Dear Folks,

It was cold last Saturday morning in New York, when a group of us circled around to bury our friend Emily. She was just 37 years old, not nearly long enough, and the bitter wind matched our sorrow. And yet there was a sense of victory in the air, as well. Emily definitely had known struggle, but she also had access to unfiltered pleasure and unconditional love, and all of that gathered with us at her grave.

When she was born, Emily’s genetic code conveyed its own kind of poetry, linking letters in unusual ways and inserting spaces in stretches accustomed to connection. Her doctors didn’t expect her to survive infancy. A well-intended social worker asked her parents if they planned to leave Emily behind when they left the hospital. Developmental disabilities and deafness were part of her experience all of her life. But so were determination and an extraordinary capacity to engage with folks she loved. Emily never stopped surprising us.

At her funeral I read from John’s gospel the story of the fishermen who caught no fish. They spend all night deploying their nets on the accustomed side of their boat, and meet the dawn with nothing to show for their labor but sore backs and disgruntled spirits. I appreciate their honest effort and their exhaustion. Most of us, I imagine, can touch some sense of their frustration or anger or fear.

Then an unrecognized fellow approaches and asks them, “Have you caught anything,” and I expect their initial response was not fit for printing or polite company. “Are you kidding me,” they probably thought to themselves. “Who is this guy?” You see, if there is one rule among fisherman, especially if it looks like someone’s basket is empty, it’s that you don’t start with, “Hey Junior, how many fish have you got?” But to their credit, the disciples keep their cool and answer with a shrug of their shoulders and their empty hands.

Then the fellow suggests they throw their nets on the other side. The story continues to not record how they hold their faces or what they mutter under their breath, but eventually they try what he says, and they pull in so many fish that their nets are full to bursting. At this point they realize that they know the stranger: it’s Jesus, their friend who died and yet lives.

Try a different way, they must have heard him say. Fear not, you’re not done, you’re not alone, there’s more. What if you turn this daunting situation on its head, the story suggests, and see possibility where there seemed to be only problems before?

Emily evokes this narrative in me. The old way is most likely not going to work, she taught us. We’re in the boat together, but it’s probably not going to go in the direction you expect. But come close, see me for who I am, and there will be abundance and life in surprising ways and places, on a side of the boat you didn’t even know to look for. And maybe such an encounter means we will see ourselves differently, too. The journey together is the point, I believe, and there’s no need to worry about whether you are in first class or steerage, hired as the crew, or swimming along beside.

Emily showed us that less is more, that limits are gifts, and that a “too much world” might be made manageable in smaller bites. She thrived on dependability and regularity, and who doesn’t, really? She was happy to meet anyone, but if we were going to connect, we had to do it on her terms. Fair enough. Love and thriving are often where the world and we least expect to find them.

Love,
David