From "yes yes yes" To "yes yes yes"

I did not choose the title "Impermanence" in order to eulogize the dead. However, tomorrow is the fourth anniversary of Elizabeth Shapiro's passing, and I can't avoid thinking about it, so I will write something.

The title comes from a true story: "yes yes yes" was, according to her, the first thought she had when she saw me for the first time, and "yes, yes, yes" was the last thing she said to me twenty-four years later.

The first "yes yes yes" was when a friend won me at a Quaker School silent auction fund raiser in Cambridge Ma. I offered a gourmet meal. He had ulterior motives and invited a woman he thought I'd like. The evening was filled with delicious yeses, and they continued like some Molly Bloom at the end of James Joyce's Ulysses.

The last "yes yes yes" was difficult for her to say. She couldn't speak anymore without pain, and these were the last words I heard her say. Beyond the pain, the words were difficult because they answered my question in a way that sent me away from her.

My question was "do you really want me to leave you here at the hospital and fly to California and make arrangements so you can get on an air ambulance tomorrow and fly to a clinic where a specialist will immediately perform radical heroic surgery in an attempt to give you a few more years of life, but maybe you will die while I'm gone, and maybe you will be unable to get on the plane, and maybe the surgery will fail?"

Her "yes yes yes" spurred me on to a non-stop 48-hour mind-warp filled with incredible coincidences and extreme pendulum swings. Someday I will write it all down, including a taxi ride going much faster than I had ever gone, over 120 mph, because I said "airport as fast as possible" and the driver turned out to be a Russian race car driver.

Today I eulogize a loved one who was fearless as her breast cancer slowly spread throughout her body, looking for a way to ruin her, but failing again and again. The brain tumor in her cerebellum could have ruined her, but she recovered completely and went on to dance with her usual grace like nothing bad had happened. The tumor in her lower spine could have crippled her, but somehow, that tumor just went away and she continued to dance. The final spread to her lungs was different.

I am grateful I made it back in time, and was able to bring her home from the hospital, and that she had two days to see and hear her many friends who came over to say goodbye.

My last words to her invited her to try to join me if she wished. I explained there was plenty of room in my head, and she could rearrange things if she needed to. She heard me loud and clear, and it certainly felt like she made the leap. She locked eyes with me and then passed on, without blinking, as a Maui sunset danced across her fading eyes.

The principle of impermanence was never more personal to me.

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