Jeffrey Lee Longhofer 1955-2023
(photograph by Brendan McInerney)
Story Wheel Installation and Celebration
Saturday, September 16th, 2023
Location: 9280 Flush Rd, St George, KS 66535
Registration for the one day event begins at 11am and the events start at Noon!
The story wheel (see description in blog below) will honor the life of Jeffrey Longhofer through all forms of storytelling activities. Memories that matter are made by the stories that are retold about the people, life, and events that matter. We care for Jeffrey by caring for (his)stories, including stories about nature, land, communities, and people.
Please join us! Follow this link to register for the event (not required but helpful for planning food etc.,)
Activities are listed below, which are designed for children and adults. Bring your family and friends! The only requirement for attendance is that you have some connection to Jeffrey, no matter how distant or small—a friend of a friend of Jeffrey or Jerry, for example.
For those coming out of town and flying into the new airport in Kansas City (MCI), Flush is about 2 hours from the airport. I suggest you stay the night in Manhattan Kansas, just 15 minutes from the site. The Holiday Inn Express is next to a great bakery and coffee shop, Radina’s. Here is the link to the the Holiday Inn website.
The Story Wheel was installed on July 10, 2023 and is ready for the September 16th ceremony, which begins at noon. Check here periodically for updates on a live stream opportunity (a you tube link will be provided if we can get a strong wifi signal at the site.) Otherwise, the ceremony will be about 1 hour and will include poetry, music, and stories to celebrate Jeffrey and the installation of the story wheel.
(1980) Goessel, Kansas. Standing in an intact concrete farm silo. (2023) Flush, Kansas, story wheel set inside of concrete foundation of an abandoned farm silo.
The Story Wheel, by Joy Harjo, Poet Laureate of the United States:
I leave you to your ceremony of grieving
Which is also of celebration
Given when an honored humble one
Leaves behind a trail of happiness
In the dark of human tribulation.
None of us is above the other
In this story of forever.
Though we follow that road home,
one behind another.
There is a light breaking through the storm
And it is buffalo hunting weather.
There you can see your mother.
She is busy as she was ever—
She holds up a new jingle dress, for her younger beloved daughter.
And for her special son, a set of finely beaded gear.
All for that welcome home dance,
The most favorite of all—
when everyone finds their way back together
to dance, eat, and celebrate.
And tell story after story
of how they fought and played
in the story wheel
and how no one
was ever really lost at all.
Aerial View of Flush Kansas Today
A story wheel (a six-foot, diameter circle comprised of four pieces of 6-inch granite, including a 18-inch granite center sphere) will be installed in Flush, Kansas on Jerry’s great-great grandparent’s homestead (1854).
Walnut Tree Grove
Jeffrey’s ashes will be placed under the center sphere. The story wheel will be installed under a grove of black walnut trees, a native tree of Pottawatomie County, Kansas.
Walnut trees are notorious for either prodigious or sparse fruiting. Robin Wall Kimmerer, an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and whose ancestors likely inhabited parts of this land before 1854, writes about mast fruiting in Pottawatomie County in her book, Braiding Sweetgrass:
“This boom and bust cycle remains a playground of hypotheses for tree physiologists and evolutionary biologists. Forest ecologists hypothesize that mast fruiting is the simple outcome of this energetic equation: make fruit only when you can afford it. That makes sense. But trees grow and accumulate calories at different rates depending on their habitats. So, like the settlers who got the fertile farmland, the fortunate ones would get rich quickly and fruit often, while their shaded neighbors would struggle and only rarely have an abundance, waiting for years to reproduce. If this were true, each tree would fruit on its own schedule, predictable by the size of its reserves of stored starch. But they don’t. If one tree fruits, they all fruit—there are no soloists. Not one tree in a grove, but the whole grove; not one grove in the forest, but every grove; all across the county and all across the state. The trees act not as individuals, but somehow as a collective. Exactly how they do this, we don’t yet know. But what we see is the power of unity. What happens to one happens to us all. We can starve together or feast together. All flourishing is mutual” (p.15).
Braiding Sweetgrass was one of the last full books Jeffrey read—the audio version had a calming effect. It was one of the most transformational books he read. Each year, Jerry will gather the walnuts on the farm as they drop around the story wheel and invite friends and family to share in the bounty. We will tell stories about all those who have come before us, focusing on our mutual flourishing and what we have in common.
