In Memory of Barbara Shere
January 5, 1945 - September 17, 2004
Introduction:
We can do this. We’re all friends here: Barbara’s friends, and Barbara’s family; and this is Barbara’s day. And we can do this. We can help each other through this. We will have plenty of time this afternoon to listen to one another— to hear one another stumble through this. We can do this.
In all the years, this is the hardest time I’ve had to speak. But I can do this with your help. What’s going to happen here is this: I’m going to talk for a while, and when I am done here others will speak in turns, one by one, and we will all remember Barbara, and celebrate her life and our love for her, each in our own way— and we have plenty of time. And we can do this, for Barbara.
I want to acknowledge the behind-the-scenes help of Kathy’s and Martin’s son, Aaron, and his friend Brandon, and the wonderful hospitality of Beth and Steve in opening their home to us today.
Salutation:
We are gathered together here this afternoon in memory of Barbara Shere. To remember Barbara is to bring together into our hearts and minds everything she has ever been for us, to bring her back together for us, and to recognize the ways in which she has always been there for us as our joy and our companion, even throughout the difficulties of this difficult life. To remember Barbara is to know that her life is now altogether complete, and that she is still there for us, even though she is no longer here. Let us pray.
Invocation:
Lord, we ask to know Your Presence now, and that it be known throughout the difficult time that lies ahead. Help us to know the ways in which Your Grace and Power can bring comfort to our breaking hearts, and the ways in which our troubled minds may be guided by Your Love. Be with Barbara, as You are with us, forever and everywhere, Amen.
Eulogy:
A very loved person is gone now, but her love— and the people that she loved— are here today, in this place, and everywhere else on this planet as well. It’s important for us to understand that Barbara is just fine now, and in a very good place; that part was all handled a long, long time ago. I am more concerned today about the family, just as she would have been, and it is to her family— my family— that I now speak.
First I want to talk about our confusion, and our anger. A most extraordinary woman has died too quickly, too soon, and, it seems, without reason. Our confusion and anger at the unfairness of this great loss in her death is understandable, because her death is not understandable. For the past few days we have all tried to get our minds around this abrupt and permanent thing that has simply broken our hearts, but the confusion of our thoughts and feelings make this impossible, and although the sun may shine in our lives it is raining in our hearts. But as a wise child once instructed me, some twenty-five years ago— if we can’t cry, we can’t laugh. We must and should feel what we feel, we have no choice, and we need none. This is simply what we have to do.
And so we gather like this to talk about Barbara, as we have done for so many others in our family before this. We come together as a family to look for comfort in the grief of one another, because this much we can understand: we can understand at least the grief that we find in one another, because we all share in this intimate love for someone who is no longer here, a woman that we knew deeper than her appearance and past the impressions that she made: we loved her heart. And so I want to talk a little bit about this great woman’s great heart, and of my own long love for her, which will never die.
And it must now be said: although there were many other men in her life after me— because she loved so easily— she still kept my name, and made it her own, and gave it her own meaning, and for that I will always be humbly grateful. It truly acknowledges a love that she and I will always share, beyond the years that she and I shared on this planet and in this life.
Among the people here there are people I have not seen in some long time, but who still stir my memory and respect: Barbara’s brothers and sisters, who must have wondered what kind of man she had found when she had found me. And there is a very special person here, whose love of life and whose great dignity and strength I have long admired and wanted to emulate: Barbara’s mother, Elinor.
But in saying what I have to say, I know that I am speaking especially to her four children: Debbie, Martin, Dayna and Dylan. Your mother still loves you, just as much as you still love your mother; this will always be true even though, just as it was often true before, she may not able to show it. You will have to do the work it takes to look past appearances to find the reality of her love. Let me repeat this very important thing: your mother still loves you, will always love you, just as much as you still love your mother. She has simply outlived her body, which at times— admittedly— she did not love enough.
You’ll forgive me (I hope) if I call you children, because that’s how I first met you, many years ago. I remember how carefully she introduced me to each one of you back in Berkeley, one at a time, afraid that she might overwhelm me with her little family and scare me away. But I could not be scared away because I was astonished, fascinated by the ferocity of her love for each of you, and by her need to bring each of you, one at a time, into my life.
And each of you, in your own way, enchanted me from the start. As many frustrations as there were, it was because I loved each of you that I wanted to join your family— Barbara’s love taught me that. Over the years I’ve always marveled at the passion and power of your love for her as much as the strength of her love for you, and how in time the intensity of that love became extended to your own children, her grandchildren. There is a vitality here that cannot help but continue on through the ages, from parent to child.
When my own mother died many years ago, my father having been gone long before her, my first thought was self-pitying: “I’m an orphan, a 43 year old orphan!” It took me a long time to realize what I’m telling you today: we are never orphans, unless we think so. Your mother’s love did not die with her, and it will accompany you as long as you are here.
When I first met your mother she was an inspiration, an enchantress, a queen— and I knew immediately that, no matter what the cost, we would be together for at least a while. Knowing her meant learning what she knew. She was at once innocent and outrageous, passionate and compassionate, grateful and generous.
Her mind penetrated the surface of life and fully comprehended its amazing depths; she was a hard worker and a playful companion, living life to the hilt, nourished by life's meaning and scarred by its events, she had the courage of her convictions and the wisdom of the ages, and what you saw was what you got— and she would show you a lot more than you might have bargained for, because Barbara was not shy, and— outspoken— would give you her opinion— and God’s opinion as well.
We met in the chaos and wonder of the Berkeley of the Sixties, hitched rides downtown together to do the laundry, took drugs together, made music together, became ordained together, meditated together, demonstrated against the government together, attended the great rock concerts and went on pilgrimages to inspirational spiritual gatherings together. We had our radio show on KMPX and our strange and crazy commune at Astrologos.
In those days her wild heart would not be contained nor could her great mind be domesticated. She felt no blame in extending the radiance of her love in all directions, and no guilt in growing beyond the confines of what polite society would assume and expect was appropriate. She guided me into the realms that lie beyond the complacency of a routine life, where a healthier sense of destiny resides. I slowly learned from her that life will bring controversy and confusion, and there will be misunderstandings, but still there is no place here for suspicion, which only perpetuates the pessimism of a troubled mind and the cynicism of a hardened heart. So let us all grieve together.
The Irish hold something they call a wake when a loved one dies, which to my mind always conjures up the notion of billowing waves that trail behind a ship, as it plows the sea and tears open a hole across the face of the water. Like a great, proud ship, Barbara has left a tremendous wake behind with her passage, and there will be ups and downs as we steady ourselves in this changing sea. There is an enormous hole left behind in the world by her leaving, where she had been. A sea-change is a time when everything becomes different, and now everything is different, and we are changed. Let us be changed for something better even than we were. Barbara would want that.
The Recollections of Others:
And now I’ll turn this time to speak over to others. Listen closely, and hear what is written in the hearts of one another. Remember that there is no hurry now, we have all the time we need to say what’s on our minds...
Committal:
Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.