Learning to Look
By David E McCarty MD, FAASM (but you can call me Dave)
Kimberly Ellen McCarty Mori
6/11/1967 - 11/6/2021
On this day, one year ago, I lost my first friend, my lifelong protector, my hero.
On this day, one year ago, I lost my big sister.
She left behind a husband, two beautiful kids, loving parents, a devoted extended family, and me, her brother.
Oh, and about a million friends.
The how and the why of our loss are a discussion for a different day, Life-Fans, under different circumstances.
I’m not ready to talk about that, yet.
Nor do I want to talk about that dark journey, the bottomless pit one falls through, the throat-clenching nights of fear and desperate regret, the palm-ripping, gut-blasting loss of it all.
I’ve done all the talking about that I’m going to do, at least for now. Suffice to say: I’m still here.
The part I want to talk about is the forward.
The part I want to talk about is The Light.
If my sister had one super-power (there are many in her life who would claim she had several) I believe it was an innate core belief that every human being was beautiful. She was like that, ever since she was a kid.
No matter who you were, where you came from, who your parents were, whom you loved, what your face looked like, what clothes you wore, whether you sang on key, or not, whether you drove, crawled, or flew, Kim was your friend.
Kim was your special friend. At her memorial, I met several people who insisted that she was their best friend. Think about that for a minute. I stopped counting at six.
Kim was the one who saw the beauty in you, even if you didn’t.
Everybody loved Kim.
Kim was Ferris Bueller.
It was her super-power, seeing your humanity, you see. She knew how to Look. In Kim’s presence, you felt like a star.
Since losing her, I’ve been reflecting quite a bit on this particular super-power of hers.
I’ve been pondering on the gift of fearless love that she naturally bestowed, seemingly without effort, on everyone in her arc of influence.
She could see past the usual barriers. Like she had a decoder ring in her brain that could zero in on your humanity, no matter how different you seemed to be, by choice of dress, by chance of birth, by random assortment of the chaos of the universe.
She understood the narrative behind your labels, in other words, merely by looking into your beautiful face.
To Kim, we were all the same stuff, and we all had beautiful trajectories ahead of us.
And she could see those trajectories more clearly than anyone I’ve met. When your inner bully would start nattering in your ear, Kim had a way of shining the light on the vile messages he’d whisper, making them fall away like the illusions they are, and she’d replace them with the beautiful things she saw.
She’d make you see them, and you’d believe they were yours.
This rather personal reminiscence is not without its purpose, Life-Fans, no, far from it. It’s more of a confession. An owning up. A giving of credit where credit is due on this sad anniversary.
The language of EMPOWERMENT I’ve been energetically channeling throughout this project, the boundless Love that’s flowing in the pages of our Beautiful Blue Book…spiritually flows from the language of fearless humanity embodied by my absent and sorely-missed sister.
It’s looking into the face of another human, and searching to see their story. Trying to help them see their best trajectory. Helping them trust their own feet.
The interwebs are full of influencers, humans out there who teach us what to own, and what to look like.
Kimberly Ellen McCarty Mori, on the other hand, taught me—and the rest of us—how to LOOK. That’s the part I want to talk about now. That’s the part that I’m taking forward. That’s The Light.
As usual, this mild confessional serves as an introduction to another cartoon…the continued adventures of our friends, Claudio and Kate…as they—themselves—are learning a little something about the narrative of humanity…and how to follow their own Light…
...a little something I’m calling Learning to Look…
Happy Sunday, Life-Fans!
Post Script…
