A student of a lifetime Bruce Kramer, his son Jon, and daughter-in-law Kirsten after a yoga class in 2013.
The morning sunlight angles through the corner windows of my dining room and gently touches my face. I am grateful for the warmth. Very, very soon I will be losing a student-of-a-lifetime, a mentor, a confidante, and a profound friend. Yesterday I got to say my goodbyes while Bruce was still able to speak, albeit with great effort. He is living and dying through the final, final stages of ALS. The power of our simple exchanges, both verbal and non-verbal, will stick with me for a lifetime.
As of today, Bruce Kramer is still an extraordinary husband and father. He is the grandfather to Hypatia, the just-overa-year-old granddaughter who he has held only with help. He is the former Dean of the College of Education and Counseling at the University of St. Thomas, a visionary thinker in leadership and ethics, a gifted musician and choral director, and the co-author of the forthcoming book, We Know How This Ends (Univeristy of Minnesota Press) with MPR’s Morning Edition anchor Cathy Wurzer. The sold out book release party is scheduled for this coming Wednesday. Bruce has been sharing his experience of living and dying with ALS with Cathy and the listeners of MPR in monthly segments for over three years: http://www.mprnews.org/topic/living-with-als
I was also part of a public event with Bruce and Cathy where we explored what it is like to live in a body through significant change. Our first annual Mind Body Dialogues aired on both of TPT and MPR: http://www.mprnews.org/story/2013/12/09/mpr_news_presents
This Sunday (tomorrow) also marks the launch of my non-profit’s Kiss My Asana yogathon. In the month of April, over one hundred and fifty yogis from around the world will dedicate their yoga practices to Mind Body Solutions to raise money for our Adaptive Yoga Programs: http://www.mindbodysolutions.org/events/ There will be an all-humanity class. There will be food and music and smiles and laughter.
These are the very programs that brought Bruce into our midst. These are the programs that Bruce believes are transformational both for himself and for others. In the interviews above, Bruce is an ardent supporter and advocate. He has mentored our organization through these last couple of years. He has helped us know who we are. His mark will never leave us.
With life, there is always juxtaposition. Always there is a rising and a falling. Always there is loss and gain, sadness and hope. This paradox exists in every single yoga pose and in every single day of our lives. This paradox will be felt profoundly tomorrow. Bruce may or may not be living on this plane of existence anymore. But he will live on regardless. We will both celebrate and mourn. In some of our last words, I promised to carry the work we shared forward. I promised to carry on. He nodded with tears in his eyes. He mouthed his last words to me, “Thank you,” and I met this blessing while both rising and falling.