I wanted to say something about a visit made here by Alicia Easley, whose son, Kamau Berlin, was the person who attacked Nancy, causing her death about three years ago. And the circumstances and the sort of impetus for her coming here was due to a connection she made with Dean toward the end of the judicial proceedings. And then which Alicia was moved to want to come here and garden because she knew from her son that Nancy was a gardener. And so she had wanted to come around the anniversary date of the event, which was in September. I can't remember the exact date. The 19th. The 19th. Thank you.

[01:01]

And through various circumstances, you know, Dean and I were the people who agreed to meet with her here. And so we just agreed to do it. And we did not know exactly what was going to happen or how it was going to be or what we were going to do. But we came here at the appointed hour, and I don't know what to say about how... I don't know how much detail to go into, because it was a very moving experience, and there was a number of things that happened that I was really... I guess I felt like the separation that we had experienced and those of us who attended the trial proceedings and whatever, even if they just came to one experience, I'm sure, the sense of separation between the two sides of the community that was deeply impacted by this event.

[02:20]

And I felt like Alicia's visit here was part of healing that in some sense. I'm going to ask Dean if she wants to say something, because I realized when I, at Sojan's suggestion, I began to write down my version of these events that had happened, and then Dean contributed that, I realized there were things, important things, that I didn't remember that she remembers. And Dean, are you willing to say something about it? No. No, you're not. Okay. I mean, I think you did really well. Yes. Okay. Okay, so thank you for the encouragement. I can add some as you talk if you'd like. That would be great. Thank you. So, as I say, we weren't sure what was going to happen.

[03:23]

We were to meet her here at 1.30. And we waited and there was some lag time. And then we heard by telephone that there was a delay because Alicia was going to pick up flowers. And then we thought, oh, flowers. We should have a vase. We should know where Nancy's memorial stone is. Luckily, we were able to find that out from Ross. And then when she arrived, she had this huge bouquet of white roses, one for every month since Nancy's death. And in the middle, there was a red rose, which I understand she said was for love. So we met out on the sidewalk, and then we decided, then we started to move to come in. And this is, I can tell, I mean, for someone in her shoes, and just, you know, just the circumstances, it was obvious that this was very challenging.

[04:40]

This took a lot of courage to show up here. And we helped her as best we could. Dean was by her side, holding her. encouraging her to come in, stopping whenever necessary to sort of regather so she could regather herself. We came briefly into the Zendo, but there was a Dharma group here, so we didn't stay. And we kind of slowly made our way around in front of Sojin's office to the Memorial Garden. And I guess you had said something to her, Dean, about now we're going to go to the Memorial Garden or something to that effect. which, you know, Alicia was very, yes. I was, that's the only time I remember being really conscious of wanting to get something right.

[05:43]

And I was, felt a concern about us walking around the corner and her seeing, the Memorial Garden looked beautiful. All of the stones had these red flowers and when you walk around the corner it just popped. So I just really noticed and it looked really really nice and I thought when we round this corner I wanted to give her a little bit of a heads up. Because she had as soon as we walked in the gate, she sort of faltered and the whole way She was clutching on to my hand and my arm so that's the one place that I I Thought oh boy, you got to give her some warning. So yes so so we got we approached the memorial stone and It's hard for me to remember exactly, but what I think I remember is as she came up to the stone, I gave her the flowers in the vase, and I helped her place them next to the stone.

[06:51]

And she was just totally grieving at that point. She got down on her knees. There's a stone right in front of Nancy's stone. It's a big, wide, long stone. She got on her knees and expressed this intense grief for Nancy. And we just were hoping, trying to assure her, you know, it's okay. It's all good. Whatever it is, this is what it is and it's all good. And so we then got up from there and started to walk around in between along the passageway here, along the side of the Zendo. And then we came back to the Zendo, and there wasn't anybody here, so we just came in. And the people accompanying her were one person from the public defender's office, Mara Tobis Clark, who had a real strong connection with her and was very helpful and supportive.

[07:59]

And then a man came with her, came with Alicia, whose name was Talon, We later learned he was her boyfriend, but they were there here to support her, which is wonderful. And so we came into the Zendo, and we were kind of like doing the tour in some sense. This is the Zendo. This is where we sit. I rang the bells. They liked that. It gave her a sense of the space when you ring the bells. So we were kind of just hanging out in here, seeing what anybody wanted to do or say. It just got kind of quiet. And I think they really felt the spirit of the place in a certain way. But then Alicia at some point said, Nancy's here.

