Dear Joe,

I’m a grown up now, a mother of two boys you would have liked if I had thought to get back in touch after I moved away. I’ve been married over eleven years, traveled around in an RV, lived in Mississippi, Texas, New Mexico, Arkansas and Illinois. My mother and father remarried each other three years ago. I’m no longer running from my responsibilities. Thinking of you and my brief time as a boarder in your small apartment, here’s what I remember.
I sat on your couch one bright, sunny afternoon (my morning) and said the Long Healing Prayer. I said it for me. The next day you asked if I had prayed for you because you could still feel a unique spiritual warmth in your living room near sunset, long after I’d left for work. I would have prayed for you if I were able to think about anyone but my broken self that autumn, fourteen years ago.
October sun, worn green sofa, bathtub with no shower, Holy Books, fading Persian rugs, sloped ceilings, a kind man with clear eyes
serenity, creaking wood floor, wandering between your walls alone each weekday afternoon, prayers for healing/surviving, novice spending plans written by hand, your looking far away smile
broken, taken in, treated as a peer, practical concerns, chanting “Ya’ Baha’u’l-Abha”* in my thoughts after 2am as I fell asleep on a make shift bed of egg crate foam and old blankets, breathing finally
Evidence of your character: Taking in a broken down adult child of a dear friend, letting her sleep on your floor, tiptoeing around your own place to get ready for work every weekday for two months so I could sleep soundly after waiting tables at a diner until 1am, an hour’s train and cab ride from your attic home.
The afternoon I first arrived at your furniture making shop with my dad, you heard my plans, why I would be needing a place to stay for a while. I didn’t see the familiar concern I’d grown used to in adults, like they knew better than me, but would let me find a workable, though probably inadequate, path in life the hard way. Instead you stepped away, returning with a piece of paper. You said I reminded you of this.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”**
Then you let me cry without comment, without trying to comfort, simply waiting.
Tomorrow, at your funeral, I will pray for you.

*Ya Baha’u’l-Abha: A form of the Greatest Name, literally meaning “O Glory of the All-Glorious.” It is an invocation used by Baha’is as an affirmation of faith, as an expression of praise and gratitude, and to call on God’s assistance and support.
**Our Deepest Fear, by Marianne Williamson