Inez

Inez died on Thursday, just after midnight. She was like a godmother to me, a guardian and friend.

I met Inez when I was five years old in my kindergarten class at a hippie school in the early 70's. In my schoool evaluations mailed home to my parents at the time, my teachers wrote: "Tina doen't like the yelling and the name calling."

I do recall the classrooms as way too noisy for my contemplative self. I gathered a pile of books and holed myself under a table, a table of one's own, as it were, my sanctuary from the wild, uncouth and illiterate classmates (heh).

Inez was a quiet type, and either in resonation with my aura, or attempt to draw me out, joined me under the table and read with me, and we have been friends in mutual admiration ever since. A 30 year love affair with someone whom I chose as my "second mother" from that time on. I always considered her that.

As I look at our relationship it was one of mutual adoration. I don't know why, somehow she was charmed by me as a child, and I her. I wanted shoes like her (Earth Shoes), I got my haircut like hers (on our special lunch dates when she would take me out to Mama's at Macy's downtown and then to her haircutter's), I wanted to be a mini her. I loved her dearly. I would say that we had a more articulated relationship of loving and appreciation than I had with my own mother. We sincerely enjoyed the presence of the other, and I guess I am struck by the bond we had, it seems so active for a child, and she had two kids of her own and I'm sure our relationship was much different than theirs.

Our families were very involved since we met in 1972, and we often went camping together in summer, vacationed in Tahoe in November, and had plenty of picnics at McNear's beach in San Rafael whenever it was sunny. To me, it always seemed as though the picnics radiated from Inez outward. To me she orchestrated them, and I loved going because of her. I had so much fun and look to those times as some of the best in my life. Simple, all day affairs of food and fruit juice, swimming and volleyball.

She rarely called me "Tina" usually it was "Teen" and she was the only one it ever sounded good coming from, it was kind of like her special name for me, a sound that sounded best only in her voice. I never liked nick-names, and this being a variation of my name still seemed special.

In the last few years, I made an effort to have chats with her of some depth. I was aware that all my knowing her, it was just being near her that seemed the whole point. We did have a couple of open heart-to-hearts a few years ago when her chemotherapy was intense. I Reiki-ed her and we essentially made it clear to each other how much we loved each other and how we appreciated the gift of crossing paths in this life.

That's a very special thing to do. She was facing her mortality profoundly, and I was growing my understanding of the nature of reality. Somehow we luckily avoided sappy emotionalism and managed to have what I would consider a transcendental awareness of our love.

Yes, my heart is broken that I won't see her in person again. Yet I am essentially at peace regarding Inez leaving this plane. I figure I'll see her in my dreams, that I'll hear from her and get support from her wherever she is now.

What I know is that the last time I saw her was after a march that CW and I went on in the summer. I think it was June 29. I was really glad that CW and Inez got to meet, I wasn't sure how it would happen, as I didn't think I could get CW to Inez's house for any family function.

After that, I didn't see her, and we live just blocks away from each other.

Earlier this week I had a mental alarm go off, suddenly Inez was in my thoughts. This was strong for several days. I put off calling her, yet thinking I would do so any day. She went into the hospital Sunday morning and stopped recognizing people Monday.

It is my feeling that she said her goodbye to me, that indeed we are so linked that we do communicate at other levels. This, perhaps strangely, provides me solace, as some kind of evidence that our knowing and communicating with each other doesn't rely upon physical presence or physical body.

My dearest Inez, first child of 8, born on Kauai, a human who truly embodied aloha spirit. Mahalo and Aloha Inez.