The woman across the street died suddenly. I wish I’d known her better, but our acquaintance was casual. I do remember that she was an adventurous traveler.

She and her husband had been to jungles, deserts and mountains. She’d rafted the Amazon. Trekked the Himalayas. Maybe she climbed Everest; I think there was some talk about that. I wish I’d listened better.

I saw the movie “Amelia” recently, and the actress who played Amelia Earhart, Hilary Swank, was tall and pretty, with a no-nonsense hairstyle and great smile. Like the real Earhart. Like my neighbor.

Earhart’s similarity to my neighbor extended beyond appearance. It included her adventurous spirit. I don’t know if Earhart was kind and personable, but our neighbor was.

When my wife got the news by phone she paled, and after hanging up, told me in a hushed voice about our neighborhood’s loss.

My first reaction, after a few expletives, was, “Hell, she explored Tibet.” As though I were saying: No, can’t be true; the woman once walked in the Himalayas, must be some mistake.

I guess I felt that a youthful, strong Himalayan explorer would live forever. Nothing about what I felt made sense. But then my wife said something that did.

“I’m glad she explored Tibet!”

This hit home, rang true, felt right, even offered a bit of solace. My wife communicated volumes in five words, and they made a pretty good eulogy, spoken privately and in shock.

What they meant was this: we can’t be sure how long we’ll be around, so those of us who are smart get out into the world and do things. Like see the Amazon and climb the Himalayas.

On Loren Eiseley’s headstone it says: “We loved the earth but could not stay.”

This statement applies to all of us, sorry to say. But at least our neighbor, the nice woman across the street got to see the earth. She climbed mountains in Tibet. We’ll miss her, but she didn’t miss much.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 26th, 2010 at 5:41 pm and is filed under "Daily Sightings" A Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.