As a prompt for stories about what we have in common, Jeffrey and Jerry chose to overlay the story wheel with various Indigenous People’s meanings associated with the medicine wheel, a circular symbol associated with knowledge, life, health, and healing. There are common perspectives across different types of medicine wheels, but Jeffrey and Jerry liked those represented by four cardinal points: north, east, south, and west. Other meanings could have been chosen—this is not an absolute list. Feel free to add to the list. (The date of the story wheel’s installation and first commemoration to all our ancestors will be announced at another time. An open invitation will be sent out—between 3 and 6 months—to all who would like to attend. Please sign up to receive notification of the date by following this link.)
Indigenous People’s medicine wheel overlayed the story wheel.
At the end of this blog entry, use the comment section to create a virtual story wheel. Your contribution will create a network of memories, like underground rhizome nodes communicating to the walnut trees to mast fruit. These memories will sustain us through emotional famines or feasts.
March 2022
Our Shiva
We have long respected the Jewish tradition of Shiva and the role of ritual in helping us to feel we’re not alone. At death, Jewish custom calls for the community to surround the bereaved. We are not Jewish but we are adapting this custom to help Jerry as he faces the loss of his lifelong partner, Jeffrey Longhofer. Because the traditional prayer, the Kaddish, is not our tradition, each night arriving guests will recite a blessing (“All Things in Common: A Blessing”) that Jeffrey wrote not long before his death. Guests will recite the blessing and introduce themselves to the in-person and zoom participants.
Please join Jerry for one of the four nights (dates below) to share stories, poems, music, and all things relevant to life. Jerry will have some of Jeffrey’s favorite appetizers to share with you. You need not ring the doorbell. Just walk in. Jerry is reassured that with support from family and friends over these four nights, he will feel the power of relationships, storytelling, love, music, and poetry, so that he can heal and continue a meaningful life, just as he did with Jeffrey. Why four nights? Medicine wheels often have four primary coordinates—north, east, west, and south— and these coordinates locate all of us in a specific location at a specific time. Each night, family and friends are invited to honor Jeffrey through locating him in stories representing any one of the above medicine wheel meanings, or one that you want to share that has particular meaning to you. On each night, a Zoom Virtual Shiva will be available to any out-of-town friends and family who can’t make the in-person gathering.
If you plan to attend the in-person Shiva, please sign up for a specific evening by following this doodle calendar link. The calendar will give Jerry a rough indication of how many plan to attend on any given night. (If you have questions about the sign up or the zoom invite please contact Martha—732-859-9554) When attending the in-person Shiva, there is no prescribed amount of time to stay. Each shiva will start at 4pm and end roughly at 8pm. Stay for a short time, for 30 minutes, or several hours. It’s your decision. Thank you. Zoom participants do not have to sign up, join the evening you wish.
A tiny sample of the many relationship connections Jeffrey made throughout his life. These connections form a network of memories that inspired the story wheel. One photo I recently discovered fascinates me. Look in the middle right hand corner; find a black and white picture of Jeffrey’s father playing with a set of service station toys. Jeffrey, however, is not looking at the toys but the psychology book his older brother, Darold, is reading. Priceless! There is a famous serial documentary called the UP series, and it starts with filming kids at 7 years old and follows them throughout their lives, every 7 years. In the first episode, 7 and Up, the writer/producer talks about his motivation for the series and one premise of the film was taken from the Jesuit motto "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man". Jeffrey never stopped wondering about how the mind—not the brain, a mind needs a brain but is not reducible to it, one of his favorite axioms—and familial, socio-economic and political culture work together and metabolize an individual’s particular experience. Innumerable individual experiences over a lifetime always unfold within the context of meaningful relationships—beginning at birth and ending with death—and Jeffrey believed that the mind’s sense of a self (or I) and its sense of spirit, or character was created by these interdependent relationships. No one is self-created. Like the walnut trees, no one is self-fruiting. Jeffrey’s embodied self has now made its transition to the spirit side and he asked that I thank you for your contribution to his living self. I overlayed the photos with lyrics from “we’re not alone” and to hear an extraordinary rendition, sung by the Global Choir, the inspiration for the montage, click below.
Obituary
“Keep your dream kite aloft, a shining thing,
Never Loosen your grasp—hold tight to the string!”
