What can I say?

I wish I could remember the exact details, the dates, the paths and links of how I found her. I had seen her site and she had seen mine. I had commented; she had commented. She knew who I was but I did not know the same of her. On a comment I had made to one of her posts, she commented back and eluded that she knew me. Intrigued, we exchanged a few more comments and then went to personal email addresses for her story.

Turns out that she used to work for my father's company in Louisiana. We did know each other. She took mercy on me a long while ago when my father sent me to that office to conduct some writing workshops. I was fresh out of college, very green and very nervous. I wouldn't dream of admitting my shattered nerves at the time but she sensed it, and she calmed me down, graciously and without a hint that she was in on my secret. I could not have gotten through that day without her.

She found my site by googling my father's name after he died. In our email exchange she shared things with me that I'll keep between the two of us, but she also told me that my site was one of the reasons she started blogging. I'm honored by that because I enjoy reading her words daily, and in a way that is my own, each time I go to her site, I feel a connection to the page because what's there are the life and words of someone my father admired.

Last night she sent me an email:

Just a note to send a few warm vibes your way to maybe help you through a difficult day tomorrow. I feel the same kind of admiration for you that I've always felt for your father. You're so strong, your instincts so natural and good, that he must be beaming with pride at how much grace you've shown under the pressure of the last two years.

There'll be a Louisiana arm stretched out to wrap around your shoulder all day tomorrow. Lean on it if you need to.

Receiving an email like that from a woman like her is better than being a little girl and finding the prize I'd hoped for at the bottom of a Cracker Jack Box. It's the kind of gift that reminds me how loved my father was, by so many people outside his family. It's a gift that reminds me of what a wonderful and kind and generous man he was and how very lucky I was to draw him as my father. Luck doesn't begin to describe it. You had to know him to understand the honesty in those words.

Several months ago, my Louisiana friend sent me a couple photos of my father. Photos I'd not seen before, which are a wonderful thing to have after you've lost someone. This one in particular, I adore. That's my father in one of his elements. A work party, with people he respected and enjoyed, a cocktail in hand. A smile on his face. (The only things missing would be a boat and a fish.) You can't tell in a black and white photo, but that shirt he's wearing was very colorful. The man liked his colors. Seeing this photo, I don't see black and white, I see those colors. And that puts a smile on my face.

I share the story and the photo today because both warm my heart and both have aided in making this day less about mourning and more about celebrating the amazing man, and the awesome life that was his. As time passes, this is how it should be.

Today, I have worked, visited my mother, and spent some quiet and prayerful time in the chapel at our church. I've read emails and taken phone calls from generous and caring friends. Shortly, I'm going to meet a friend to drink a martini in my father's honor.

Simple remedies, simple kindnesses, and a long arm from Louisiana, they help to heal the deepest grief. In being reminded I am not alone, there is healing. In that healing, I am able to carry on.