside… it is a deep well. Bits of advice and knowledge, unknowingly tucked away, bubble up when I need it. Who knew that all along I have been this big sponge… sopping up things I was not even aware of. Thank you so much for sharing this inspiring post. I hope your husband’s tests all had the very best outcomes. XO

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    • This post could still be an insulting concept, especially for those in the raw stages of grief (which can go on for a very long time). I thought about not posting this for that very reason. It’s wonderful to hear that your grandparents’ ways are with you and that the voices of others gone by remain in a deep well. Hopefully…. we’ll stay with the people we loved in that way too.

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  6. Laura – This ‘waiting room experience’ is so familiar to me, and I love your reflections in looking at the faces, the demeanor of each person waiting there.

    Your decision to NOT WORRY. Your search for some meaningful distraction. The idea – what a gift – to focus on the things you loved about your Mom, your Dad, your friend Leia, Moses. Wow.

    Love as a present-tense word.

    And, I am moved by all the responses to your reflections.

    May your husband’s test results be ‘benign’.

    Love.

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  9. Thank you for this. My grandma was a computer – well, a “hidden figure.” Her group coded/decoded for the spies during WWII, including the intel that Japan wouldn’t open a ground front on the Soviets, which allowed the Allies to focus on liberating Europe. She played so many mathy games with me when I was tiny, like lotto and cards, for hours and hours and hours. It’s not the same as playing with a computing machine. I want to figure out a way to give toddlers and young kids live, loving, grandma-like figures for mathematical play.

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