[09:01]

I feel her presence. I just know she's here. And she's okay. She's okay. I just couldn't believe it. And then she walked across in front of the altar and got up on Surgeon's seat and curled up with his zafu. And we just hung out for a while. and talked and we talked about Nancy and I don't know what else we talked about. One of the things that she had said when she was at the stone is she was her grief was intense and it sort of had built up to that and she just kept saying I'm sorry I'm so sorry you didn't deserve this I'm so sorry and

[10:05]

After that, after she stood up, she looked around and she said, Nancy's okay. Nancy's okay. And at some point during this, she said, and I'm okay. I'm going to be okay. It's almost like she got this confirmation. So we did, when we did come in here, it was very funny. She walked over and she just, like a cat, she just climbed up on the ton and she grabbed the zafu and she was hugging it and she was smiling. And she was saying, Nancy's okay and this is okay. We did talk about Nancy. We talked about her coming here and gardening. She talked about how she was glad to be here and how she felt really different. than she had. But it actually reminded me a little bit of when, you know, growing up Baptist and growing up in the South, you know, there's a lot, you speak tongues and, you know, some people speak tongues and they have all kinds of things going on.

[11:23]

It was very funny when she held up in her hands and said, Nancy's here and she's okay. I had this immediate flash of oh Okay, that's what it's about And it felt good because I I saw okay. That's what has given her the piece. So it was it was pretty It was pretty neat to see that. Yeah So after a while left and we went into the kitchen and we kind of showed them the kitchen and And then there was a sewing class in the community room, but I guess there wasn't too much going on in there because there was a break, but I kind of pulled the curtain back and showed her this library and the sewing room. And she looked across the room, she saw Nancy's picture on that altar, and she went directly to the altar. And she paid her respects by giving a kiss to the picture. Then we left and we moved very slowly out of the gate.

[12:32]

We were out on the sidewalk for it seemed like a really long time before we started slowly walking towards our cars. We walked down to, it turns out Alicia's cousin lives three doors down from where this happened on Otis Street. That her father was in the neighborhood looking for Kamau at that time. She went to Berkeley High. We talked about, down at the corner in Martin Luther King, some of you who've been around here a little bit longer will remember the guy who used to stand during rush hour and wave to everybody a good day. We talked about that. And she told us this very powerful story. about the day she learned that Nancy had died, the day after the life support systems had been disconnected. She heard about this on the TV shortly after waking up in the morning.

[13:39]

And it so distressed her, so upended her, she said. that she was determined to end her life, and she left the house, as she said, you know, barely dressed, and got into her car and drove off to find a bridge she could drive off of. I don't know what she was doing, but she said, you know, her face was just, you know, tears, and she was just agitated in the extreme. And it must have been apparent because she pulled up to a stop sign or stoplight at one point. And the person who pulled up next to her, who Alicia described as an older white woman. Actually, she said an old white lady. Old white lady. Thank you. Rolled down the window and she turned to roll down her passenger window and said to Alicia, pull over.

[14:43]

And Elisa looked at her and the person said again, pull over. And so she pulled over and this woman parked and got out of her car and came in, opened the passenger side door of Elisa's car, got in and took the keys out of the ignition and threw them on the sidewalk. And then she turned to Elisa and said, stop. Just stop. And don't do anything until you've stopped. And it, um, but she said it saved her life. So that, anyway, it's, um, it seemed like this experience was one of, one of constant amazing surprise again and again. I feel really honored to have been there for it. And while we were hanging out in the Zendo, it came up that Alicia wanted to do something regularly here.

[16:02]

I guess the idea was that she would feed the lemon tree. That was a thought that came up. That was a thought that came up. So we're trying to figure some way that that could happen in the context of our more regular activities here. She did express some openness to meeting with other people, maybe a family member of hers or more could join us in some kind of facilitated discussion. But that's, all of that is sort of out there as potential. I'm running out of things to say, Dean, so is there anything more that you'd like to add? There were moments of levity towards the end, but actually when we came into the Zindo, after we left the Memorial Stone, things got a little bit more, there were, yeah, it was, there were fun things.

[17:04]

When, She said a couple times, this old white lady, and she looked at me and I said, well, you know, I'm an old white lady, we're not all, look, sometimes we can do something pretty good. So, I mean, it was very, very funny. That was funny. And then we were talking about the waving man and she was excited about feeling better. She also came up with something about Berkeley side and how she felt we should do something. We should have let them hear the rest of the story about how the two sides have how there is not all bad and how there's some coming together in this of the two sides. So we've been talking about that and figuring out something.

