Roxanne made it a habit to seek out new fascinations. She believed -- and there is considerable scientific research to back this up -- that continuing to learn new things kept her mind sharp and slowed the mental effects of aging.
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Rox developed a passion for the ancient Egyptian civilizatiion, a passsion which she never fully succeeded in spreading to me. We had planned to see the King Tutankhamun exhibit in Chicago, but never worked out the specifics of getting away from work at the same time. I shall always regret that. It would have been a grand sight, one which would have set her ecstatic.
In examining who I am now, I realize that I did take much from her. She was consumed by what she learned, and eager to share it with me. In typical Roxanne fashion, she clung on to her new knowledge. Every tidbit made her appetite more voracious. And as she told me of the magical things she discovered, her eyes danced, and her spirit rose like the dawn. It is this dedication, this determination to learn, that I turn to when I need an example of how to live.
Todays Lesson? One never knows when the next great passion will reveal itself, or from where it will come. Sometimes I need to remind myself that life after Roxanne is not just about dealing with the things in my path, and overtaking the things that lie in the way. It's also about keeping that path open and unencumbered, in order to welcome the things which I meet coming toward me. It has talken me over two years to realize this. It seems so elementary. And it seems so right that I would come to realize it in the Year Of Essentials
StevenK
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