This One's For You

I still have all Lee Ann's emails. 

This has come in handy the last month as I prep for the training we did together.  The one where she handled everything.  The one we did annually for almost a decade, a guarantee we'd see each other at least every 12 months, usually in some cool city that we'd love to explore.  I fly to Orlando Wednesday, will check in to Disney's Coronado Springs Resort.  And her absence, I suspect, will be everywhere.

But so will her presence.  I have never before felt sadness so wrapped in joy and gratitude.  Each time I feel the ache of her death I also feel her smile.  And her very staunch warning that sadness is not particularly useful.  

Lee Ann embodied pure alignment between vision, values and action.  And so her essence stands before me almost daily, softly, yet firmly, reminding me that if I choose theoretically to believe we are source energy dancing in and out of physical form, then I have to act that way.  That I have to be mindful about contributing life-giving energies to the world, even when I'd prefer to feel overwhelmed, worried, sad and incredibly whiny that I have to do these 4 days without her.  

She'd say overwhelmed, worried, sad and whiny are not very Abe-like.  I say they're not very Lee Ann-like.  So I'll look for a beautiful sunset, a great slushy margarita, and a glorious loud laugh and think of her.  And I'll take this work that she nurtured and loved so much and illuminate it in her honor.