Don’t Let The Fire Go Out Pt.2.5

In Loving Memory of Deirdre Sulka-Meister

Deirdre had her own way of Making Room for Everything, particularly everything that is inconvenient, gunky or gooey, and generally unspoken or shunned. She was a nurse midwife, and she knew how much birth—and everything in life after birth—involves that which is inconvenient, gunky and gooey, and generally unspoken and shunned. Her embrace of all of it was not necessarily bright and cheery—she named suffering clearly, and could throw one of the best, messiest tantrums ever. Her embrace was as real and messy as whatever she was embracing.

For Deirdre, nothing was too painful or disgusting to be part of the Big Love—even if it really was still painful and disgusting. I am remembering early in her cancer journey, when she was on a form of chemo that made a bad-smelling ooze come out of he nail beds. That was known as the Stink Finger era in Deirdre’s life…  and she definitely didn’t like it, but she accepted it with the same practicality, realness and humor as a loving mother whose baby has diarrhea.

There was no denial of life’s yukkiness, or the pain, or the delicious flavors of food and dance music. Even bouts of despair were part of the One Love. This One Love was not washed out or tepid or bland. This was not some rarified transcendence of the gritty details of aliveness; this was aliveness itself, a mango eaten without a knife or napkins.

Conversation with Deirdre had no taboos. Every aspect of our inner world was matter-of-factly welcome to be discussed in the most homey and straightforward way; our deepest darkest secrets could gather around the breakfast table in their bathrobes with their bedhead hair, just talking about how it really is.

It was so easy to be comfortable around Deirdre, because she was comfortable even with her own uncomfortableness, her need to fidget and wiggle before she could say certain things—and say them she did, with love, but with no pretense that it was easy. In fact, “We can do hard things” was always the message that she left us with.

Over and over again, Deirdre chose care, and chose inclusion. I will call her a holy woman—not pristine and emotionally sanitized to feel only very-nice-things, but a saint of the earth, a woman willing to “BE!” in every sense, and to invite us to “BE!” with her, through all of it, with love. The holiness of Deirdre was wholeness—all of us, invited to be part of the Big Love, without exception.
 

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