A Life Well Lived

I spent this morning watching a live stream tribute to Maya Angelou's life, from Wake Forrest University.  One of the most poignant things said was by Bill Clinton; he said, and I paraphrase, "Maya did not speak for five years of her young life, but when she finally did what a voice she had; almost like God had loaned her his voice.  God knew it was time to take that voice back for awhile and so Maya slipped away in her sleep".  I thought what a beautiful way, with meaningful words, to celebrate her life and her death.

I feel a tribute is for us to take away something that is important to our lives and perhaps something that will change us.  What I heard this morning was that Maya was always working on changing and improving the human experience.  She was tireless in her work and millions have been touched and changed by her words and her life.  She was not shy or reticent, stood when and where she needed to stand for right treatment of all all people, and with that strong deep voice, she stood and spoke for those who had momentarily lost their voices.

It was helpful to hear Michelle Obama describe her first meeting with Maya in 2008 when they shared the stage in Winston-Salem North Carolina.  Maya was by then in a wheel chair, but Michelle related that as she was rolled onto the stage her essence captivated the audience; and Michelle felt her own spirit rise with Maya, and she knew that she was in her right place.  Such is the grace and power of a Phenomenally Phenomenal Woman.  And Maya's words spoke to and touched a young white girl in Kansas, so that her daughter was named after Maya, and she raised her son to become the first black President of the USA. 

What a legacy she leaves to all of us; to never give up no matter what happens; to always believe in ourselves; to face success and disaster with the same grace; and to realize that we each are chosen to do great and wonderful things.  Dare to be brave and to have the courage of your beliefs....  Hers was a life well lived.

So as I sit here in a wheelchair realizing that her last years were spent in a wheelchair, I am reminded that this wheelchair and my stroke do not define me and my life.  They are where I am now, but they are not not me, yet they  can strengthen both my voice and my words.  Like the Phoenix and Maya I rise to soar strong and free.

In October I will present a four week class on "Mapping Your Life" at Bradley University.  My wheelchair does not define me but it does add strength and resilience to my words.  Thirty years ago Wake Forrest University invited Maya to join their faculty.  Though she was a life-long learner Maya did not posses a college degree.  This did not stop her from being a teacher who wrote, and a writer who taught; her life was her education, and she lived it fully and completely.

She has for me become, like in her poem "On the Pulse of Morning", the Rock.  From her death she invites me to come and stand upon her shoulders and face my destiny, but to seek no haven in here shadow, there is no hiding place down here. 

I realize that she has given us each a foundation to build from.  She was human, and even though it may have seemed to many that she spoke with God's voice, it really was her voice that had grown and developed throughout her life by the way she allowed her experiences to shape her. It is her life that defined her just as mine defines me.  She did not hesitate or back away when her life beckoned her forward and that is the example I will follow; to have the courage of my beliefs.  That, I believe, is a life well lived.