Remembering Jan Lilien
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 30 secondsVideo Captures Her Life
Three weeks of hospice has been a difficult time for our family. The love of my life, Jan Lilien, passed away this week. Our son Mike developed this video for the shiva last night, and in this version, he added music and her voice.
This video captures her life and her dreams. When I watch the video, tears roll down my cheeks, but I also find joy because the love of my life is still with me.
The pictures and the video are nice, but her voice reminds me of why I love her so much.
When Jan and I met, we knew we were in love and understood that the world we lived in did not work. Our life’s work would be to repair the world.
After our first weekend together, I went to see her after work, and she helped me prepare postcards inviting tenants to a meeting to improve housing conditions. Her lens was my lens!
Neither of us could get the whole world to focus on one issue. But we worked diligently in the areas of our expertise. Jan’s legacy will not be limited to what she achieved in her lifetime, but also the dozens and dozens of people she inspired and empowered to continue that work.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
After almost 48 years, I recently lost my wife, Jan Lilien. Like The Little Prince, Jan and I believed that “The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.” This blog is a collection of my random thoughts on love, grief, life, and all things considered.