For my Grandson, Jeffrey
Inez Ellis Ray, 1965
Written by David Colburn
His grandmother’s words became a perfect metaphor for the life of Dr. Jeffrey Longhofer, academician, clinical social worker, applied anthropologist, and psychoanalyst, a life that reached its culmination when he departed this earthly realm on January 31st, 2023 in Lawrence, Kansas at the age of 67. For as the string connected young Jeffrey to the shining dream kite, connection and collaboration was fundamental to the way he lived. Jeffrey was deeply connected to his heritage and passionately connected to the people in his life. He sought to connect his intellect and boundless curiosity with collaborative actions to foster wholeness and positive change in individuals, institutions, and communities. Wherever Jeffrey saw division, he worked to build connections of understanding, acceptance, and unity.
Jeffrey Lee Longhofer was born Sept. 13, 1955, the third son of E. D. “Rusty” and Mary Inez (Ray) Longhofer of Marion, Kansas. With his older brothers Darold and David, Jeffrey lived the idyllic childhood of a boy growing up in a rural farming community along the western edge of the Flint Hills. Active in his elementary years in Scouting and youth baseball, he also became an avid and voracious reader. By the end of junior high, Jeffrey was already engaged with the greater community as a regular volunteer at the local hospital and as organizer of a countywide youth political organization. As a student at Marion High School, he became an accomplished state-contest-level debater, thespian, and vocal musician, participated in school plays and musicals, and served in class and school leadership positions. Jeffrey graduated in 1973.
Young Jeffrey was surely influenced by his father’s keen eye of observation of the human condition, his mother’s love of the arts, his grandmother’s passion for books and education, and their collective dedication to social justice, and he grew to embody the Longhofer and Ray family histories in authentic and respectful ways throughout the course of his life.
Those qualities began to coalesce in the fall of 1973 when he enrolled at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas, with a dual major in sociology and anthropology. The study of humanity, cultures, and societies were fertile ground for Jeffrey’s expansive curiosity. After attaining his bachelor’s degree in 1977 he continued his studies in anthropology at the University of Kansas, earning a master’s degree in 1980 and a Ph.D. in 1986. He later expanded his education and professional expertise by obtaining a Master of Social Work degree in 2002 from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and postgraduate psychotherapy training in child development and psychoanalysis and adult psychoanalysis at the Hannah Perkins Center and the Cleveland Psychoanalytic Center, both in Cleveland, Ohio, from 2001 to 2009.
Beginning in 1983, Jeffrey taught at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, the University of North Texas, Case Western Reserve University, Rutgers University, as well as at other educational institutions. His 40-year career in higher education was marked at nearly every stop by an active mix of teaching, administration, research, publication, and service to his profession. For the past 20 years he added to the mix private practice as a clinical social worker and psychoanalyst.
The hallmark of Jeffrey’s teaching was the collaborative nature of learning between himself and his students. Class with Jeffrey was often a journey into the unexpected for students accustomed to lectures and textbooks. He sought to connect students to each other and to what they were learning by establishing a safe environment for open discussion and collaboration, often drawing on his interests in things such as film, music, and architecture to both broaden and hone their understanding. Beyond being a supportive facilitator of learning, Jeffrey was a participant in the learning process himself, open to adjusting his own understanding as students brought forth their own perspectives. His work was acknowledged by numerous awards he received for teaching excellence across his career.
Purveyors of injustice had an ardent foe in Jeffrey. From his earliest days at Washburn where he advocated for the rights of Kansas collegians as a member of the statewide Associated Students of Kansas, he applied his talents to further the cause of social justice across a wide array of issues (Go back to the montage and in the upper right hand corner, a Kansas City newspaper photo of Jeffrey at a “Stop the War” rally (Out of Nicaragua and El Salvador). Known for his gregarious and caring nature, Jeffrey had little patience for those who violated the principles of individual and communal affirmation and acceptance he held so dear. Early in his career he fought for a young Ugandan poet in Kansas City who was facing deportation, while also embracing the larger cause of bringing an end to apartheid in South Africa. Drawing on his agricultural roots, he worked with the Missouri Rural Crisis Center to focus attention on the plight of hog farmers as they fought against increasing corporatization, developing a model for farmer organization that remains in use today. At Rutgers, Jeffrey willingly took on the task of helping to establish and direct the Tyler Clementi Center, a unique model for supporting and affirming LGBTQ students as they entered the university. Those are but a few examples of the many ways in which he championed the cause of social justice.
