John R. Miles

was key for her she during that time discovered her calling after she got this diagnosis actually enrolled in a master's program in social work at the university of texas because she wanted to help other people navigate their very struggles that she had faced and her life was really a testament to compassion acceptance and the quiet courage of showing up for others so many things that you write about

When we were planning her memorial service, which she, in her typical fashion, dictated what she wanted, she made one very specific request that your poem accepting this be read aloud.

She felt it captured her philosophy of life more clearly than anything she could have said herself.

And I wanted to say a couple lines that echoed through that chamber and through all of us.

We were outdoors in Austin reading this.

And as a Buddhist priest was saying your poem, a butterfly went over his shoulders and through the scene, which we all believe was my sister.

And the words I wanted to say are, we cannot eliminate hunger, but we can feed each other.

We cannot eliminate loneliness, but we can hold each other.

We cannot eliminate pain, but we can live a life of compassion.

And for those of us who were watching this, those words became not just a comfort, but a call to action that she wanted to ripple beyond her.

For someone who's writing, Mark, has helped us through profound grief like that, and someone who has stood at the edge of life and death, you understand the necessity for that kind of acceptance and compassion.

What inspired those lines in accepting this?

And in a time where the world feels increasingly divided, how do we, what you call the small living things, awaken in the stream, live into that final stanza?

That is really beautiful and profound.

As I have dived deeply into your work, one of the things I've heard you say more recently is that the heart is our strongest muscle and that its work is to keep us awake to life.

When you look at the world today, what does living from the heart actually require of us?

What you have just captured is so profound and it really is at the center of all the work that I'm trying to do.

I see so many people today who are, whether you call it lonely, hopeless, nihilistic, whatever word you want to use.

And I think the word I use for it is they feel invisible in their own life.

They feel like they don't matter anymore.