Soon after Eve Marko’s husband Bernie had a severe stroke earlier this year,  I contacted her and asked if there was anything I could do to help.  She had come to some of my book readings and e-mailed me, I felt a strong connection to her. She wrote back saying that I might be able to help,  she was anxious to have a blog and write on it, but she was too overwhelmed by helping her husband to take time to write.

I told her she didn’t have time not to write, and for some reason unknown to me she listened to me. Most people don’t.  Eve is a writer, social activist and Zen  teacher. We had been in touch for some time, but since her husband’s stroke, Maria and Eve and I have become good friends.

She is a long-time reader of my books and both our blogs, she is an animal lover and has, in fact, been writing all year about her life on her very powerful blog.

Eve writes with honesty and feeling about the radical changes in her life brought on by her husband’s stroke. Bernie Glassman is a famed Zen Master, he is widely known for his writing, social activism, teaching and many good works on behalf of peace and the poor.

Eve, an active traveler and activist suddenly found herself confined to the demanding, relentless and very new role of caretaker, Bernie could hardly walk, he is working hard to regain his movement. On her blog, she has, with great honesty, chronicled the truth of this experience as she has seen it. Her accounts are the most authentic and piercing that I have read I recommend them highly. She has not hidden the anger or the love.

A few months ago, Eve came down to spent a Sunday meditating and walking with us. Soon after, we went to meet Bernie and visit them in their Berkshire home. Yesterday, she came to visit us. She has become important to us.

She humbled us by talking about the love she felt we had for one another, for the connection Maria and I share. I never have words for this. We talked about the challenges of caring for someone who is, in some ways, suddenly not the person you knew just a few days before.

We talked about aging and dying and family. She needed to get away.  Eve wanted to spend some time with the animals, she stood with the donkeys and the ponies, but of course, attached powerfully to Red and laughed joyously at the energy and enthusiasm of Fate and her unique brand of work.

Maria and I both Eve, she has an amazing life story.

We admired her honesty, her rare ability to listen, her openness, the good work she has done. We squared off a bit about writing, Eve is a talented literary snob and sometimes wrinkles her nose at blog writing, which she dismisses as a kind of “stream of consciousness” writing, not the serious kind. I am used to this, classically trained literary people are not fond of blogs, they don’t consider the writing on blogs real.

Despite that, Eve has used her blog in the most powerful and affirming way, and her writing glows with feeling and understanding and truth. I urged her to broaden her topics and share more of her life. I hope she does. We had another wonderful visit, she and Maria talked very openly to one another, and very comfortably. She remarked, as I often have, how Maria has changed even in the time she has known her, speaking more confidently and openly.

Eve listens, unlike a lot of people.

We hope to visit her in turn as soon as she is ready. Eve told us that she wanted very badly to go to the Standing Rock Pipeline demonstrations in North Dakota, protests against a new pipeline have drawn the largest gather of Native Americans in more than a century.

We were sitting in the Round House Cafe with  Eve, and we both saw the look in her eyes when she thought of going. But, she said, she didn’t know if she could find someone to care for her husband. Maria jumped in before I could, and we both urged her to go, to find a way to live her life and do her work in the midst of her new reality.

She looked a bit shocked, and then said she might very well go, she would try to make arrangements.

We hope she does. It was a good day for friendship.