Nurturing Weekend

I hesitate to use the word "nurturing" to describe a funeral, but the memorial service I attended for Laraine Wilkins was just that for me. My soul grew because of it. Some of it was because of thoughts I had about her:

What an amazing person she must have been.
I've only touched the tip of the iceberg in my acquaintance with her, but then do we ever really know anyone? Did anyone there really know more than a little facet of her? We would have to combine all of our impressions and experiences of her together in order to understand her.
How many lives she has touched! How very many people in the local arts community are here because she affected them.

Then there were the thoughts about me:

Who would come to my funeral?
What would happen to all of my half-finished writings if I died?
What would people think of the stuff I leave behind?
What things will I wish I had done sooner if I have to die young?

I'm trying not to feel guilty about all the thoughts about me that the funeral inspired. (Everything's always about me, isn't it?) Because that's what a thinking person does--takes what she sees, reads, hears, participates in, and asks, "How is my life different, or how should it be different, because I've experienced this?"

But the soul-searching was nurturing to me, and I loved the chance to step out of daily existence and ponder these things.

Then that night I went down to hear Thom Duncan's new play read at Scott Bronson's house. Only, luckily, it got rained out. I say luckily because now I got two for the price of one: Thom loaned me a copy of the script, so I can experience the play, AND I got an evening of great conversation with Thom, Scott, Scott's wife Lynn, and Elwon The Actor. Which is absolutely as nurturing to me as any play.

So it was a nourishing day for me, intellectually and spiritually.

We fasted for Laraine's daughter, Layna. Please keep her in your prayers, too.