Sandy started coming to me for massage in Feb. of 2001. It’s an interesting job, massaging people. Get to know them in a different way. Sandy was just plain ol’ unadulterated fun to be with, concerned about this and that, but always with loving kindness and acceptance. Several years ago we decided to trade my massage and her art. Two of her impressionistic and colorfully sensuous paintings now bless my home, one in the dinette and the other in the living room. One morning I had placed an arrangement of lovely scented purple roses from my garden near her painting in the dinette. Then Lezlie phoned. The next morning I left for a Buddhist retreat. The flowers remained near her painting and over the following two weeks, the petals would fall, one by one, for each precious moment I shared with Sandy and all the moments now gone.

Last January I had my 60^th birthday party at Linda’s home in Brookdale. Thought I’d try my hand again with the video setting on the digital camera. Off I went, asking for birthday dances, somehow knowing that Sandy would give me the most divine birthday dance ever. And so it was and so it is now that I have sent this video for all to see. To watch it fills one’s heart at once with laughter and tears, with delight and sorrow. What to do? Love and cry. She embodied joy and danced the dance of life itself.

Another 60^th celebration was asking friends and family for beads to make a “friendship” necklace. Sandy took her time finding the right bead and chose Quan Yin, the Buddhist goddess of compassion, “She who hears the cries of the world”. I have known that bead would be central to my necklace. Yet, I did not know that Sandy would be the first of my friends to pass into Quan Yin’s arms of love and compassion. From the sweetness of the heavens, may she watch over all of us now. I miss her so.

Laurel deGrassi