[Oe List ...] "Twilight edition"

[Janice & Abe Ulangca]

Thank you much, David, for passing this on.  I'm not sure if I met Terry in person - I assume he was at the Millenium Connection - but I recognize the spirit.  It's one of paying attention, to get all the juice out of life the last days - then shining acceptance of life's fulfillment.  There's humor, and forgiveness, and great celebration through the tears.  Go in peace, Terry, and love to your family, including the extended group of those who have been addressed by your life.  Perhaps the newest member of that large group is Robert.

Janice Ulangca
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: David Dunn 
  To: OE Community 
  Sent: Monday, November 14, 2005 3:01 AM
  Subject: [Oe List ...] "Twilight edition"


  Hello Friends,

  I visited Terry this evening and have just finished typing his last
  'Tidbits' email newsletter. Some of you will already have received it. It's
  pasted below.

  Terry is beginning to wrap up his affairs. He apologized to me for an old
  trespass, long forgotten. I wept and thanked him from the bottom of my
  heart. As you see, he has also taken it upon himself to let go of further
  obligation to write more 'Tidbits.'

  His own words say it simply: "It has been a long time coming, a long work,
  to achieve a solitary life that works..."

  I'll share news of his journey.

  David Dunn


  _______Terry wrote over the last several days:

  Welcome!
   
  This is the last of the Tidbit series and the beginning of its absence among
  us.
   
  Thank you for a wonderful journey together. Here are a couple of thoughts I
  jotted down on the first day of hospice. And some reflections on a man named
  Robert I met later.
   
  November 5, 2005
  Lakewood, Colorado
   
  It has been an unwelcome gift filled with shock and pain. Confrontation with
  reality the protest and anger slipping aside as the sniff of truth weighs in
  and I am overcome with wonder at how things develop. This was not the plan!
  Yet it is the path life has chosen for me and I¹d just as well say yes and
  turn to living it in the now.
   
  It has been a long time coming, a long work, to achieve a solitary life that
  works, a lovely place to live, outgrowing adolescent claims and desires,
  lingering over hopes long dead, being friends now with the ones that are
  present, expanding my self to fill the universe each day, sharing the wisdom
  that results. Humbled by the response.
   
  What chorus of angels is it I hear singing life in secular voice? The depths
  have always been sung. Yet it has been so hard to peel aside the shell, leaf
  by leaf, to discern those depths, to soak in their essence and reshape them
  with my own life--to set aside my beliefs, my preferences, my stakes, my
  fears, my doubts. A long series of epiphanies, small puffs of white smoke
  along the way.
   
  ******
   
  Saturday, November 5, ¹05, 1:45 a.m.
   
  Robert, a large black man who works here as a technical assistant to the
  nurses, wheeled me out to the smoking porch. Barbara calls it ³smoking
  without guilt.²
   
  There is a large group in the lounge, mourning the loss of a brother. They
  mill around slowly, touching, hugging, praying, being together. Palpable
  presence of passing. Undeniable loss and its introspection. Yet a radiance
  among them like a glow in the room. It seems as though I have created the
  presence for them, yet it know it is not I but spirit, circulating like a
  mist among us, touching dried out souls with blood and viscera, moisture
  that leaves a last fact among our multitude of imaginations and fantasies.
  Anchor to earth and universe, and to the touch of God.
   
  Robert is gone, taking a poetry book with him to read in his days off. He is
  practically illiterate, but reads haltingly and grasps the meaning
  intuitively, talks with me about it, brightens noticeably as the meaning
  bursts through and is set by my affirmation. One poem led him to Einstein
  and relativity and he was deeply pleased with himself as he talked on about
  the relationship and its significance in his world comments. He really got his mind around it and a real thrill for me to see
  it happen: it is the purpose of my writing and a validation of my methods.
   
  6 a.m. Saturday and eight cigarettes later, coming inside to warmth and
  breakfast and my roommate shitting in his bed. G¹night! God bless.
   
  Not much more to say; not much assurance of time left to say it. But I can
  sense an ending to this glorious embodiment of spirit I call my life. May
  you know it also and embrace it in union with your own.
   
  That¹s it. Grace and Peace. tcw
   
  +++++++++++++
   
   
  "Whoever you areSthe world offers itself to your imaginationS"
                                     


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