[18:11]

And I also want to say sort of the reason that this came about at this time was, well, it was an anniversary, but I talked to her about coming here and we'd emailed. And I explained to her, you know, this is a community and it's a community area. And so we sort of need to plan things. And because she would come up and say, blah, blah, blah. And I'd say, well, you know, give us a little bit of time. Let me plan something. And it wasn't going well that way. And so she had written, well, on this, I think it was the 16th she came or 17th. It was a Saturday or Sunday, Sunday. And she said, well, I'm going to garden. on that day in Berkeley. It can either be at BCC or it can be someplace else, but that's my plan. So that's when we moved forward at that point with that date and time. We weren't really sure and Mara was also not sure if she was going to show up.

[19:15]

So she was about half an hour late and we weren't really clear until we saw her that she was coming. difficult for her to come here. She wanted to, she talked about it before, but it was very difficult for her to actually do that. She also told me, I talked with her a couple of days after just to check how she was and to also just sort of connect and she said that her son, he knew she was coming here and he called her within a half an hour when she left here and she said he was really, really happy that she had been here and that she was feeling some, that she was feeling relief, she was feeling okay. And then also one other thing that I wasn't prepared for when we were standing over across from where the waving man would stand talking, I said, she talked about the Berkeley side thing and I said, well, that would, you know, and maybe it will be good for your son or it will help your son.

[20:26]

And she said, oh, my son's where he needs to be. He did something that he needed to deal with the consequences and he's going to be okay. He knows why he's there and he knows what he did. And that's part of what this is. Thank you for mentioning that. I, you know, she was very clear about that. and seems settled about that. Maybe we should see if anybody wants to say anything. Yes? Well, I want to thank you for doing this, and for all the people that have been keeping up with the process, and monitoring, keeping up with the process. I don't know who else. You're the three people I'm focusing on, but I know that there are more people Thank you. So this happened that the flowers were all in place, and if anyone doesn't know, Amma's salute changes out the flowers typically on Friday as part of her service here and doing the informal tea.

[22:02]

So the timing was really great that the guard was in his prime for this event. The other interesting timing thing is right around I had a tendency to hang out underneath the lemon tree. And I came up and think that there's something there. and left for 45 years. And his wife said, well, you should check out Berkley Zen Center. You keep asking if Mel's still around and Berkley Zen Center is still going.

[23:03]

You should check it out. And he finally got around to looking it up, Berkley Zen Center and whatnot. And so he shows up. And we start chatting. And they're both cat lovers. John? I just wanted to comment about how the cat, Ross mentioned the cat showing up, and it just reminded me of how important it is to deal with the things that we don't want to deal with, and to go through the things that we really, really don't want to face, and how it just allows things to settle.

[24:15]

Period. You know? and then the cat shows up, and then something else happens, and then things arise again, you know what I mean? But we often think that, oh, it doesn't matter, oh, I just let this one go, or something, and this is a good testament of attending mindfully to the things that are really happening, that are really still going on, and really dealing, or at least attending to them, so that they can finally settle. And then when they do settle, This went through, and obstruction was removed, and who knows? The cat shows up, Nancy's spirit shows up, whatever, but the point is that things can now arise from that finish. Cheers to all of us, and Nancy, and everyone for being able to do this.

[25:22]

I mean, not Nancy, but Nancy. What's the woman's name? Alicia. Alicia. Yeah, cheers to Alicia and to all of us. I couldn't help but think when you described coming in here and the levity and her getting on about this, maybe Nancy really was here. We did joke with her about Nancy's predilections for doing things a little bit out of sync. Dean mentioned to me that, Peter, that when he sounded the some kind of quieting in the room, visibly, with the people who took a breath kind of thing. And everybody in here is so distinguished this morning about when the bell sounds, it stops. So thank you for sounding that bell.

[26:24]

Her boyfriend had told us that he had been in some kind of group, or he worked at a group home, maybe, and they would have meditation and someone had a bell and he talked about how when the bell would sound, the rowdiness would just stop. Alicia also said that her therapist at Kaiser, and I haven't been able to track this down yet, but she said her therapist at Kaiser is a woman whose mother has some sort of prominent position or role at San Francisco's N Center. I asked a couple of people over there if they knew anybody like that, but didn't make any kind of connection. The therapist's name is Joanne. Oh, his name is Joanne. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But she had said she wanted to bring Joanne because Joanne knew about this stuff.

[27:29]

Bye.

[27:36]

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