“Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.” – St. Augustine.

Red and I are going to Connie Martell’s funeral Monday outside of Albany. On Tuesday, there will be a memorial service for her at the Mansion, I have been asked to speak at both services.

Saturday, I brought Red into her room at the Mansion, her son Mitchell is taking her things out and he wanted Maria to have the Indian hanging piece she gave Connie as a present and which Connie hung near doorway.

When we came into the Mansion, Red always made a beeline for Connie’s room, he was usually waiting for me when I got there, and I see now that he is looking for her and is somewhat bewildered to find the room empty.

He stood for a long time by her new blue chair, which she ever got to see. He waits a long time for her until I call him out of the room.

I think he is trying to make sense of things, he has been invited to her funeral Monday and is going with Maria and I.

I only knew Connie for a year or so in her long life, and there were many things I didn’t know. I did know she had a son who died four years ago of Crone’s disease, I did not know Connie took care of him his entire life and is eager to meet  him in heaven so she could care for him there.

She only mentioned him to me once or twice.

I have been doing therapy work in hospice and elderly care facilities for more than a decade now, and I have always rigidly observed the boundaries of this work. It was, for me, really about the dog, I was just bringing him to meet people. I always kept the dog between them and me. The dogs were my protection from getting too close.

I had been warned again an again not to get too close to people, as they often got sick or passed away.

I learned the hard way that this is true.

Connie broke through that screen, she was, I think, a caregiver in her own right. She helped teach Maria and I how to open ourselves up to people without being subsumed by emotions. Connie was very bounded in herself, she was always worrying about other people – the residents, the staff, children in hospitals.

She loved Maria dearly and so looked forward to her visits. Connie and I kidded with other, we didn’t show our emotions much to each other, but our souls connected there, she was well aware of the Army Of Good and their presence in her life.

When I asked for help in getting Connie yarn and knitting needles and books and patterns, I had no idea how she would rise to these gifts and put them to such immediate use. Every day I came to the Mansion last winter, and there she was in her red chair, knitting away. A person who needed to be busy and with a purpose, she now had one. Every day, a different aide or resident was wearing her gloves or scarves.

She was a ferocious reader and devoured the gifts she was sent. She so appreciated the air conditioner we got her, the heat made her breathing more strained.

Trapped most of the time in her chair, she loved the letters she got and always saved a pile for me to read to me or with her. She seemed so proud of them, and she tried to answer them all, but there were too many.

Although she was a prisoner of her chair – walking was hard, breathing was difficult, the oxygen had to be close by. She seemed to know how to reach  beyond her chair and her room and into the lives of many people she never saw or met.

She made caps for children in area hospitals, for kidney dialysis patients, and for everyone she knew. She was reading the patterns people sent her and plotting several projects with Maria.

It is an irony of life that there are few simple or easy deaths, it was a long road for her at the end of her life, she drew on her grace and strength to control the way she died insofar as she could. Her children respected her wishes and fought for her.

Connie’s body was failing her but her mind was sharp and she missed nothing.

And she was tough as nails, even in that chair. She was a presence.

Residents were always coming by, asking for her help and guidance. She adored Kelly Patrick, who helped care for her at nights, she trusted her completely. Kelly called her “Con-Con.” She loved the name. “Kelly,” she often told me, “is the best.”

Katie Perez, the Mansion Director at the time, said Connie helped teach her how to do her job humanely and well.

“I saw in her spirit,” Katie wrote me, “a fighter willing to give it a good shot. When she arrived at the Mansion her journey to her room was hard and long, and after several times resting on her walker she made it to her new room. She almost looked defeated but still determined that she can get stronger. I’ll never forget the next day when I came in and saw her after her shower and having her hair done, walking with her walker and her oxygen to the dining room with a huge smile on her face…she looked so proud, I looked at her and said “wow, you look amazing! My heart was so full of love for her in that moment.”

I think that this was what happened to me as well. It was hard not to love her spirit.

Connie never complained or pitied herself, she did know how to grumble when things did not go her way. She chose to do good with the time and tools that she had, she used every single thing you sent her to do good until she simply was too weak and in too much pain.

The truth is, as Katie knows well, it is often hard to help people at the Mansion. Some are too tired, too confused, too weak or forgetful. They often simply cannot use the tools and gifts they are given. Anyone who helps them knows and understands that.

It was simple to help Connie, she took everything she had and made use of it, always for the care of others. A former nurse, she knew the score and understood pain. It is a profoundly gratifying feeling to see someone who embraces the gifts given them, and is transformed.

I saw Connie rise to this all year.

She was dumbfounded that so many people cared about her and sent her wonderful gifts. She was determined to honor that generosity.

And she did. Connie, you are a person of great faith and were always certain of heaven as your next home.

Connie, you are amazing, full of love and courage and spirit. Everyone at the Mansion will miss you as will countless people you have never but perhaps will see in heaven one day, as you believe in heaven very strongly. If there is, in fact, a heaven, you will be in good company.

When we last met in the hospital, you whispered something in Maria’s ear, and after Connie died, Maria told me what she said. Connie always had a few secrets and was always instructing me not to write them on the blog. She didn’t want people to see her suffering. I told her I didn’t like being told what to write, and she always glowered at me and winked.

She said she had ordered a sweater for Gus in the winter, since she could not herself knit one. She told Maria not to tell me, she wanted it to be a Christmas secret.

She demanded a hug from me as Maria and we left the hospital. Maria was heading out the door.

I am not a big hugger, we usually just squeezed hands when we said goodbye. She had never demanded a hug before.

She said in a soft but stern voice, gripping my hand tightly,  “now, you don’t let Maria work too hard, or Red either. Sometimes I think  you work him too hard.” She was always worried about Red. (This was a death wish and a command, it has to be honored.)

And then she added, “don’t put on the blog how sick I am.” She didn’t want people to worry.  Stop telling me what to write I said, smiling at her. This was our standard joke.

I knew Connie well by then,  I think I knew then she was dying, and it was  her gruff way of saying goodbye to me. We did have a good long hug, there was a lot of emotion in it.

Connie believed St. Augustine’s observation that faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what  you believe.

So we said goodbye. I knew I had to move along too.

“We love you, Connie.” She smiled.

“I know, she said.”

When we got to the car, I turned to Maria and I said, “I don’t think we will see Connie again.” And we didn’t.

If you are up there watching and listening Connie, and it would be just like you to do that,  I promise to take good care of Maria and Red. I am happy to think you are free of pain and suffering and caring once again for your son.

This is where you needed to be and wanted to be.

You were nothing but a gift to me. Red is looking for you, but he is a dog, and he will move along.  That is what he does.

I know your faith is being rewarded and that you are now seeing what you believed.