In Remembrance of (David) Jon Miller
Dear friends, we write with sad news. After an up-and-down ride with metastatic cancer over the past year and a half, our beloved (David) Jon Miller experienced a sudden downturn and entered home hospice care a few weeks ago. He passed away in the wee hours of Thursday, Feb. 24th.
It’s difficult to write about Jon as “gone,” both because he is still so very much with us here in love and daily memory, and also because once Jon got his terminal prognosis on Feb. 8, he made up his mind that he was getting out of here FAST.
Anybody who knows Jon probably knows the power of his quiet strength and determination. Once Jon put his mind to a task, that task got done. Quietly, efficiently, and (aside from some occasional muttered expletives) generally without a lot of drama.
Jon’s voyage into the next realm was no exception.
In the days after his return from his bad-news visit to hospital, Jon was still gathering eggs from the chickens, taking driveway walks, sitting out on in the porch-like “annex” he built last summer, enjoying the sunshine and birdsong.
On Valentine’s Day, Jon was up dancing with Mom in the kitchen. First, to Van Morrison’s Moondance, and then to our family-band’s hastily practiced, teary-eyed rendition of Doc Pomous’s classic, “Save the Last Dance for Me.”
The latter production — inspired by Jon’s own request (“if you don’t think it will come off as too maudlin or corny”) — proved that beneath his understated, matter-of-fact demeanor, Jon could also be surprisingly sweet, even romantic. He also arranged for our mom to receive Valentine’s Day flowers and cards from him each year “in perpetuity.” Watch the video of that sweet Valentine’s Day event here (have some tissues handy).
During Jon’s final week of home hospice, even as his physical strength declined, his sharp mind and dry sense of humor remained intact. Jon was clear that he did not want to prolong the inevitable, that he did not want to suffer, and that he now just wanted to get this thing over with as quickly as possible.
Jon’s singular goal became to “slip the surly bonds of Earth” — a phase pulled from “High Flight” by aviator-poet John Gillespie Magee, Jr. He first sent a brief quote of that poem along with his announcement about his prognosis and this spirited “jet-airplane pose” photo. He then read the full piece aloud for us from his iPad when he got back from the hospital (you can catch the video of his final-stanza reading here).
In his final days, even as Jon’s energy waned, he deftly managed his remaining to-dos, making neat lists of things he wanted to delegate or give away, ensuring that the mundane stuff of daily life and all Mom’s future needs would be well handled.
Jon told us that he had no regrets and no unfinished business, that he would have liked to enjoy a few more years here, but so it goes. And then, without complaint or evident sorrow, he set about leaving.
For the next few days, one or more of us stayed close by Jon every moment of the day and night, making sure he got the meds he needed along with whatever little pleasures he could enjoy. Apricot nectar. Foot rubs. Music. Wry chuckles. Updates from the outer world.
After all the projects and challenges that Jon had aided each of us with over the past several decades, it was a great honor and privilege to finally be able to assist him with something this basic and important. But it was also very, very hard to let him go. And it still is.
Of the 69 years Jon spent on this planet, he spent close to 45 of them with us here at Bubbling Springs Farm. It was a period filled with an endless assortment of things to be done — Jon forever treading purposefully to and fro, building something, fixing something, tending something, checking on something — and in the process, noticing some other thing that needed attention.
Jon was the most reliable, capable, rock-solid person that any of us knew. A man of few words, he was possessed of great kindness, consideration, warmth, and humor.
As little kids (and full-grown adults) we girls enjoyed telling Jon “I love you,” knowing that the predictable Jon reply would come: “Okay …” And also knowing that no matter what he said, Jon loved us, too.
He demonstrated this daily by all his doing, fixing, tending, checking. He proved it with his deeply invested presence here, with his tireless care to make this place, our lives, and our mom’s life better in all the ways that he did.
Of course, Jon also had a life before he came here to the farm. His childhood in Ithica, New York; his college days in at LaVerne, California; his stint in the Peace Corps in Nepal; his cross-country travels by bike and Volkswagen Beetle (see his sister Linda’s lovely note for more on his early days).
There’s wasn’t a lot that Jon did not know how to do or was not interested in learning. An Eagle Scout and lifelong learner, Jon brought the benefit of all his life’s experiences and skill sets with him wherever he went, continuously expanding those skills as opportunity arose.
Farming. Gardening. Designing and building a timber-frame home from scratch. Fixing up ramshackle buildings and equipment. Making maple syrup. Canning apples, berries, and tomatoes. Working at Arctic Glass and Rush Creek Nursery. And in between, crafting beautiful cutting boards and boxes and birdhouses with leftover wood, making curry dinners, listening to public radio, tapping his toe in time to whatever music was playing.
Above all, Jon made a difference by simply showing up, observing the state of things, and doing whatever he could to make things better. Day after day after day.
After taking a brief history of Jon’s life, the visiting hospice chaplain remarked on the astonishing range of Jon’s accomplishments and skills, as well as the evident legacy of his life choices and investments.
Witnessing how Jon had lived, the young chaplain said — seeing all that he had created and how well he had loved and been loved by the people around him — was making him rethink his own life path. And it was clear that he meant it.
In his conversation with the chaplain, Jon more than once used the phrase “nose to the grindstone” to describe his chosen approach to life. But as witnessed, the way Jon went about living never really seemed like a grind — more like a slow, dignified, methodical shaping and polishing.
And as a result, when you look around this place you can’t look farther than a few yards before seeing something that would probably not be there, or would not be working as well, without Jon’s skilled touch.
Happily, for all his hard work, Jon also knew how to have fun — travelling, camping, kicking back on the deck with a beer, tending the grill, listening to baseball games, telling and listening to stories, cracking bad jokes, birdwatching, fishing, forever appreciating the beauty and wonder of nature. The man was also a champion crossword puzzler.
Jon could also be impish, creative, and surprisingly, wonderfully playful. He put together some great costumes for Luisa’s “Come as You’re Not” parties. Jon’s ability to draw funny cartoon-like figures and to play the “Wipeout” drum solo with his bare hands never failed to amaze us, and it was wonderful to see the recent video of him playing percussion on the arm of a wooden chair for his new baby grandniece, Hunter.
Above all, Jon was an unusually good and principled human — a solid citizen up to the very end. While in hospice, he ordered his absentee ballot, saying he would “crawl through broken glass on his hands and knees” to cast his vote in the spring election. But alas, he never got a chance to receive that ballot or send it in.
So, if there’s something you would like to do to meaningfully honor Jon and his memory, here’s one suggestion: Get out there and vote — and find at least one more person who might not have otherwise voted to get out there and vote with you.
Nothing would make Jon happier than knowing we are all doing our part to make this surly planet a better more peaceful, beautiful, sustainable place.
And in the meantime, Jon, we love you. We miss you. We feel you all around us in spirit, soaring freely on the breeze, and we trust we always will.
Jon rarely asked for anything. We had the privilege of fulfilling Jon’s final request, giving him a beautiful green home burial here in the hilltop orchard on Sunday March 6th.
It gives us great comfort to feel his presence from this lookout, in a lovely place we can go sit and visit with his spirit self whenever we like.
We are hoping to have a celebration of life with Jon’s family and close friends this summer on what would have been his 70th birthday, August 5th. More details on that as we get closer.
In the meantime, we invite you to celebrate Jon in whatever ways feel good to you. If you want to make a gift to honor Jon’s memory, he suggested donations to Nature Conservancy.