precious, beautiful and oh so fragile

An Adventure for All Ages

(you can listen to this post here)

Not long ago, my husband opened his email and clicked on the Sierra Club Trip newsletter link to programs in 2025. To his utter surprise and amazement, this image greeted him. For those who don’t know, the above hand photo is of Bee (pronouns she/they), our amazing 18 year old who died three years ago this past July 8th. Of all the photos Sierra Club could have chosen, they selected one from our 2017 Cross the Continental Divide Trip when twelve of us hiked in the back country for eight days and seven nights. Bee, at 14, was the youngest by twenty years.

And now, out of the blue some seven years later, there is Bee bigger than life giving a thumbs up after hiking up to the Continental Divide under the caption Adventure for All Ages. Needless to say we are taking that trip we have been thinking about! And for a moment, the nightmare we’ve been living in dissolved. Can’t wait to show Bee and reminisce about all the wonderful memories from that trip, I thought. The moon rise over the Boulder Field. Bee’s joy when behind the camera. That incredible smile. The tremendous resilience. The sense of accomplishment.

Back in 2017, I wrote about our preparation hike—when Bee was Abbott—in a reflection featuring You Can Do This Hard Thing by the amazing Carrie Newcomer. We met Carrie at our beloved Ring Lake Ranch in 2010, although she has no idea how meaningful her song is for us and for our family. Bee did do incredibly hard things in this life. Over and over again.

Now we’re the ones doing the hard thing.

Bee’s golden birthday—22 on the 22nd—was this week. We are back at Ring Lake Ranch, where we dedicated a bench in thanksgiving for Bee a year ago. I embrace the bittersweet flood of memories and the tears. The density of this ongoing ache of loss and all that is no more—hugs, hanging out, laughter. The list is endless. Grief knows no shortcut.

This year, Jim and I scattered some of Bee’s ashes on Little Whiskey. Carrying the weight of Bee’s ashes up the mountain, remembering the joy of carrying her in my womb. We loved playing hide and seek in those days—poking each other from inside and out, over here then from over there. I realize we still do.

Because even now, Bee remains a powerful part of my life.

Presence in Absence. The connection is different than it was. More subtle. More intuitive. It requires me to pay attention, open my heart, stay awake. There are things I trust are true despite not fully understanding them. All appearances in my day to day life to the contrary everything is energy—moving particles rather than anything truly solid as it appears. My sense of Bee’s ongoing presence is much the same. Love is stronger than death. Death is a threshold not an ending.

Bee’s energy essence, while no longer embodied in the physical body of my precious kiddo, remains—a reality confirmed over and over again in moments of ‘coincidence’ my heart knows how to recognize. Bee comes in a piece of music, blackbird or bee, perfectly timed to the moment—as quite literally just happened while typing these words! I can’t make this stuff up! :) Sometimes Bee is a felt presence as tangible and real someone standing next to me. At other times Bee comes through dreams, visions or the words of another. The Divine whispers in and through everything that is, an improvised symphony carrying Bee and me and all of us in its unfolding.

Neil Douglas-Klotz describes how the Aramaic ina’na, translated “I am”, as in “I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live” (John 11:25, KJV) — can be translated:

Simple presence, uniting I to the only I, offers rest and renewal of energy—enough to revive your winter, even what appears dead—into life’s spring. Those who trust this connection to Presence is real and trust within this Presence, which he (Yeshua/Jesus) embodies now, will continue to live even as they pass onward through the doorway of ’death’. This awareness of self to Self is available now.

Bee’s death has softened something within, expanded my sense of self and Self in ways I continue to explore and live into. I missed celebrating Bee’s graduation and launching into the next phase of life, as so many of Bee’s friends are doing. But in the midst of the longing, there is something more—a wholeness superseding illusions of ownership, of ‘mine’. When I loosen my grip on that small self and ‘my’ loss, I become aware of this Presence, this Self within whom we all flow. From within this field of awareness, all of these kiddos are ‘Mine’ to witness and celebrate. And Bee is a part of each of them and of all of us.

In these moments I glimpse a larger truth than words can hold—Holy Love is having an adventure for the ages, within all ages and through all that is—in every experience, through each thought and emotion. Opening to even the most devastating part of this journey is breaking me open to the Love permeating all of it. We are all carried within the Womb of Love.

I watched the lake this morning as the sun rose. A perfect outline of trees, rocks and mountains reflected in the still water. Until the breeze came up like an old etch a sketch, erasing the image without a trace. But the mountains, trees, rocks and lake remain, so what is it, exactly, that has gone?

This life is precious, beautiful and fragile. Ours is the gift of waking to its wonder.