You know, sometimes I forget that Judi is dead. Ernie answered the phone the other day and passed it to me saying, "it's your sister" and for a minute I wondered whether it was Judi or Debbie. And when I was talking with my mother recently she said, "oh and I talked to your sister today" and I wondered the same thing.
I remember the morning Judi died and I was madly trying to figure out whom to call----for a minute it flashed through my mind, "oh, I have to call Judi" because she was always one of the first people I would call about anything important.
And so it goes I guess.
A couple of weeks ago I finally paid all her bills but I've put off writing the checks that are going to three Shambhala Centers. I don't know why but I just find it very hard to write those----there's something very final about them I suppose. Just now I wrote brief cover letters for the checks that aren't nearly as warm or as personal as I would have wished. All I could do was type out a few terse sentences.
In her will she had requested a certain amount of money to go to a Buddhist organization. She hadn't specified because she wasn't sure at the time what center she might work with close to death. After she was gone I conferred with her friend Nancy and we decided to divide the money between the Shambhala Meditation Center of Atlanta, Windhorse Retreat Center, and of course to Arjia Rinpoche, Director of the
Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center in Bloomington, Indiana who so kindly visited her just days before she passed.
I miss her.
But the checks are written.
