Renee

It's been two years since Renee died. I met her on the blogs and along with dozens and hundreds of other people, I am touched and transformed through knowing her. I don't say that lightly.

Renee started blogging for her family. She did this because she had stage IV cancer and she knew her blog would be a legacy. What she didn't know, or maybe she did, was how many people she would teach how to love. I don't say that lightly either.

Her blog is www.circlingmyhead.blogspot.com. Some rainy Saturday afternoon you might head there and 'meet' her yourself. You will find her fighting cancer ('those fucking bats') but so much more. You will find a family that for some incomprehensible reason was struck by cancer and loss and multiple deaths, to a point of impossibility even....and yet, you will find Renee, fully alive, teaching you about gods and goddesses and art and ohmygod courage.

Renee called me one day out of the blue. I was reeling from a horribly failed relationship and I was vulnerable. Renee knew the story, she knew, and she was screening some unsavory comments on her blog aimed in my direction. She never took sides: she just took stands but she didn't mince words or honesty either. She loved o swear. And, she convinced people, many many people, many people she had never met in person, that they were loved and special. I don't for the life of me know HOW she did that, so consistently, but I do know there are at least a hundred people she befriended here on the blogs that would testify that what I say is true.

I gave Renee a poem for her birthday. I wanted it to honor her, in her pajamas in Winnipeg, reaching out to people like me all over the world. I will never forget her. I will look for her right away when I find myself at the days beyond days. I think of her husband and her children and her grandchildren and I know that their loss is a million times greater than mine could ever be.

But, so too is their legacy. This woman Renee Khan could love like you just wouldn't believe.

Oh body!

How did you manage
To step aside,
To transport me to a different universe
Where divine intention
Heals my cells and quells my fears?
.
It's soaring sisterhood
across keyboard miles
leveling my fate,
carrying me past uncertainties
I don’t deserve but manage to don
With designer strength and magic words.
.
In my old pajamas
My bones so deep,
Still they find me, allign me,
Send me words and pictures
And mile-wide hearts,
These friends who travel
Beyond the plains, to reach me here.
.
Oh body!
When did I become so lovely
That in this place
I find community?
And how did I shed my form and frame,
To be recast the leading lady of honest words,
Love washing over me
Like summer rain?
.
When did I become this beautiful?
So wild with grace,
So perfectly shaped and shapen:
I have become myself,
Full and true and open wide,
Comment boxes signed xoxo,
Alphabet orgasms punctuated
with blazing art.
.
Oh body!
I’m walking here!
Don’t bother slowing down.
I am the oak Renee,
My branches wide from Japan to California--
They bend and stretch and reach,
Offering rest and reminder
That the world is rich
Simply and fully
Because of who I am.

On Renee’s 53^rd Birthday,

by kj with love