Nat

Blogging has been very difficult for me this summer, following my father’s passing in May. Although much of my study and effort to address this loss spiritually and emotionally are related to the core mission of our work at Cloud 9000, I frankly felt that blogging about them would be a betrayal of my family’s privacy. Yet finding renewed joy and purpose in the face of sadness and loss has been the great work of this summer.

One of the lessons is that small gestures of sympathy and kindness from friends and acquaintances carry enormous power to comfort and uplift. I am the fortunate recipient of hundreds of these attentions, and they have delighted me again and again. I can’t thank these people enough for making the effort.

This may be the greatest lesson of all from the summer: that our efforts to serve others in even the smallest ways can make profound and lasting impressions and deep impact. Buddhists would call this effort compassion, Christians might call it charity (in the Bible it is translated from the Greek as “lovingkindess”), and I think the Hebrew term “mitzvah” describes acts of kindness like these, although there may be a better Jewish term for this act.

Whatever the name, kindness to those in need is a fundmantal principle of organized religions and is a basic human need.

I welcome any comments here that describe kind acts that have been offered to you this summer.

What I’m finding as we deal with a loss in the family is that our personal strengths have been amplified. I am fundamentally optimistic and forward looking, and that has never been more true than now. It is the only way I know how to find the determination to press on. There is really nothing else to do.

I think that is the mental trick, or demand. I can’t afford to live with the saddest part of loss for too long at one time. For starters, I want to be part of a legacy we can all be proud of.

When I was 20, one of my friends, a talented, vivacious woman named Maryann, died in an accident. After the funeral, her father, a profoundly wise and compassionate man, gathered her friends together and said, “I want to ask you to do one thing for me. Whenever you have the chance–for the rest of your lives–to do something great, or not to, choose to do something great. Remember that Maryann won’t have the chance. If all of you do this, I will have the comfort of knowing that dozens of people are doing more than they otherwise would.”

I haven’t always lived up to that advice, but I’ve never forgotten it. That’s how I think of loss now: the best way to honor someone we love is to do the most we can to honor their life.

Last week, I found myself sitting on the floor in front of the television until 1:00 in the morning eating ice cream out of the carton for several nights in a row. When I was at the office, I wanted to be at home, and when I was at home, I wanted to be in bed. I get this way sometimes when I’m wrestling with decisions about life priorities. Should I learn an instrument? Should I try to write a book? Should I train for a triathlon. The more options I consider, the more I fret about how little time I have, and then I spend what free time I do have wondering how I can get more.

This mood and behavior have now hit me often enough that I can observe and recognize the pattern, but I can’t always snap out of it. Fortunately, my wife–an immensely patient and highly persuasive woman–has mastered the art of helping me break the pattern. She doesn’t make light of my confusion, but she isn’t impressed by it either. What she did was to sit me down and ask what I really wanted to achieve and to help me make a plan to achieve it. She then pointed out, methodically and plainly, that I could easily fit those projects into my schedule if I chose to. She suggested I try it for a month and see how it went.

Thank heaven for her. There are many great benefits to being married to my wife. This is just one of them, but it makes me immensely grateful that she married me.

The current issue of Newswek has the fantastic My Turn piece about Rey De La Cruz and the pen pal in Finland with whom he’s had a friendship by correspondence for 35 years.

As I’ve written before, I like to be touched unexpectedly, and I almost didn’t read this column. But I’m glad I did, because the author, a special education teacher from Chicago and the Philippines, captures the joy of friendship so beautifully.

The detail that really moved me was the part where his friend, Satu, told him that she carries his pile of letters to her wherever she goes. I have a shoebox in the attic, which is filled with the letters my wife wrote me in the year before we got married. We were living in different states, and she wrote me several times a week.

If there were ever a fire, this is the one possession I would rescue first. There is something about love written in ink to hold forever that I find profoundly sweet and beautiful.