The Worried Worker is chilling out today due to the loss of an important intellectual mentor for 41 years.  W2 is very lucky in that he has lots of living family members, affinal and married, but this is W2’s first loss.

Bereavement is about a loss, a disruption.  It’s painful, it’s physical and until it happens to you, you don’t know how it feels – it defies definition and everyone’s experience is totally their own.  It affects you from shock and dismay, to calm, to acceptance, to self-forgiveness, and then to celebration.

I was ten years old when Joe and my sister came to the house at about 3:30 am to pick up me and my brother.  We were heading to the Gold country near Yosemite.  It was my first real camping trip and I was excited until I saw Joe sitting on the couch waiting for us.  He was bald and wore an eye-patch.

It was the first time I learned that he wore a toupee and had a glass eye.  It gave him a freaky “prospector” look and I thought it was cool.  I was just ten, so stuff like that was pretty much the bomb.

We got on the road and stopped at an old bakery in Bakersfield that he frequented for decades before.  We stopped in an old mining town for a Sarsaparilla at the Saloon.  I rested my foot on the brass toe rail that ran from one end of the bar to the other and sipped my root beer, waiting for someone to pull a gun on me so that I would have to beat ‘em to the draw.

We got to our destination, some unmarked site next to the raging and cold Tuolumne River.  It would be dark in a couple of hours and it was getting really chilly.  I was bundled up in the clothes my mom made take on the trip to the point where my arms wouldn’t move.   We set up our meager camp; some drop cloths and sleeping bags under the stars – I was pretty impressed that my sister could handle the primitive accommodations. 

Joe got out the pan, a real gold mining pan, rolled up his pants and then walked about calf deep into the freezing river.  I watched as he tossed some dirt into the pan, swirled water through it, then repeated the effort several times.  He was entirely focused on his effort and was at ease, calm, totally in love with the moment.

After a few swirls, Joe pointed out some little flakes of gold mixed into the dirt.  I was blown away.  It was worth maybe a tenth of a cent, but I thought it was Eldorado!  When he told me how little it was worth, I suggested we get a bigger pan.

Joe explained to me that it takes a lot of flakes to make a nugget and that you have to have patience to find them, and enjoy each one.  And, so it is with life’s wonderful and, at times, flaky moments.  Death is a flaky moment that puts the finishing touch on any nugget. 

Panning for gold is not a bad thing to do, whether there is gold or not.  It’s the act of panning and being one with it that matters. 

I think that’s what Joe taught me.