05/08/2026
THE CIRCLE COMPLETE...
It's been just over 10 months since Jean Mayer passed away and I'm still going through the process of loss. For 33 years, I was her friend, caregiver, and all around everything.
We first met back in 1992 at The church at Kaweah, just 2 doors up from where she lived and 2 doors down from (at the time) the oldest and third smallest Post Office in the country. A few years later, Jean was baptized in the North Fork of the Kaweah River that flows behind her house. This time a year ago while she was on her death bed, she left me instructions...
"I want to be buried in the Kaweah cemetery, next to the old church, because this is where I've lived for the last 50 years."
"Okay, Hon," I replied. "Any particular spot?"
"No, you pick it out. You're good at that."
"Okay. What kind of a headstone would you like?"
"I don't know. You choose."
"Well, what would you like on it?"
"I don't know. You'll figure it out."
"You know," I said, feeling exasperated, "You're not giving me much to go on and this is important, because this is literally going to be set in stone."
"But you're so much better at this than I am."
"But this is personal. This is you."
"Well, I know I don't want you spending a lot of money on my casket. Put me in a cardboard box and spend the money on the headstone. No one's going to see what I'm buried in anyway."
Upon her passing about six weeks after this conversation, the mourning, the grieving had to be set aside so that burial arrangements could be made as well as dealing with Jean's vast estate. The reality was, I just wanted to pull the covers over my head and let the world pass me by. Instead, I had to move forward... constantly, always moving forward.
Trying to pick out and design someone's headstone is not an easy thing to do, because every action you take, every thought you have, you wonder if you're doing the right thing.
This is one of the reasons why I love the verse, Be still and know that I Am God (Psalm 46:10), for in that stillness; that quiet solitude, we can hear God speak to our minds and hearts, and I just wanted to be opened to whatever He laid out before me.
My thoughts turned to Jean's husband, whom I had never met, but heard about his murder when I first moved to the Three Rivers - Kaweah area in 1991. I knew he was cremated and his ashes spread out over the Sierra mountains. I also knew he had no headstone of his own and that always disturbed me.
I don't mind a person's choice to be cremated, but what has always bothered me, was that the person has no marker, no story to leave behind for others to bear witness to. Now, I had the opportunity to rectify that.
Knowing Jean for as long as I have, she was always a Proverbs 31 woman, which was where I would find a verse that summed her up, but what of her husband? What could I say about him that would be appropriate? I knew something about him and again, I just wanted to be opened to the Guidance.
That's when it occurred to me to search what Jean's last name, Mayer, would be in Hebrew, and that's when I discovered the name was a derivative of Meir, meaning, "One who shines," and that was a good start.
Once I had everything written out, it was time to search for the headstone. I didn't have to ponder long, for as soon as I walked in the door, there it was standing before me. I didn't even have to think twice. This was it, especially since I had Jean buried beneath the shade of a tree. Within a couple of hours, the job was complete: the woman who helped me, saying, "We just got this headstone in 3 days ago."
It would take another 3 months to prepare the stone and finish the job, and then several more months to wait until after the rainy season was over and the ground dry enough to set the 2500 pound stone in place last week.
It was also the first time I had visited Jean's site since her burial. "I hope I did right by you, Hon. I hope you like what I've done."
Knowing Jean, she would approve.
