Today was going to be the start of a lovely weekend when family and friends would get together to celebrate Independence Day. This morning I checked in on facebook to see what the rest of my family and friends who live in other states would be doing, and that's when I read a post that dimmed all the joy this weekend would bring:
It is with a sad heart that I have to post on Sheria's page today. On July 1st I received a call from Sheria's boss that she had not reported for work at the legislature. When Bob and I went to her home we found that she had collapsed as she had prepared for work and EMS confirmed that she had probably suffered a cardiac event. My beautiful, talented, charming, witty sister is gone and we are left without a voice that has made a difference in so many lives. --Her sister.
It's difficult to believe this beautiful, witty, brilliant, caring, loving woman is no longer among us. We're that much more diminished by her loss.
Dozens and dozens of her friends have flooded facebook with remembrances of and accolades for this remarkable woman who touched and brightened so many people's lives. Although we never met in person, through our communications she made me feel as though we'd been friends for ever.
The many, many loving, heartfelt words written by her family and friends are a tribute to Sheria and to her ability to make everyone she knew feel privileged to call her friend.
I am forever glad she counted me as one. Farewell, dear Sheria. You will always be with us, I promise.
Here is one by her dear friend, Mark Olmstead.
And when great souls die,
after a period, peace blooms,
slowly and always irregularly.
Spaces fill with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored,
never to be the same,
whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be better.
For they existed --Maya Angelou
5 comments:
All the rest of what we blog about seems so trivial at moments like this. My thoughts and prayers go out to Sheria's family and friends.
dave
Thank you, Dave. Peace.
Thank you, Ann. Not just my loss, but so many, many others have lost a great friend.
Herewith my favorite of the Sheria Reid posts that I have read. Admittedly, I only turned it into a famous recipe challenge, Oklahoma versus South Carolina. Yet it really does have a great deal to say. In light of recent conversations about race, it deserves a second look. I reread it tonight. It is even more relevant today than it was the day she penned it.
It's really nice the way that she bears no ill will towards Newt Gingrich or any of the other "code talkers" of her state. She seems to understand them much better than they even understand themselves. An extremely important point-of-view. That of a very gentle lady.
It was our greatest moment of friendship, exchanging recipes and all. One side note. After I boiled these two huge white sweet potatoes to try her recipe, I realized that it was so rich, that not even my entire extended family could finish off two pies. I took some to the nursing home where I was working. We had quite a tradition of sharing food, particularly around holidays. Two nurses told me basically that it was to die for. A really young, tall, thin athletic nurse and someone my age who carried around the extra pounds of a well-fed, well cared-for bon vivant. The skinny nurse took out the Eagle's condensed milk and cut the sugar quotient in her variation. The fat nurse added red hot candies!
http://swashzone.blogspot.com/2012/01/race-gingrich-and-south-carolina.html?q=sweet+potato+pie
Thanks for the link and for the comment, F.J.
She certainly touched so many people's lives.
Post a Comment