Jeffrey’s contributions to advancing the fields of applied anthropology and social work through research, professional publications and presentations, and professional service are extensive and diverse. His cultural investigations ranged from studies of Mennonite, Amish, and Hutterite culture to African drumming, agriculture, childcare, and social constructs surrounding illness and dying. He left an enduring and pervasive mark on the field of social work and counseling through publications intended to influence and advance direct practice in case management, medications, spirituality, and working with specialized populations. Countless current and future professionals have and will continue to benefit from books he co-authored, including a series of casebooks focused on K-12 schools, sexual trauma, and LGBTQ sexual trauma. Jeff worked to ensure the integrity of the increasingly extensive amount of professional literature by serving on the editorial boards of six professional publications and as editor of the American Anthropological Association’ Culture and Agriculture. He also served on numerous professional organization boards and was co-president of the American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social work from 2017 to 2019.
The framework for Jeffrey’s dynamic and prolific career was built initially through his early studies at Washburn, but it was there that he made a connection unlike any other that would transform the entirety of his life. For it was there that he met Jerry Floersch, a social work student with complementary interests and talents, a mutual concern for human relationships, and equally passionate curiosity who became his lifelong loving partner. Over nearly five decades Jeffrey and Jerry built a relationship based on genuine respect and true collaboration, each bringing their own unique energy to the shared endeavor of discovery, whether in their professional pursuits or something as simple as learning how to roast their own coffee beans. It mattered not who came up with an idea; all that mattered was the shared joy of finding out what they did not know and making it happen together, committed to organizing their lives to spend as much of their time together as possible. Each is a strong individual in their own right, but the depth of their relationship makes it sometimes awkward to try to refer to either in the singular. When they submitted documentation and publications for promotion and tenure review, the singularity confusion was particularly manifest at one institution; each was required to quantify their contribution to a co-publication. They had no clue for how to measure inputs into a final product. Indeed, their work never made sense in the context of independent authorship, so they flipped a coin on each publication and tails and heads determined who was 51% author. It was an inside joke.
One look at Jeffrey’s vita and the extensive list of co-authorships with Jerry reveals their professional synergy, but with all things Jeffrey and Jerry, their collaborative relationship began and ended with their anchor, their home. Each house Jeffrey and Jerry owned they left better than they found it, and the same can be said for the people who entered them. Jeffrey never met a stranger, and new acquaintances found an invitation to dinner and were welcomed into a safe, nurturing, and affirming place where lifelong friendships were formed.
Described by some as the most genuinely intellectual person they’ve known, it was Jeffrey’s curiosity in combination with his outgoing personality that helped to make nearly instant connections with anyone. His eagerness to hear about a person’s interests, their joys and their tribulations was disarming, and the loving care and compassion with which he listened was validating, in some instances even life-changing. His delightful and infectious curiosity about life served a purpose, providing a wide array of ways in which to connect with people and communities. His reading interests bordered on eclectic, from current affairs to history and novels. He loved the visual and performing arts in all their manifestations. He enjoyed movies, the history of cinema, and live theater, and served on the boards of theater companies in Ohio and New Jersey. Jeffrey was an avowed “foodie,” but often deferred to Jerry’s culinary talents at mealtimes. Anything that engaged his curiosity was fair game for Jeffrey’s attention.
Jeffrey’s cancer diagnosis (fall of 2021) didn’t touch the essence of who he was, and he continued to connect with all those people and things important to him as vibrantly as his declining health allowed. He continued writing, connecting once again with his family heritage to author two special books, both of which had been on his to-do list for a long time. The first, “The Autobiography of James A. Ray: Golden Reminiscence,” is a collection of the writings of his grandfather, a 24-year school superintendent of early 20th-century Kansas. The second is a collection of the poetry of his beloved grandmother, Inez Ellis Ray, and the cover serves as a fitting tribute to the life of Jeffrey Longhofer himself. The book is titled, “The World and All That’s In It,” and the cover picture is of a young boy running through a field, clinging tightly to the string that connects him to a wondrous, shining dream kite soaring high in the skies above.
Jeffrey was preceded by his parents, Mary Inez Longhofer and Estil (Rusty) David Longhofer; grandparents, Inez Ellis Ray and James A. Ray; his cousins, Roxie Ray and William (Bill) Remmers. He is survived by his partner/spouse, Jerry Floersch, Lawrence, Kans., brothers, David Longhofer, Lee Summit, Mo. and Darold Longhofer of Overland Park, Kans.; nephews, Stacey Longhofer and Jeremy Longhofer, Overland Park, Kans.; nieces, Danielle Bartelli, Gabrielle Darrow, and Nikki Longhofer, of the Kansas City metro area ; second cousins Juilette Remmers, of Iowa City, Iowa, and Jestina Jones-Cathcart, Oxnard, California; and cousins Michael and Walkie Ray of southern California.
