On the night of January 11, 2020 while staying at my Aunt’s house while in town to mourn the loss of my grandfather, my Second -Mom and Aunt passed away in her sleep due to a massive heart attack. The following Saturday, I was so honored to lead her celebration of life at her home along with her most favorite people. Because I believe that every life is enhanced by knowing Nanna, below is the message from that day. The photo is of me, my Mom and My Aunt at prom ’03.
“Well, this is a whole thing.” is what Nanna is saying right now.
All of her favorite people hangin’ out on the most sacred of grounds, her sanctuary–her porch.
Oh, the problems that were solved on this porch with Nancy’s guidance. Oh, the existential mysteries of the universe that were grappled with on this porch. The tears and the laughter, the hugs and the coffee; the fun and the smokes, the jack o’lanterns and the love.
All. The. Love.
Yes, there’s no other place for us to be today than on this porch. Here we are doing as we have always done in this space–bringing all of our feelings (even the ones we don’t want to feel) to our favorite porch shaman, Nancy Lee Hargrove.
We bring all of our feelings here and with food, her favorite tunes, and stories, we celebrate her.
I mean, we have a DJ here for goodness sake. How appropriate is that?!
We celebrate her as a new-age poet, painter, photographer, gardener and landscaper.
We celebrate her as a daughter, a sister, a mother, a companion, an aunt and a friend. We celebrate her as a mystical biblical scholar of the eastern star movement like her grandma, Ola Lee (Momma Pig).
We celebrate her as the comedian and the life-of-any party. (Ka-ka!)
We celebrate her as our personal Uhaul truck, a connoisseur of Totino’s pizza and grilled cheeses, rolls and chili.
And for many of us here, we celebrate her as our Cosmetic Buddha that made us feel and look beautiful time after time.
Speaking of beauty, to call her stunning would nearly brush the surface; for she was uniquely beautiful. To me, she was the most beautiful woman in the world.
If ever God made a body too small to house the fullness of one’s spirit, it would be that of my aunt.
Every thought, idea or feeling of hers was animated to the umpteenth degree. Whether annoyance, sadness, or joy– her emotions were explosive and you never had to guess how she felt about anything.
The most explosive of these was love.
She was more capable of love and forgiveness than 90% of people on this planet. She would selflessly break herself open and from her own hurt and healing, she would pour life-giving love onto anyone who crossed her path.
This should come to no surprise as her roots were planted deeply in pure love.
Nancy was born the youngest of three on Oct. 21, 1970 and she came out of the womb an entertainer with her beloved family as her most faithful fans. She was embraced by her older siblings as a gift. Guy and Dena loved and nurtured her from the first day they laid eyes on her.
Her humorous antics with her brother were second to none and she and her sister proved that opposites don’t only attract, but they are also inexplicably better when they are together– except when the Frasier finale was two hours and not one and Nanna accidentally died Dena’s hair purple when we were young.
As a child, Nanna enjoyed cooking with her Mom, skiing with her Dad, and being with her beloved grandmother, ‘Momma Pig’. Nancy also excelled in singing, dance, and writing.
From an early age, Nancy was keenly aware of the spiritual dimension of life, and this made her a loyal source of support for many in her younger years.
After her time at Terrell High School, she took her insane courage and love for adventure to the Air Force honorably serving from 1989 to 1992. Nancy served during Desert Shield and Desert Storm assigned to a unit providing emotional support to soldiers returning home. She adored traveling and had a magical way of effortlessly fitting into whatever culture or context including Korea and Germany. Her time in the military led to marriage and the birth of her first two children, and two of her three greatest loves, Hope and Justice.
In 1999, she returned to Enchanted Oaks to be with her family. She married Tommy and gave birth to her third child, Gabriel. The couple amicably divorced but remained good friends and committed co-parents.
This move back to the states also brought her such joys as her companion, Bruce and his kids and grandkids, and her besties: Gary and his kids, Steve, Jan-Jan, and Sherry.
This quiet retirement community didn’t stand a chance once Nanna brought the party and my family was so lucky that we lived down the street. One of my favorite stories of her from those early years involved a fire and music. (Go figure, right?!)
At that time, the mayor was Mayor BAHner (sp. ‘Bonner’). My family though, thanks to Nanna’s wit and the odd spelling of the name, pronounced the name in a slightly different way.
Nanna had just put up a playhouse in the yard for Hope and J, and some other neighbor tattled on Nanna to BAHner saying it was slightly too large for city regulations. The whole family viewed the request and the snitches next door as utterly ridiculous.
To no surprise, BAHner met with Nanna about removing it immediately. They had some words and then what happened next was one of the funniest moments of my childhood.
Nanna blasted her favorite tunes, lit the playhouse on fire and danced around the flames in her cheetah-print bikini. Explosively and hilariously ‘stickin’ it to the man’ was definitely one of her many, many talents.
Other joyous talents and memories of life around these parts were volunteering in Hope’s classroom, helping Justice remodel his house, and cheering Gabriel on in all of his band success. She could not be more proud of or more in love with her “weird, genius kids with extra big hearts”, she told me.
