EVELYN AND NICHOLAS EVANS

LIKE MANY, I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR THINGS

TO WATCH ON MY PAD AS I PAINT.

NETFLIX GOT MY ATTENTION WITH A NEW DOCUSERIES, EVELYN.

IT'S A MUST SEE, A FAMILY SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS

MANY YEARS AFTER THE SUICIDE OF THEIR BROTHER,

DECIDE TO TAKE A MONTH LONG HIKE IN ALL THE

PLACES THEIR BROTHER, EVELYN WALKED.

WORD OF CAUTION, KLEENEX WILL BE NEEDED.

AT THE VERY END, THE MOST BEAUTIFUL POEM IS READ

BY THE ELDEST BROTHER, ORLANDO.

THEY EVEN JOKE AFTER ALL THE TEARS ABOUT 

HOW THEY DON'T KNOW WHO WROTE IT.

WHICH HAD ME SEARCHING FOR THE HISTORY BEHIND 

THOSE BEAUTIFUL WORDS THIS MORNING.

WHAT I HAVE FOUND IS THAT IT IS WRITTEN BY 

AUTHOR NICHOLAS EVANS WHO ALSO WROTE

THE HORSE WHISPERER, A WELL KNOWN BOOK.

I ALSO FOUND OUT THAT HE AND FRIENDS 

WERE POISONED IN 2008 AFTER EATING WILD MUSHROOMS

THEY FOUND. ALL HAD TO BE ON KIDNEY DIALYSIS

AND IN 2011 HE WAS DONATED A KIDNEY FROM HIS DAUGHTER

AND CONTINUES TO WRITE.

THE THINGS YOU CAN FIND THANKS TO THE WWW.

I LEAVE YOU WITH THESE BEAUTIFUL WORDS ABOUT DEATH

AND HOPE IT GIVES YOU COMFORT AND A SENSE OF PEACE

AS IT DID ME AS I CONTINUE TO MOURN THE LOSS OF MY SISTER.

  Walk Within You by Nicholas Evans

If I be the first of us to die, Let grief not blacken long your sky.

Be bold yet modest in your grieving. There is a change but not a leaving.

For just as death is part of life, The dead live on forever in the living. And all the gathered riches of our journey, The moments shared, the mysteries explored, The steady layering of intimacy stored,

The things that made us laugh or weep or sing, The joy of sunlit snow or first unfurling of the spring,

The wordless language of look and touch, The knowing, Each giving and each taking, These are not flowers that fade, Nor trees that fall and crumble, Nor are they stone,

For even stone cannot the wind and rain withstand And mighty mountain peaks in time reduce to sand.

What we were, we are. What we had, we have. A conjoined past imperishably present.

So when you walk the woods where once we walked together And scan in vain the dappled bank beside you for my shadow,

Or pause where we always did upon the hill to gaze across the land, And spotting something, reach by habit for my hand,

And finding none, feel sorrow start to steal upon you,

Be still. Clear your eyes. Breathe.

Listen for my footfall in your heart. I am not gone but merely walk within you.