From Ren Allen in Tennessee

Thursday, February 28, 2008

From Ren Allen in Tennessee

I was looking through all my Northeast Unschooling conference photos, scouring them for signs of Lisa. I found a couple really nice ones. A smiling, happy one of her and Larry and couple of her hanging out at my ATC funshop making cards. She had her name tag with the attachment at the bottom that read "plays well with others." That's Kathryn's bit of zing there.

"Plays well with others." That she did. She played well with LIFE. She seemed fearless and life-full. I don't know that I ever saw her without that huge smile and a contagious laugh. You felt better for having been in her presence.

I wrote Marji to ask about sending cards and well-wishes during her difficult health crisis. It was too late. I never got a chance to tell her I was thinking about her in this challenging time. I never sent her copies of the conference photos. We talked regularly at the unschooling lists, but that was always about unschooling, not about telling her the things I wished I'd told her.

So in honor of Lisa I want to tell people how beautiful they are. I want to send copies of photos and hand-written notes and let people in my life know they are appreciated. I want to celebrate the lives around me more completely. Thank you, Lisa, for this poignant reminder.

Thank you for being you.
Thank you for being my friend.
You are missed deeply.

With much love,

Ren

P.S. I meant to send this along too...it was so cool. This Storypeople quote was in my email this morning. I think it exemplifies Lisa's entire family:

This is a creature on fire with love, but it's still scary since most people think love only looks like one thing, instead of the whole world.

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About This Blog

Lisa was buried yesterday, February 27, 20008, very near her home in Lake Peekskill, New York. The part of New York where she was "laid to rest"* is just to the east of the beautiful Hudson River and is notable for its verdant, rolling hills. The site where she was buried is, if my navigational skills are intact, in a western-facing slope of one of these hills, providing the viewer with a breathtaking vision of hills and valleys.

If standing on a rather steep slope under a steely
February sky with a biting, chilly wind weren't, um, challenging enough, the slushy snow and ice underfoot definitely added an intensity to the moment. Every now and again, someone would succumb and suddenly slip, even though they were standing still.

Yet, somehow we were warm, all of us there together. (We reminded me, just a little, of the penguins who huddle in Antarctica. Okay. Perhaps I'm exaggerating just a tad!)

The rabbi who conducted the service (I didn't catch his name) was eloquent and impassioned. As Liam's young friend Ben said as we drove home later, "How could he not be? He had excellent material to work with." So true. You really got the sense, you knew that this man knew Who Lisa was. He was thorough and kind.

When the opportunity for the mourners to speak came, I stepped up with my 20-page-long list of messages, some lengthy, some brief, that had been sent from very near and very far. Before I left the house for the funeral, I timed the reading of the whole thing and found it to exceed 30 minutes' duration! And that was with some editing. I felt that I couldn't do that to this slipping-and- sliding, shivering bunch. So, although I was prepared to read all the submissions, I read only one rather concise piece and told folks that they could look at the tribute blog I am creating to see the rest in all their unabridged beauty. You are here now.

For a while, there, last year, Lisa and I and a couple of other local unschoolers (Mary Ann and Robin) were trying to get an unschooling information night going for folks who expressed an interest in learning about unschooling. I believe it was Lisa's idea, and she invited me to participate ~ how incredibly honored I felt! For some reason tonight, after the funeral, I looked back through our email exchanges; we were
working on refining the notices for the event and the event itself. Looking through these emails, I felt a sharp pain in my heart that I will not be having these exchanges any longer with this impossibly wonderful, bright, sweet person.

We also talked about her puzzling, frustrating illness in many of these emails; the illness, by the way, precluded our ever getting this thing off the ground. It was the consensus of the three of us, Mary Ann, Robin, and me, that Lisa and Roxanne and Ruby were indispensable; I felt they could have gotten along without me just fine, but I couldn't imagine the thing without Lisa. ::sigh::

I'm really rambling when I ought to be sleeping. If you're moved to add a contribution to this tribute and you haven't already sent me something, please do send me something now. It'll never be too late.

Sending you love,

Marji

** For the record, while Lisa's body may have been "laid to rest," I believe her spirit SOARS and will never, ever "rest." (Okay, maybe for a moment or two.) I believe she is as proactive in spirit as she was in the flesh and she is still spreading her joyful Lisa-ness now everywhere.

Tribute to Lisa Heyman (October 31, 1960 - February 25, 2008)

Thursday, February 28, 2008