Remembrance

Death ends a life, not a relationship. – Jack Lemmon

I knew Ronald James MacIndoe only a short time.   He was part of the MacIndoe clan in which I married.  Our interaction was brief by yearly and decade standards, but Ron’s presence struck a chord in my heart and he touched my life in words I will never be able to fully express.   

Ron was a lost soul.  He was the oldest among four brothers.  Two years before his death, my husband Jim brought him down to see us in San Diego.   I will treasure this memory.  One, to see my husband care so lovingly for his older brother.  Two, to feel Ron’s appreciation for simple things – a hot shower, a good meal however simple, the warm sun, one of our dogs lying by his feet, the beauty of a garden.   Ron sat daily and long in the recliner in our family room and looked to the garden I worked on so hard.   He told me often how he appreciated the warmth and the view.  I sensed peace in his soul when he visited us.  I sensed it was a peace that came rarely.   

Ron’s regrets were many.  Most, I believed, involved his beautiful, intelligent and soulful daughter, Tiffany.    I sensed he regretted very much what he could not give her.  Ron would want his daughter to know how pure his love was and is for her.  He would want her to know how much she blessed his life.  

Ron may not be here in the physical sense, but his spirit lives on.  It is a spirit that stands strong in the beauty of his daughter’s resilience and commitment to family.  It is a spirit that stands joyfully amidst the thrill of catching a fish upon a sea he loved so well.  It is also a spirit that reflects perfectly in the proud beauty of the Honor hybrid tea rose I planted in his memory, and which offered up its first bloom this past weekend.  The rose sits quietly and humbly, delicately white and pure, at the first level of our terraced yard that you can see from our beloved bungalow in San Diego.  It is a rose that reminds the passerby to sit and stay awhile and smell the sweetness inherent in life’s constantly changing scene.  It is a rose Ron would want, one at peace with its surroundings.   A rose to remind us to take nothing for granted, to enjoy the simple things, to appreciate all we have been given.  A rose, most of all, for Tiffany.