Farewell to a Master
Just came back from Brother Blue’s wake. Jay and Linda O’Callahan drove up with Pam and me from Marshfield to a funeral home in Cambridge, MA. It was bitter sweet to share memories of Blue on the drive up.
Saw scores of storytellers at the “visiting hours.” I would have rather seen them at a party than a wake, but it was my first time to see them at all since I moved back from OK. Hugging so many and saying heartfelt hellos was grounding and delightful.
Ruth Hill (Blue’s wife) was magnificent, shaking hands and talking to each person in the line to view Blue’s casket. In death, even though I had never seen him so still, Blue’s spirit was still evident. I could have cried for an hour.
So today was an affirmation of storytelling community, combined with the irreplaceable loss of Blue. Even after he “blew away” (his term from long ago), though, he brought us together in celebration of story and life.
One of Blue’s gifts was to be able to summarize a person’s unique qualities in a phrase or two. I will always cherish what he said to me every time we met: “Look at him,” he would say to the world in general, with his arm on my shoulder. “He was born ancient and wise. His spirit is 10,000 years old!”
If that’s true, Blue would know. His spirit must have been even older. He seemed like a natural force, like water seeping up through rocks or like sunlight insisting on finding its way into the dark corners of a forest.
A force like that never really stops. Perhaps on its own, perhaps through those of us who were touched by him, his spirit must surely still be at work, dancing through the landscape of dreams, the oceans of stories, the quiet waters of our lives.
