When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines, gnaws on kind words
unsaid, promised walks
never taken.

Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls, dependent upon their
nurture,now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance, fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance of
dark, cold
caves.

And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.
~Maya Angelou from “When Great Trees Fall”

Sara,
my dear friend of nearly forty years,

When I learned you died this morning, your body overwhelmed by a sudden illness no one anticipated – I sat in stillness, trying once again to remember your soft voice, as if you were still part of this world.

I knew you were gone.

It was God’s timing to collect you back and so you went. We all are poorer without you – you the richer as you settle into a body no longer a burden and a struggle.

As recently as last week, you wondered aloud if you had it in you, after decades of surviving chronic illness and two cancers, to keep going with all your physical challenges. God heard your prayer. Instead of feeling depleted and emptied of purpose, you are now restored. The love and energy you shared during your long life, through your doctoring and farming and mothering and grandmothering, is replenished in the presence of Jesus Christ.

You have left so much of yourself behind:
Your mentoring made me a better doctor.
Your example made me a better mother.
Your gentle compassion made me a better friend.
Your forgiving grace and quiet patience made me a better person.

I wasn’t yet ready to say goodbye to you:
I regret not saying everything I needed to say.
I regret not taking more walks with you.
I regret not letting you know how much you blessed me
and the world simply by existing.

Now there is no doubt you are blessing heaven.
And so we who love you – your husband, children, grandchildren,
your friends, colleagues, former patients –
gratefully share the rare gift of grace that is
Dr. Sara Cuene Watson.

All flesh is grass,
and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers,
the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it;
surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
but the word of our God will stand forever.
Isaiah 40: 6-8

(Photos from Dordt University prairie)