I was recently writing out some thoughts regarding the recent death of my mother. I recalled times when I was a baby and she played hide and seek with me by placing my fuzzy blanket over her face. For all the world I thought she had left me. Then, after what seemed like an insufferably long a time, there she was, with me once again. One wonders.

Blessings,

Kevin

Chris, I want to just hug your head. As one who can’t really hope to ever keep up with ROS (day to day or within a thread) to check in and find this leaves me speechless. I deeply appreciate your willingness to let me overlisten to such lively discussions of such substance. Thank you.

JHD

Again my deepst sympahties to you Chris and your family.

I sat in the garden, spattered
by the great drops of winter,
and it seemed to me impossible
that beneath all that sadness,
that crumbled solitude,
the roots were still at work
with no one to encourage them.

Pablo Neruda

At Open Source, a day didn’t end without Chris mentioning his family in some capacity. He might forward an email from one of his daughters, or share a story about his mother’s cooking, or question how a show might resonate with his oldest granddaughter. We were even lucky enough to meet his baby brother…twice.

A few years ago came across this bit of wisdom, courtesy of the great Goethe:

Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter.
Who would think that those branches would turn
green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it.

Knowing what I know about the Lydons — no matter how hard life might be their branches are never without a few blossoms.

Mark Rothko
The Artist’s Reality: Philosophies of Art.

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Lord, help me….
Because my boat is so small,
And your sea so immense.

Two times in two days now reading and listenings on this site have brought me to tears. On endings – not the ending itself but the beauty and grace with which you have engaged with them as well as spoken about them. And allowed me to be with you in the moments. And then this exchange of letters containing such energy and quest. And interwoven in this exchange, softly spoken, this other ending with your wife of so many years. And just yesterday, while the world was going around, this moment and ending for her so poignantly understated at the end of these letters.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.

My tears were not from sadness or personal sorrow, but something of tapping into the great sadness/happiness of living and dying. I am feeling it, and I know you are too. From radio shows, to family, things end and new things begin. The great Tao of things.

All the best to you in these times. I imagine you and the company of the 12th baptist church and know you will be well….

I’m deeply saddened your loss. I had no inkling you were living with this sad progress along with that of the show. What to say, other than I’m thinking of you and hoping that the connections you’ve made among family, church, neighborhood, radio, and the wide web help sustain you. All the best.

Thank you for sharing- Steve and Chris, And to the last lines- the loss of your dear wife, Chris, just yesterday, I can only say that it leaves me with sorrow for your and your family’s loss.

Into all this a baby is born… for the joys of friendship and community.

I offer my most heartfelt sympathy to you and your family. I am so very sorry for your loss.

And I thank you very much for sharing your correspondence with Steve Antinoff. These letters capture in so many ways how ROS has enriched my life; ideas, questions, active wrestling with the BIG questions. I thank you for all of it with all of my heart.

Ricketts and Steinbeck formed an enduring and affectionate bond that would last until Ricketts untimely death in 1948 (struck by a train). Ricketts provided Steinbeck with much of the inspiration for his fiction. Steinbeck immortalized his friend as the character Doc in Cannery Row. Henry Miller, John Cage and other stalwarts of the coast of Bohemia engaged him in letters and sought him out for conversation.

Ricketts was a very interesting character, one part entrepreneur, one part philosopher, one part Marine Biologist, a student of poetry, a man of letters and a lover of music. He would move easily and fluidly in conversation across a broad range of subjects from Lao Tsu to Jung. Steinbeck said of him “his mind knew no boundaries.” Joseph Campbell wrote to him in 1948 (just before publishing Hero with a Thousand Faces) thanking him the inspiration that was about to be fulfilled in his new book. Campbell would comment later, “he was the closest thing I ever had to a guru.”

Not since reading his letters have I so enjoyed a peek into a personal correspondence. Thank you for sharing this. It impossible to know, perhaps even to appreciate in speculation, the value of good conversation. Thank you, Chris and ROS for supplying it.

And then is generous enough to share his portion – “take this and eat it…

Most of us never met Cindy in person, but no doubt her spirit penetrated the conversations over the years – so in some small way, I will forever feel a kinship.

Big hugs to you and your daughters. Warmly, Allison