A Life's Work

         Do you ever wonder what will be remembered about you after after you die? Having heard lots of Eulogies lately I have pondered this very thing quite a bit this last year. What do I want to be remembered for? What matters to me the most, and is that something that I want to be remembered or better off forgotten.




My cousin was married to a man who lived his life as if every single moment mattered. He was fascinated and was fascinating. He was an artist, and he loved creating beauty. He loved creating beauty that brought people together. My memories of him are very simple. He was always a host and never a guest. They had an open door policy in their home, and as such their home was always full of people. They hosted gatherings as if every gathering may be the last opportunity to share life with their friends and family.



When he met my Meema, I think that they found in each other a soul mate. My Meema kept a hold of him and made him part of the family, and he fell in love with my cousin and stayed. You didn't let a good thing like him get away.



He was an art professor and was always drawing, and creating something interesting to look at. It was as much fun watching him draw as it was watching other's watch him to draw. He could draw anything, and I mean anything. He had vision and he was persuasive so he was never at a loss for followers that just wanted to be part of the process.



I would say what I remember him most fondly for was his love for his two boys. My very favorite memory was about five years ago we saw them briefly at my aunts as they were picking up the boys. There he was with a pad of paper and a black sharpie, head bent down and lines appearing, his two boys were mirroring his shape and so attentive to his lines and as the lines began to intersect and cross, slowly the shape of an airplane was coming to life.



All three would look up at each other with smiles and a sense of sharing that only comes from fierce fatherly love and attention. I remember this best about him, he was fiercely devoted to his two sons, and to his family.



Life is a little like watching Norman draw, a line here, a line there and line by line, and little by little our life begins to take the shape we want, if care is taken and we keep our eyes on the bigger picture.



He died suddenly and violently this last year. Words cannot express the devastating loss one must feel losing a spouse and the father of your two sons. What I can say though is that he lived a life that he carefully drew, never seeming to lose sight of the big picture, he was fiercely devoted to those two young boys and as such he lives on, past death, for them.



For Christmas my two children received the above poster for coloring. Norman had whipped this up for something for the kids to do at my Meema's memorial, although the kids were to busy playing, and never colored it. My aunt rolled it back up and put it in a closet without knowing of course that within a month he would be gone. So my aunts had copies made for each of the children in the family with crayons and paints as Christmas presents. There was joy and tears in the receiving, and there are fond memories every time I roll it out for my kids to color.



What a life, so short, so lived, so loved.