By Susan Wordal
It’s the time of year when we are often faced with endings and, conversely, beginnings. May, more so than April, is usually the end of Winter (unless Mother Nature is enjoying a little joke on Montana!) and the beginning of Spring/Summer. I consolidate those seasons because you never know when it will start and when the shift from middling temps to downright hot temps will happen, if at all.
It’s also the time when school begins to wind down for the school year and the kids are looking forward to that most wonderful of all times (for kids anyway) – Summer Vacation. There are projects to finish, desks and lockers to clean out, and plans to make. Some of those plans are for graduating to a new teacher, a new grade, or a new school. And for some, that means GRADUATION, as in, the end of high school, or the end of college, and the embarkation on a whole new chapter of life.
These endings are important. They mark progress toward adulthood, or toward a particular goal. They serve as gateposts on a life to be lived. I can’t begin to say how many times I’ve thought back to an event and the association with the birth of one of my kids or a transition to a grade or school. Not everyone thinks in specific years, but in these gateposts or milestones. The memories associated with them are far more poignant than the cold calendar year number. I encourage everyone to do it more often. Even if you have to start with the year and then create the associations to those milestones.
I had dinner with my best friend from high school on the 17th. He drove in to stay with his brother while his son and son’s significant other drove on to Missoula for a rugby tournament. To say that we squeezed the life out of each other would be an understatement! He lives in Nebraska and works as a railroader. I don’t mean that he’s on the tracks handling the signaling or switching tracks or anything. He works in an office. But he’s always been fascinated by trains and moving things from one place to another. The logistics of that seem to be his “thing”. We don’t get to see each other near enough. That was brought home by the fact that when he should have been at our 40th class reunion in Gt. Falls, he was instead healing after dealing with a heart attack and the attendant medical procedures associated with such an event.
But his journey here to MT this year is bittersweet. His Mom passed away earlier this year after a battle with Alzheimer’s. It brings home to me, yet again, how lucky we are to have our parents. And that I had to suffer this same loss of someone so central to my life in 2005. I will see him in Gt. Falls on May 29th for her memorial service. I will help him say farewell to someone who was, in many ways, like another mother. She let me know, especially in the last few years, that she thought of me like a daughter. I know she was an important part of my church life in Gt. Falls.
I seem to be going to funerals and memorial services too often these days. My kids lost their “Aunt Nita” (really their Great Aunt) in 2021 thanks to complications from COVID. They lost their Grandpa, Dr. Bill Wise, in late 2022 at the ripe old age of 91. (He was my grandparents Dr in Helena after they moved there from Big Timber, so another touchstone for me.) Our Pilgrim community lost our talented friend Cliff DeManty far too soon. Then there will be the service for I-Ho Pomeroy, a civic leader and spouse of an old professional friend, who succumbed to cancer this year. And just today I got another one of those phone calls from an old and dear family friend about another old and dear family friend who passed away on May 13th. It’s a jolt, even if you are expecting it, which I wasn’t!
At the same time, I see these events as a chance for reflection and reminiscence. An opportunity to share good memories. And even a time to consider what we can do to live out the promise and the hope for us as people and a community based on the empowerment of those memories and those legacies. I was more than touched when I read the article in the Chronicle and know that I-Ho and her family will enjoy the efforts being put into the N. Black Pocket Park and naming that little location after a woman who made Bozeman a place to put your heart.
Pilgrim, too, has entered a new era, again. We celebrated our graduates on May 19th. Our kids are flying on to that next thing, whether it’s a new grade or a new school, or a new community. It was right, then, to celebrate with Rev. Danielle as she “graduates” from working with our youth for 12 years. Frankly, if you don’t think she worked like any student and deserves the accolades of a graduate from a rigorous course of study, you should try stepping into her shoes! It’s a difficult act to follow. So, we’ll take our time, reflect on the legacy of youth empowerment and validation of self provided by Rev. Danielle, and, when the time is right, we’ll reimagine what this role and this legacy call us to do in our space.
Meanwhile, here’s to new beginnings. May we be inspired by those we have met on our path and may we be empowered to pass on what we know while remaining open to listening and learning. My friend said of his Mom that her legacy was other’s excellence. She was that person behind the scenes. She supported, she nurtured, she adopted with her heart, and she loved. I know a few people like her, and I miss the ones who are gone. But I hope that I can carry a little of those folks with me and pass their legacy along. I hope, too, we can all bask in the excellence of each life and each beginning, and even each ending, and each gatepost and milestone along the way.