Though we only spoke a couple times and I haven't been able to write for quite awhile, you were still always on my heart and in my prayers.
We often shared the love of beautiful places and words, and sometimes music; I appreciated your quest for what was true and good; though some consider truth to be subjective, I know that your quest was for what could redeem, what could set free, what could help someone out of darkness, what could give someone else hope.
You did not merely voice the political hubbub that roars around the airwaves in garbled messages of what they believe is truth; but the facts, sometimes hard to believe, sometimes heart breaking, sometimes quite different from what is accepted. Yet you always pushed ahead, breaking through the oncoming flood to grasp a hope of joy, of love and of health.
I hope that the others, whose lives you have touched, remember more than mere ideology and spoken words; but the unspoken love you shared with the hurting. Your generosity to not only those you knew and cared for; not just those whose wounds you shared, but those whose needs were greater than you alone could meet, those whose stories you shared and help to provide needed finances or goods or exposure; not just because you agreed with them always, but because they had need!
The boxes you sent to Texas, the couple struggling with health issues, the lady who flew the plane over the gulf and rescued animals; the homeless, the sick and overweight, the lonely, the hopeless and the not so well understood, you took the time to hear, to care, to provide, to give as much hope as you and your listeners could possibly muster!
I hope and pray that the "nation" that others build upon is one that is full of as much compassion as your hour; that the love you shared with others is not lost in the sea of words and that we all in our own sphere of influences continue to not only pursue the truth, but be the truth that we believe. Do and not just talk; give and not just pile up; learn and never stop learning, never stop believing, never stop taking a stand for those who can not stand on their own.
It is not enough to admire, not enough to appreciate, a life like yours needs to be an example to follow!
Much love, your sister in the mountains of Montana, Lori
"and when you're on some distant shore, think of your absent friend;
and when the wind blows high and clear, a line to me pray send;
and when the wind blows high and clear, pray send a note to me;
that I might know by your handwrite how time has gone with thee..."
-from the song, The Blackest Crow:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrilRFhh0p4