Among the e-mail and notes of condolence that have arrived in the last several weeks, one friend sent this passage, a poem called “Living Eulogy” by Maryanne Radmacher, which she said put her in mind of Cheri:
She danced
she sang, she took,
she gave. She served, she loved,
she created, she dissented.
She enlivened, she saw, she grew.
She sweated, she changed, she learned, she laughed.
She shed her skin . . . she bled on the pages of her days.
She walked through walls
She lived with intention.
Nestled beside this in a file full of paper I have pored over in the last few weeks, were these words:
Look left, look right, look left again – then cross the street
Righty tighty, lefty loosey
Listen much more than you speak
Give much more than you take
Not everyone has your energy level – they are born that way
You are special
This is a list of “Things to Remember” written by Cheri for Jodi and Jamie.
Somewhere in the intersection of those words and the opening poem, and the words from our choir’s anthem today, we begin to build ourselves a picture of the life of Cheri .
Cheri was born in Houston in 1959, and I think her parents would confirm that she was born feet on the ground, running. Always running, never stopping, her sight fixed on one goal or another.
She had a fierce independent streak as a child, not wanting to be helped by her parents or other adults if it could be avoided. The common refrain in the Host household when young Cheri had her mind fixed on a goal was, “I doed it, Daddy!”
She was constantly on the move, never sitting still. She was not easily stopped. Even at the age of eight, when she spent six months on crutches, she still kept on the move. She kept on moving right into adulthood, and she never quit.
“Energy” is the word that shows up again and again in the recollections of Cheri’s family and friends. “She’s most definitely a morning person,” says one remembrance. “Once she’s awake, whether it’s 4 in the morning or seven in the morning, she’s up. She goes. Lounging in bed was never on the schedule.”
Or, as her friend, Claire, told me: “She’s a hummingbird.”
So, it’s probably no surprise that there are photos of Cheri on a trip to Costa Rica, wandering the botanical gardens as all the hummingbirds gravitated towards her, perching on her hand. Like calls to like.
What is remembered even more than her boundless energy, however, is her boundless heart. Everyone here this morning has been touched by the ways in which Cheri shared her loving spirit with the world. Cheri possessed a genuine goodness, and in turn was able to see the good in everyone. “She gave out her heart,” one friend has said, “and everyone immediately fell in love with her.”
And just as her independent streak was sharply focused, so too were the ways in which she put that big heart to use.
At the age of four, Cheri went to Washington D.C. on a family trip. That trip just happened to coincide with Martin Luther King’s march on Washington, and the delivery of his classic “I Have a Dream” speech. Even at that young age, that experience marked Cheri, sparking an intense interest in social action and in the well-being of others.
Cheri had an intense interest in everyone around her. She was almost always focused on others outside herself. Almost everything she did was with other people in mind.
And this was no superficial interest. While Cheri wasn’t fond of conflict, she was incredibly passionate about injustice and abuse in her community, no matter where she found it. She put herself out there with intention to make things right. Whether it was sitting with kids as a lunch buddy, or teaching our own junior high Sunday school about living a life that respects all humanity, or fighting for equality for everyone in our community, Cheri put her boundless heart to work in this community.
Many of you here today have stood by her side as she did so.
This was the way Cheri lived out her religion:
Build heaven on earth
Bring people closer to people
Share what you have for the greater good
Submerge yourself to the greater needs of others, right here, right now.
Perhaps this active faith was played out in no way more clearly than in the dedication she showed to young pre-schoolers in need, and to the school she founded to serve them. It’s not everyone who gives up a fairly comfortable living at the Laboratory to move into the world of non-profit daycare, but then we haven’t been talking about just anyone this afternoon.
At Sage Cottage, Cheri focused on kids in need of state-funded care who didn’t have many other places to go. For Cheri, this wasn’t just a job. Her intense interest in the well-being of others was never more focused than it was when she was working with her kids. She could talk about each of them as individuals, understood what each one needed – as an individual – and she never stopped fighting to make sure they were well served, and that her teachers received decent pay on top of that.
Even when her own health was in jeopardy, she never stopped fighting for the interests of the students.
Not long after her initial diagnosis, Cheri and I played phone tag for several days. I thought I was making a pastoral call to one of my congregants, to talk about her.
Silly me. I should have known better.
When Cheri and I finally connected, she didn’t want to talk about her life or her health. She wanted to talk about the kids and the school. When most people might withdraw from the world a little, Cheri continued to address life with others needs in mind.
And so, for the next forty minutes or so, Cheri proceeded to give me a crash course in the ins and outs of non-profit education, about how the state helped and did not help. About the needs of the kids at the school, and about the needs of the kids they couldn’t yet afford to bring in to the school, and couldn’t we help open the doors just a little bit wider?
A month later, Sage Cottage was added to the rolls of the charitable partners of this church. She had boundless energy, and a boundless heart. And she was very persuasive, too. She never bullied, she just made you want to approach the world in the same way she saw it.
That’s the Cheri I know many of us remember. So many of you have written about how her mere presence made you want to be a better person. So many of you have written to say how much better the whole community is because of her presence in it.
Her presence and her life among us is an incredible gift. Priceless.
Today, we gather in gratitude for that gift. That may seem an odd sentiment, given the circumstances. How can we be grateful, having lost someone so full of life and love, someone who had so much more to give to the world. Grief seems more appropriate, perhaps. Or anger. Numbness, perhaps, or even relief that her pain is over.
But even those raw feelings are a sign that we loved Cheri and were loved in return. How could we be anything but grateful?
We may not all feel it yet. Gratitude may seem an impossibility right now. But, it will come in time. Cheri would want nothing less. After all, gratitude is the way in which she lived her life. “Good and bad things have happened to me,” she once said, “but I choose to take this journey of life and all it offers with a positive view and try to be better for it.”
In our tradition, we like to say that even if life after death is uncertain, we can certain that there is love after death. And Cheri possessed a boundless love. We carry that love with us, even now. Cheri once told Jamie that if she ever came back, it would be as a bird. Probably a hummingbird. Beyond that, she believed that we humans live on through the lives of others. So, too, will Cheri live on in our own lives, because her life among us was a gift – lived with love and grace, with good humor, and with intention. May we who loved her and were loved by her find the strength and the gratitude to do likewise. May Cheri live on in our hearts and in our actions.
Amen.