Moments ago, Linda Mueller, who photographed the Heffern ads every year sent me an email to remind me that just yesterday, it was announced that a Diamond Planet had been found. Maybe they'll name it Keithton - after all, in his youth, he and his late twin brother were known as "The Shaw Brothers -two tons of fun."
Dear Pals,
I received the news last night that our much-loved friend Keith D. Shaw had returned Home.
A few days earlier I had visited him and I wrote about how he "called me" to come see him in a blog entitled: "Spooky Entanglement At A Distance." I won't recount it here - but you can scroll down to it. It's worth the read.
Today I'll share two passages with you. Passages ( pass ages) that are used when men pass from old age to a renewed age.
"Through the long night watches, His hand clasps mine.
At the break of dawn, His hand clasps mine.
In the daytime of work and endeavor, from Eternity to Eternity, His hand claps mine.
When time shall have passed, when Eternites shall be strewn about like falling petals,
And Space and Worlds shall be swallowed up in ever lasting blessedness,
His hand will clasp mine."
_____________________ A recollection ___________
One day I showed Keith an ad idea. The cover of the mailer was a human hand with a small lump of coal in the center of its palm. The headline read: Instructions On How To Make A Diamond.
When you opened it up, the copy read:
1) Place lump of coal in center of palm.
2) Squeeze very tighthly for 15,000,000 years
3) Voila! A beautiful diamond.
If you are in a more of a hurry, visit Elleard B. Heffern for brilliant AGS-certified diamonds.
__________________
Keith looked at the ad and said, "It's a great idea, but let's focus on the beauty of the diamond and forget the coal."
I can count on one hand the number of ads he rejected in our 23-year relationship as client and creative partners. He approved of a little pink pig wearing jewelry, he let us show Morris the Cat's girlfriend wearing kitty glitter...we even did, Knockout Punchouts - paper jewelry that customers could actually try on at home to envison how well the real thing would look on them!
I never understood why he rejected the coal ad until today.
I think he knew that all men on the earth start out as a lump of human coal.
Many stay as lumps of coal with their life-force energy forever locked inside, unmined and unreleased.
Others mine their "human coal" daily and burn it up to release their human energy to create families, friends, jobs and businesses. In the larger physical world, we use coal to coke steel, fire electrical power plants or warm a cozy cabin with a Franklin stove.
I believe Keith knew that under great pressure some people can even become human diamonds of various types. Canary diamonds, chocolate-diamonds and 4-C diamonds that are brilliant! Diamonds that have facets cut by parents, friends, family and the closest love of a life-soul-mate.
Yet, while a human diamond may be perfectly cut by education, upbringing and the heat-friction-polishing guidance of family and friends...even then, there can still be flaws within each individual human diamond that need to be identified and self-declared.
These inner flaws that can be totally invisible to the casual observers' naked eyes, but well-aware to the individual and to those around him or her, who can choose either to magnify them with criticism, scorn or even ridicule...or to accept and look past flaws to see the greater light of personal good that can shine through the prisms of compassion, forgiveness and love.
Every human diamond catches the rays of God's own Light within and reflects it out of their inner essence through a loving heart. All with eyes to see can see it.
Jewelers have a 4-C standard - Color-Cut-Clarity-Carat
Keith had his own 4-C standard - Character- Compassion - Creativity - Clarity
Character - he developed it with integrity that was unrivaled.
Compassion - he cared about everyone he knew well and about others he never met, but quietly helped
Creativity - he had an abiding passion for creative expression and beauty in all forms
Clarity - he had a great internal compass and vision that always made him look upward at beauty and love and to the light of friends that he made shine even brighter with his laughter, listening and love.
If he saw the flaws in others, he never magnified them.
He could not, because he was light-hearted - in the illumination sense of that word.
He might have been well-aware of his own and others' shortcomings - but he consciously chose to ignore the occulsions and flaws to focus on the good in himself and in other people. He polished himself everyday and set himself among precious emeralds, rubies, gold and platinum in his career, in family, in friends, in love and in life.
His human diamonds survive him in Cinnie his wife, and in an their array of children, in-laws and grandchildren.
____________________________
"When death shall come
And the spirit, freed shall mount the air,
And wander afar in that great no-where,
It shall go as it came,
Freed from sorrow, sin and shame;
And naked and bare through the upper air
Shall go alone to that great no-where.
Hinder not its onward way,
Grieve not o'er its form of clay,
For the spirit freed now from the clod,
Shall go alone to meet its God."
_____________ Scene at the Perfectly-Matched 9mm Pearly Gates _____________
Hi Lord, its me Keith...
"I know. Welcome Home son!"
_________________
Keith, Thanks for letting us warm our hands and hearts by your fire,
Birk and Loring