The Jeffrey Longhofer-Haskell Fund for Justice
In his decades of teaching, writing, and research, Jeffrey Longhofer sought always to connect the world of ideas to the world of practice. He was a truly engaged scholar, principally concerned with what mattered most to people: justice, inequality in all its forms, and the environment. As an anthropologist, a social worker, and a psychoanalyst, he was also committed to understanding the human experience in all of its complexity. A great example of his collaborative work with his lifelong partner, Jerry Floersch, is this podcast Jeffrey engineered just months before his diagnosis: “It’s not how much you get, it’s what you do that makes a good life.”
Jeffrey believed there was no perfect person, just humans struggling to be human—the good, the bad, and the ugly. He particularly liked a song by Ordinary Elephant which reflects upon the many bad deeds from our past and present, especially against people of color, and how we can reflect, care, and act to create alternatives to hate. He always tried to see and make connections among fields of knowledge and the real world.
Jeffrey and Jerry met with the Haskell Indian Nations University Foundation to talk about how he could bring his spirit of discovery to others. The conversation with Dr. Danny Wildcat and the then head of the Foundation, Dr. Howe, led to the establishment of the Jeffrey Longhofer-Haskell Fund for Justice.
The Haskell Foundation, a 501c3 non-profit established in 1984, was created to serve the Haskell mission with gifts and donations. The Haskell Indian Nations University history spans the dark boarding school days of the “kill the Indian, to save the man” mantra, to the present emergence from a culturally oppressive colonial institution. Today, Haskell is a unique university committed to serving Indigenous students, their communities, and nations/villages to address the most pressing problems facing American Indians, Alaska Natives, and the entire planet.
In the spirit of Jeffrey’s incredible generosity and sense of justice, the Longhofer-Haskell Fund has been established to support the Hiawatha Center for Justice. The fund will be used to support students and faculty interested in environmental studies, indigenous knowledge and science, climate change, and digital media storytelling. Haskell’s academic programs, service-learning internships, grant-funded initiatives, and student scholarships offer incredible opportunities to promote justice.
We are hoping that friends and relatives of Jeffrey will consider a contribution to the establishment of the Longhofer-Haskell Fund. What better way to help Haskell Indian Nations University continue its path to excellence and do so by honoring Jeffrey and investing in the most important issue facing life on the planet: the creation of institutions and people that embody justice for all, especially in a time when climate change and injustice is growing deep roots all around us.
During Covid, Jeffrey and Jerry purchased a significant collection of video and audio equipment for online teaching and for the creation of the OnCaring website, the host of this blog; to learn about the OnCaring project, go to this link. Early during the (June 2020) pandemic, while drinking morning coffee in their backyard, they would talk about the many possible forms of caring. These conversations inspired the OnCaring project; an edited, four-minute video of our many palavers is here.
The first gift to the Longhofer-Haskell fund was made by Jerry and Jeffrey. Their $21,000 collection was donated to the Hiawatha Center for Justice and it provides the startup equipment to produce and disseminate various audio and video media products. Your donation will provide resources for students as they use documentary media to tell their stories. The mission of the Hiawatha Center for Justice digital media center and program will be: 1) to prepare Haskell students to compete for filmmaking scholarships at prestigious MFA programs; 2) to prepare Haskell students to assist their tribal communities in producing media to tell their particular stories; and 3) to prepare Haskell students for employment in for-profit and not-for-profit media companies and organizations.
Jeffrey’s diagnosis, illness, and death unfolded over fifteen months so we had many moments to continue our collaborative discussions; he was most worried about the world I would confront without him, a world of increasing division with opposing groups squaring off and using violence to solve differences. This worry led to his All Things in Common blessing, which called for a “presence of something much greater than ourselves, not to divide but to unite.” I think his “greater presence” reference was a hope that his blessing would activate in our minds an imaginative spirit, one that longed for a new socio-economic-political-cultural configuration that would focus upon mutual flourishing. In short, imagine what we are not now. Build a better world than the one handed to us, knowing that the given world was produced, in no small amount, by violent means. Jeffrey hoped an imaginative spirit would inform the Haskell fund in his name and that it would motivate the students to produce digital media exploring and re-imagining indigenous communal knowledge and practice, indigenous forms of relationship to nature, and indigenous justice or moral philosophy (He started reading but did not finish Nicole Eustace’s excellent book, Covering With Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America.). Imagine how we might have turned out if we had collaborated and inter-mixed Indigenous and European ideas and practices. Instead, we crushed the Indigenous spirit, and then hammered the winning one-way view and practice over and over so much so that we can no longer imagine a different future, but only repeat the competition for land and resources of the past. Jeffrey envisioned that imagination would be the core sentiment motivating the Haskell projects funded by our generosity. He hoped Haskell students would explore two interrelated questions: what type of society could adopt collaboration and mutual flourishing as its essential value—instead of competition and personal success?; and, what type of person would seek pleasure in and measure its most prideful actions in collaborative efforts?
