A TRIBUTE TO SUNNIE D. KIDD:
MEETING AND WORKING WITH SUNNIE
James W. Kidd, Ph.D.
Contents
Themes
The Most Significant Event in Our Lives
The Rock Garden
Sunnie Story
THEMES
When I think of Sunnie four themes stand out: Intelligence; Sense of Humor; Quick Read of Character and Stubbornness, all within a certain Style of Pleasantness.
THE MOST SIGNIFICANT EVENT IN OUR LIVES
One cold winter
evening in January I was reluctantly driving along with a cold 6‑pack of
beer in the car. I was on my way over to someone’s house that I didn’t even
know. I was to be at a party. It was a weekday evening and I felt especially
tired from working all day. My mood was not one of great expectations, nor one
of joyful glee at the prospect of the evening before me. I was quite ready to
be bored.
After arriving at the house and as I walked up the
driveway toward the front door I happened to glance up and see a face in what
was apparently the kitchen window. I was struck by her presence in the soft
evening light in a way which I as yet have trouble describing. She was for me
something special from that moment. As I sort of stumbled along, being
transfixed by my own sense of attraction to her I arrived at the front door
just in time to drop the whole 6‑pack of beer all over the porch.
Awkwardly I scurried around gathering up the cans,
hurrying into the house to get a closer look. After all, my first image of her
was only from the shoulders up. When I looked at her I cou1dn’t believe it...
she was so tiny, so small, so neat! She was attracted to me too! I could tell
by the way she and I spoke without words. We knew without saying that this
original meeting was the beginning of what was to become the most significant
event of our lives. Through this first evening, we were always aware of one
another, glancing expectantly at each other.
It was 12 months later in December that we were
married. This beginning with my twin flame in love has become the focal point for
our mutual expression. Together we have gone where neither of us could go
alone.
Our original meeting was only a beginning. Together
we have pursed our mutual aims and goals finding avenues open for joint
expression. We have throughout our shared time and space provided one another
with opportunities to develop and enhance our individual talents and abilities.
Meeting “The Sun” as I have named her has turned my life around. Now we face a
future tether.
We have come to understand what it means to have just
one other person in our lives upon whom we can depend in any situation, one who
will be there when it is essential. Our chosen path has been one of hardship,
struggle and sacrifice in many ways. But it has been based upon our most prized
value, freedom.
The quality of that which has risen inbetween us as we now stand and face one another in the dawn of yet another new beginning calls us back to our founding spirit. We have freed one another, renewing the vision which first lit up as our eyes met for the fast time. Together we have learned the power of unity and harmony that springs from the life of the heart.
Sunnie and I spent a few days together in a space
that had been extended to us as an open invitation. In this tree-shaded and life‑inhabited
space, we felt most free. The summer afternoons were spent together gathering
those meanings of life that were sustaining and at the same time exhilarating.
This garden was our place to be.
We were discussing one particular area that was filled
with tree, bushes and rocks. It was a little below a wall of rough rock where
we practiced archery. As we talked an idea began to develop, to build an
archery range from the large piles of stone.
It was to be a primordial space, outlined with
stones both large and small, weaving pathways which would lead to the target
area. A space in the center was designated to be for communal gathering, for
building fires and being together during the evening hours.
We set to work and I do mean work! We began to bring
this little dream to life, working side by side. Never once did Sunnie complain
she worked right alongside of me, pushing and shoving, rolling and lifting
rocks. Her strength and determination amazed me as she helped in what seemed an
impossible and unlikely task.
Our hands quickly grew blistered as we struggled
with our task. We built, we shared, we
laughed at one another and we perspired in the dirt and soot. Slowly, shapes
began to emerge as envisioned. Rocks fell and some were so heavy that it took
the two of you to move them into place.
We would sit and look at one another during short
breaks and grin through the dust. I would hold her smashed fingers or toes and
she would remain patient as I leaped around wildly with bugs on my hands that
darted out from under the stones as we moved them.
Moving toward the fulfillment of only a small dream
was our goal for the moment but one that took its place in the wider context f
our longer spiritual journey together. It was a commitment we made, a vision we
shared, a spirit that moved us onward in spite of the many hardships.
Sunnie’s endurance, her perseverance, drove me on too. She participated beyond my expectations and even at the time perhaps beyond my wishes as she wrestled with rocks I could hardly bridge. We talked, we shared and we were together as we so often feel. The hardships, although chosen, were in a way a joy. We accomplished a lot and we grew closer. Two full days of sweat and toil, our dream had come alive. When we were finished, both trembling from the heat and exertion required, the effect was stunning.
We might have been in the darkest forest of medieval
days, as we gazed at our archery range that had been courageously forged from
one haphazardly piled and strewn heaps of rock and stone. During these two days
the rest of the world had dropped away, we were simply one, together, such is
life.
Let me tell you a story: Sunnie and I would park at the beach by the
Cliffhouse here in