Yesterday marked the two month line since Pam’s passing. It started off normal, but careened off track when I decided to follow up packing some of Pam’s stuff to donate by looking at old photos.
I have said that Pam had a way of sucking you into her life, but as I’ve thought about that saying, it is far from true. The verb sucking implies involuntary movement. What Pam would actually do was gently and unobtrusively come into your world. She would live, serve and encourage us in our worlds and before long, she would become an indispensable part of your world.
Her advice was always sage. Her insights always clarion. Heck, even her gut intuitions, were they a baseball batter’s average, would have earned her a player’s position on a top team.
Often, over the years, I have wondered how she did it; how she could nail so many useful and helpful traits?
I am convinced that she was able to achieve these great qualities by looking at my world and your world through our eyes and not her own.
Now I realize that not all of us are wired that way! In fact, truth be told, none of us are wired that way. That was Pam’s secret weapon. It was learned behavior. She had mastered the ability to first look at our lives through our grid. Then, rather than climbing into our mess along side us, she would bring wisdom into our situations. It made her a breath of fresh air. It is why her hugs are famous; she had first climbed into our situation.
Any times where she did this come to mind for you? I have several and I can also assure you that I didn’t always think they were such great ideas at the time. However, generally they proved out to be very good ideas.
I don’t know about you, but I miss Pam’s counsel. She was my wife, partner and co-adventurer for over 2/3 of my life.
In closing, I will share with you Pam’s secret. Yep, that thought you may have just had is a fair question, “If you know Brad, then why isn’t your light as bright as hers?” My only answer is that clearly she was a better student of God’s word than me. Where I first try to fix broken things, Pam recognized that she had nothing to offer that didn’t come from his eternal words.
To quote Jim Malone in The Untouchables, “Here endeth the lesson.” I don’t know about you, but I’m going to go and try to do likewise.
Brad