She believed that they and the other Hargrove grandkids were the proof of the beautiful evolution of our family.
Another one of my favorite memories happened when Gabriel was an infant at Thanksgiving.
The whole family had circled up to pray before the meal. Pepa began to pray and the house fell silent, Moo-man (Gabriel) crawled to the center of our circle, plopped down and just stared at all of us quietly. He was in awe of the moment, and felt the “good ju-ju” as Nanna said. We all chuckled with our eyes half-opened and enjoyed the solitude–the sacredness of the moment for a bit.
Nanna loved this moment and considered it very spiritual. She always had a way of doing that, didn’t she? Reminding us of that which is spiritual during times that seemed very ordinary.
Nanna’s theological beliefs, her spiritual energy that will continue to guide us all could be summed up in these three statements.
Thought is creative. As we are co-creators with God, our energy is a creative one that is more powerful than most of us realize.
Fear is attractive, so keep your fears in check, and do not let them rule you. Whatever you resist, persists.
Love is all there is. It is the ultimate reality. It is the only. It is the all. The feeling of love is your experience of God.
This is very fitting then that in her Bible that she gave to Hope she marked Acts 27 with mementos of her kids and our family’s matriarch, Momma Pig.
In this part of the Bible, it tells a story of an early leader in the Jesus movement named Paul. Since the ways of Jesus really rocked the boat, many didn’t like Paul and his fellow missionaries, so at this point, he is one of many prisoners being thrown onto a ship to be transported. There were nearly 300 aboard, so it was a packed house.
On the ship, there was a guard named Julias who had befriended Paul and was very kind to him. After one pit stop, Paul, knowing that sea voyages in the Mediterranean would be very dangerous in that time of year (Fall), advised them to change their route to a safer one.
They did not adhere to his warning. What happened next was a horrifying 2 week-long storm, when their next destination should have only been 2 days of travel away. The storm was brutal, similar to that of a hurricane. The passengers could not see the sun, nor the moon, or the stars.
They felt alone and clueless as to where they were.
The ship was caught up by the wind. No matter how hard they tried, they could not bear up.
They could not resist its violence, or the helmsman could not direct the ship.
Their ship was seized by the wind, and driven with such violence, that it became unmanageable. Even Though, they pulled up the lifeboat to keep it from flooding, fastened ropes around the bow to provide additional support for the frame, and threw some of the cargo and equipment overboard. It was unmanageable.
“We let her (the wind) drive – We suffered the ship to be borne along by the wind without attempting to control it.” reads the sacred text.
And after all hope had seemed lost, “Paul took his place in our midst and said, ‘Friends, you really should have listened to me back there. We could have avoided all this trouble and trial. But there’s no need to dwell on that now. From now on, things are looking up! I can assure you that there’ll not be a single drowning among us.
23-26 “Last night God’s angel stood at my side, an angel of this God I serve–the God who’s I am– saying to me, ‘Don’t give up, Paul. You’re going to make it to your destination—and everyone sailing with you is also going to make it.’ So, dear friends, take heart. I believe God will do exactly what God told me.”
And thanks to Julias’ protection and God’s guidance Paul and the others made it to land safely.
Why would Nanna have marked this, a less familiar passage, as one of her most favorite passages in the Bible?
Maybe she wanted us to remember that which we can control, and that which we cannot and to be wise in our discernment between the two.
Maybe she wanted us to remember a God, ‘Source’, or ‘Universe’ (whichever label suits you) who is active and guiding us, even though it does not seem like it. God is active, even when we feel lost and scared. God is active even when our choices that might not have had our best interest in mind. God is active.
Maybe she wanted us to take heart and gather our gumption; for though it may not seem like it, hope and healing are closer than we think. And no wound is too deep to be healed.
Maybe she wanted us to remember, as shown in her beloved spiral symbol, when to surrender to that which is, when all of our efforts fall short. This symbol has been a part of many world religions for eons, and it fills her home through her art jewelry and the art that she purchased.
Her favorite spiral symbol represents
A Letting go
A surrender
and a release.
It represents an evolution.
The spiral represents an awareness of the one within the context of the greater whole.
And her favorite symbol means our eternal connection here on earth to all divine and cosmic energies.
We are always connected–always. May we cling to this and every time we see a spiral be reminded of this truth–be reminded of Nancy. We are connected eternally–always.
And as the poet, John O’Donohue writes,
We look towards each other no longer
From the old distance of our names;
Now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath,
As close to us as we are to ourselves.
Though we cannot see you with outward eyes,
We know our soul’s gaze is upon your face,
Smiling back at us from within everything
To which we bring our best refinement.
Let us not look for you only in memory,
Where we would grow lonely without you.
You would want us to find you in presence,
Beside us when beauty brightens,
When kindness glows
And music echoes eternal tones.
When orchids brighten the earth,
Darkest winter has turned to spring;
May this dark grief flower with hope
In every heart that loves you.
May you continue to inspire us:
To enter each day with a generous heart.
To serve the call of courage and love”
….As we are always connected.