My dearest friend for 27 years died this week after a very short illness. I'm very glad that her illness was so short, for her sake, but have struggled with the huge hole in my heart. Such a loss, such an angel she has been. The outpouring of support and affection for her, and for her husband and two daughters, has belied the fear that some of my clients have: why should I spend my life being a good person? No one will care or remember me. If you pour good wine into a golden goblet, it will taste ambrosial. If you pour good wine into a peeling vessel, or one with holes, you'll end up with nothing. It's not being good, kind and generous that is sometimes wasted; it's continuing to pour your good wine into rubbishy glasses that is the potential problem. So stop wasting time with biological relations who aren't good, kind and generous, even if they are your descendants. Spend your time exclusively with good people.
The Dhammapada tells us that what we surround ourselves is what we ourselves become, so surround yourself with the good and virtuous.
I loved Cindi Johnson because she was so lovable: kind, generous, funny, smart, tenacious, dedicated to her remedial college math students (how many lives did she save by helping low-income kids get their AA and start a career-track?) and always ready to open her heart. But I really loved her because of who I became, year by year, because of her. At my wedding, where she was matron of honor, I told my assembled friends that I was the person I was because they had honed me and shaped me, year by year, like you create a sparkling gem from an unprepossessing stone. To the extent that I am good and virtuous, it is because I surrounded myself with the good and virtuous, and walked away from the mean and selfish.
I will miss Cindi at one level or another until the day I die. And her legacy is much, much more than just three grandchildren. Her legacy is also the array of sparkling gems that her life honed and polished, all the lives that deviated from their course and moved closer to goodness and virtue.
Every faith and wisdom tradition on earth, now and in the past, extols the value of one precious gem vs. a pile of junk-stuff, and the value of one good person to change the world. They were right. I was blessed by this good woman's life for 27 years. There is no greater epitaph for a life.
