My Friend Sondra

 
On March 17th at 1:40 in the morning, our dear friend Sondra left this earth. She decided not to live with the cancer and kidney dialysis anymore. She made the concious decision to die. My husband, Dave, and her husband, Mario and a friend were with her in the hospital when she announced this.

She was always an "in control" type of person, and a true Christian also, so I was not surprised when I heard she had made this decision. She had of course her vulnerable times- and was a support to us in thick and thin, as we were to her and Mario and their children.~~~ We knew she and her husband for a little over 29 years. 

                                                         She will be missed.

They are part of our family, and our youngest son's God parents.

Sondra was a free spirit. She was an Indian. She was a Quaker. She was active in Native American Politics. She was many things and passionate about them. She was a friend, and a poet. She and her husband had a poetry magazine online called Autumn Leaves. You can see it at www.sondra.net.

Here are two of her poems I wanted to share.

Sometimes Beside Bayberries  

by Sondra Ball

sometimes beside bayberries under scrub pines that grow near dunes I hear seagulls calling to the sea I hear snow geese calling to their mates I hear the barking of the Barrens deer

Then I go out into the rising light and walk beneath the pines beside the bayberries out onto the dunes and look across the rising tide into the pink and mauve of the sunrise

I look at the tide washing on the shore the stones lying closer than the tide floating grey and pink in the rising light the sands floating among floating stones pink and grey and white

I watch the rising light and the floating stones until I see a shadow falling upon dunes a man's shadow moving across dune grass

and I turn and look beside me to find you standing there watching me watching floating stones and floating sand and the rising tide in the rising light of a new day.

We Go to the Skies 

by Sondra Ball

We go to the skies and we go to the streams, where the realness of earth can heal our hurt dreams. We wander in silence while stars swing above, until we recover the wonder of love.

Sondra was our spiritual sister and a friend. I wasn't ready for her to go so soon. 

I know she is romping through fields of flowers with her

young daughter in the meadows in heaven.

She will always be a part of us.