To donate online, go to: https://www.haskellfoundation.org/the-jeffrey-longhoferhaskell-fund-for-justice/ When completing the online form, along with your identifying information, BE SURE you type Longhofer Fund for Justice in the box “specific fund you’d like your contribution to benefit.” The online form will look exactly like the image below.
To donate by mail, make the check payable to Haskell Foundation, in care of The Jeffrey Longhofer-Haskell Fund for Justice. The address is: Haskell Foundation, 155 Indian Ave., Box 5019, Lawrence, KS 66046
Jeffrey was gardening in our Highland Park, New Jersey backyard (2018). The pointed finger meant “pay attention” to the collaborative relationship between the plants, but his eyes and smile meant—“I am only teasing”. Teasing was a finely honed skill that Jeffrey used to spotlight an idea, feeling, or practice. He was admonishing you to pay attention while also inviting you into a collaborative conversation. It also meant he loved you.
We moved to Lawrence Kansas in the middle of Covid not knowing what was ahead for Jeff. He woke up one morning in late December 2020 and out of the blue said, “ I think we should move to Lawrence.” I looked into his eyes and felt something I could not know, but sensed his urgency. I implemented the move and my March 9th we negotiated retirement with Rutgers, sold the Highland Park home, packed, and signed a contract on a new home in Lawrence. The move was motivated by a desire to slow down and it was Covid that we were listening to. A Pink Martini song, Splendor in the Grass, captured our mood during Covid; we listened to it many times. The decision to move, like all of our decisions, was jointly decided and this mutuality always made the difference.
Common to everyone is some form of reciprocal caring for and with others. Even self-care is a relationship of caring and responsibility to another; it just so happens it’s with yourself. Caring is essential. Cultures throughout history have devised various value systems of relationship (usually familial), obligation, responsibility, and structure to how we care, who we care for, when do we care, and what we care about. Indeed, fundamental to wherever and whenever caring occurs there is always an interdependent relationship that must be activated to do the work. As the early months of the coronavirus pandemic unfolded, we created the OnCaring.org website to explore the many facets of caring. Our goal was to cultivate conversations on the many forms of caring and its various targets: individuals, nature, government, households, community, and social justice, for example. Our move from New Jersey to Kansas (March 2021) and then Jeffrey’s subsequent diagnosis, illness, and death meant we lost our focus and energy, as you can see for yourself when our weekly blogging stopped. After I recoup my everyday sensibilities and direction, I plan to continue supporting the OnCaring.org website, and I am inviting all of you to join me in story telling about different forms of caring that you observe, engage in, or think about (sign up here, https://oncaring.org/guests). I will carry forward the collaborative work we started by curating the OnCaring.org site and because it was always collaborative, its future will re-embody Jeffrey. It’s comforting that every time I open the website, I am opening a portal into Jeffrey’s spirit. Jeffrey never requested that I make him promises of my future. Not once! He trusted that our relationship would guide me, so he didn’t need to ask. I, however, promised him one idea and practice: to imagine what we are not now. By holding tight to an imaginative string, his kite-spirit will draw us toward a better world. Jerry
At each Shiva, everyone was asked for one word to describe Jeffrey. Thank You.
In the Comments Section below, feel free to remember Jeffrey and to express your thoughts and feelings. Let me start by offering a song that Jeffrey found very meaningful, “No Hard Feelings” by the Avett Brothers. It speaks to one of the many dimensions that comforted him in his living and dying. Post a song, a poem, a story, and your thoughts and feelings. This section is a space meant to return to and to gather nourishment whenever needed. I will continue to host the OnCaring site, so the Jeffrey Lee Longhofer Blog will stay alive in cyberspace and in our memories. Thank You, Jerry