Learning from Everly

My previous post about my friend Everly was written while she was still with us, still that “force to be reckoned with” that everyone prayed would beat the odds she’d been given and be a winner in that evil cancer game that she found herself playing. Today I attended her memorial service.

Everly. Memorial. Those two words refuse to sit together in my brain.

The service was full of celebration: story telling, preaching, singing…I even saw a little dancing…it was a party for her that was so full of HER that I fully expected at any moment to turn and see her standing there. It was beautiful, as these tributes are, when we lose someone long before we believe their time is up, when they still have so much to give. And it was a time for reflection and a perspective adjustment for those of us sitting there, a time for memories to sweep in and slap us in the face at some points; at other times we’d feel just a butterfly-wing-brush of a memory – something small and fleeting from long ago…

But I walked out of that service with a long list of Things That Dr. Everly Broadway Taught Me:

1. To Display Humility

Everly was brilliant in her thinking and brilliant in the ways she organized and shared what she knew. But to quote a teacher I heard once, “She’ll be the smartest person in the room, but she’ll make you feel like you’re the smartest.” When Everly and her team rolled out the RAMP (Realizing Achievement in Mathematics Performance) project in our school district, it was apparent to everyone that this was BIG. Even the Language Arts teachers like me knew, and were curious, about it. It was the first time I had ever seen education reform (previously we were just doing what we’d always done in schools), but this time we knew we were seeing something that would touch teachers and students in a big way. And Everly was chief-in-charge of it all. But if you saw her walking the halls of your school building, you knew her as the classroom teacher next door, not the brains behind a project that changed teaching and learning across the entire district. Even when she became the math leader for the state of North Carolina (and later for the state of Texas), she still was “that teacher down the hall” every time you saw her. Down to earth and a friend to all – that came out loud and clear at her service today.

2. To Change My Perspective

Watching Everly’s grace when she was so sick and in pain literally changed me forever. Many times while my friend battled her illness across the country from me I would check myself when I would feel that familiar descent into pity-party-land. One particular night I remember trying to get to sleep and being kept awake by a combination of stress and fatigue. The day had been hard, and I was so tired I couldn’t sleep. My brain was racing trying to solve life’s problems, too. I was agitated and just plain unhappy when all of a sudden I thought of Everly. It was relatively early in her battle, and she was fighting a debilitating case of mucositis. Her mucous membranes were inflamed from chemo, she was miserable and sick, and here I lay in my bed in North Carolina worried over petty things. I vowed at that time to save my stress for important problems and events in my life and spend the rest of the time being thankful for my health. I can’t even count how many times I’ve started to face a tiny battle – at work or personally – and have looked to my friend for some perspective. It was a story I planned to tell her someday when I’d see her again, a story of the inspiration that she was to me. That day never came.

3. To Live without Regret

And that leads me to regret. Besides not having the chance to tell a friend how inspirational she was to me, I also regret not seeing her once when she traveled back to North Carolina after moving to Texas. She sent me this message in late December 2011, mere months before her diagnosis: “I know this is a long shot, but I’m going to be in Durham for a couple of days starting tonight. Any chance I can come by and see you tomorrow afternoon or evening?” As it turned out, I was reading her message from the hospital. My mother had been admitted with pneumonia. So I told her I’d see her during her next trip. She wrote back that she understood and ended with, “You are on my heart and mind. Love you….”

So now, with regret I look back and think that surely I could’ve left my mother for an hour or two to see a friend. My sister would have stayed with my mother if necessary….but at that time it seemed like I’d have more opportunities for a visit with Everly. So another lesson she taught me is a mantra she lived by during her illness: Don’t Postpone Joy.

Photo Credit: Everly Broadway’s Facebook Page (photo by Naomi Broadway)

4. To Cultivate Joy

Recently I walked in and found my elderly mother sitting by her CD player singing her favorite gospel songs and drinking her coffee. I told her that I used to like to just sit and listen to music. I followed that by saying I also used to enjoy reading/writing poetry and hiking in the woods and other outdoor activities; these are things that brought me joy. But recently I’m more focused on the “to-do” lists of life instead of the joyful ones. Sitting in Everly’s service today I was reminded that we aren’t guaranteed all the years we think we’ll have. Being joyful now, and doing what needs to be done to make that happen, is a new “to-do” for me.

5. Leave a Legacy

Everly would have been so moved to hear the stories told about her today. I sat there thinking of what an honor it would be to leave the world so loved and respected by others. From hearing her colleagues tell stories about her life at work to hearing her prayer partner talk about holding hands and praying together, it was apparent that Dr. Everly Broadway led a meaningful life that touched so many. And she modeled the way we all should live: she cared for others more than herself without judgement or prejudice. She left an example of a marriage that works – for over thirty-three years – and she lives on in the three talented children who will continue to share her legacy. We can all only hope that the celebration of our lives will be as full of love as Everly’s was.

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Everly was a huge fan of Maya Angelou. In fact, a story was told today of a visit to Everly’s hospital bedside by Dr. Angelou and Jesus (and she stood firm when she told the story that it was not her pain medication that conjured up this visit.) So it was fitting that Everly’s sister-in-law read the poem When Great Trees Fall as we said goodbye to our friend today.

The poet who “visited” my friend’s hospital bed, and the poem read at the memorial service, actually helped me today as I reflected on my father’s death nine years ago. I won’t reprint the entire poem, although it was a beautiful testament to Everly’s life, but I will share the verse that touched me:

And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly.  Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed.  They existed.
We can be.  Be and be
better.  For they existed.

I sat there in the church and repeated to myself, “Peace blooms. Peace blooms” and then realized that, on some days, I’ve almost come to accept a world without my father.

And one day we’ll all be okay in a world without Everly.

But not yet.

Everly’s daughter folded 1,000 origami cranes while her mom was in the hospital. If you know the 1,000 crane story, you know that anyone who folds 1,000 of them will get a wish. Those of us attending the service today were able to choose a crane from a basket full of them. I chose purple, Everly’s favorite color. My crane is actually tiny but looks larger than life in this picture. It will forever be a reminder to me of my larger than life friend.