LIVING WELL and other stories

It's been six years since we said goodbye to Katie. She never said goodbye to us. That warm summer day we laid her gently in the cold ground next to her husband we performed a ritual. Its purpose was to make it clear that we would never again hold her wrinkled hand, feel her warm arms embrace us or her wet kiss upon our cheeks.

Katie was gone. Unfortunately, the legacy she left behind was too noble, too intangible for many of her family to appreciate. And though I was only a fleeting introduction in the procession of her life, that legacy is still shaping and redefining who I am and how I am to others. Occasionally, I brush against her memory and come away with a little jealousy on my heart.

Jealous, because I know I will never have the bond with ex-wife that she and Katie shared. It was was a bond to fill the hole, the emptiness, the loneliness--a bond that each of us longs to experience at least once in this life. But it was more than life, and it came from doing more than just living. It came from living well.

In the big cities and on sophisticated satellite beams that bring metropolitan culture into small town and rural ways, there's talk about getting the most out of life. Living on the edge. Spending quality time with your children because, God knows, you don't have much time to spend with them. You're too busy trying to live well.

Things were never really complex for Katie, living in rural Ohio. She was a simple woman, hardworking, intensely patriotic, always voted, strong sense of community, not too curious about what lay on the other side of the horizon.

To her, as to many residents of this area, living well was something you did, not something you had.

My ex-wife was raised by Katie. Perhaps I should say, nurtured by Katie. She was denied a few material things, but never Katie's heart. Katie's memory, her love and even her values have all been connected to my ex and so, in a very real sense, Katie, or at least what Katie was all about, lives on. The things that were once important to Katie are still important to my ex. These keepsakes could be found throughout our home. A paperweight here, a photograph there, her father's citizenship papers, her mother's wedding ring, a pair of old glasses she wore, even a well-used spaghetti platter. Most of these items were insignificant to many members of the family when she died. They were too busy arguing over her bank account.

Forever branded in the halls of my memory is that last minute before they closed the casket for the final time and carried Katie's body away. She looked as if life had indeed not passed from her, rather that she was peacefully sleeping. All the family, all the friends had filed on outside to begin the funeral procession. Only my ex-wife stayed at Katie's side until this moment. I was with her as she bent over to leave one farewell kiss, softly sobbing.

"Oh, Katie," I heard her whisper, "I love you so much. "

As she raised back up for the funeral director to close the lid of the coffin, I glanced down at Katie. What I saw racks my heart to this day. A tear from my ex-wife, brimming with a rich lifetime of memories, had dropped onto Katie's eye and was slowly slipping away down her cheek, as if she too was crying at this unjust farewell.

How fitting, I now think, that a part of my ex-wife's physical existence, a token of her love, was sealed with Katie's that morning. Together they lie in a hillside cemetery for all time.

When people die, the survivors refer to it as "passing away." Is that really what we want? Because if we've really lived -- if we've really lived well, we don't actually do that, do we?

Katie didn't.