Annie Freeman's Fabulous Traveling Funeral Read Online Free

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    An adolescent survivor of a suicide attempt, Ms. Freeman was an outspoken advocate for treatment programs for young people battling depression and loneliness. Her unique and sometimes controversial programs, which have been used at clinics throughout the world, involved the use of teen mentors, wilderness settings, and writing to help heal what she called “the empty hearts” of young boys and girls.
    Ms. Freeman was also a social and feminist activist who worked with a coalition of young academics to restructure the university pay system and institute gender awareness training at every California university system campus and at public schools throughout the state.
    Although the majority of her writings were used to help others and in therapeutic settings, she also authored numerous articles and books on the history of Northern California, especially the small communities near Sonoma.
    While her professional life undoubtedly helped thousands, Ms. Freeman said the single most profound act of her life was raising her two sons and making certain that they were exposed to as many thoughts, places and people as possible. Married briefly to an Italian painter in 1971, she never disclosed the identity of the father of her sons.
    “She was a remarkable example of a woman who embraced life, fought stereotypes and helped so many people,” said Jill Matchney, retired president of the California State Teacher’s Union and a longtime friend of Ms. Freeman. “No one, not one single person, knew the breadth and scope of who Annie was, what she did, and how many lives she touched.”
    When she was first diagnosed with cancer, following a routine exam, Ms. Freeman immediately became a regional spokeswoman for a variety of women’s cancer organizations, authored a book of poetry for those fighting “unlikely happenings,” and personally answered every letter or phone call from anyone who needed help or wanted to help her.
    “My mother, once she decided that she wanted to live all those years ago after she tried to kill herself, loved life in a way that was beyond contagious,” said Nick Freeman, her son, who is a social worker at the Walons Family Clinic in Milwaukee. “Mom’s gone, but believe me, she is not done—not done at all.”
    Ms. Freeman died with her two sons, Donan and Nick, her hospice caregivers, and her sister-in-law at her side, in her yard facing the edge of the mountains and her beloved ocean.
    As part of her last wishes, Ms. Freeman asked that no formal funeral services be held but that well-wishers spend their time and money helping others and that any woman or man who has ever been touched by her life, writings, or one of her organizations reach out to help someone else.
    When at last she opens the envelope, Katherine knows there is no way to really prepare herself for what request might be hiding inside. She knows that she owes the world nothing and that her dearest friend would ask her only for something that she deemed possible, and she knows, too, that in Annie Freeman’s world anything and everything was possible. The request, like Annie, could be astounding. It most likely is.
    The letter is handwritten and when Katherine sees the first word, when she sees her name—
Katherine
—sitting there at the top of the page in the slim writing style from one of the fine black pens that Annie loved to use, she knows that this must have been done toward the end, toward the time when Annie knew she had only a few weeks, when this idea, whatever it was, had come to rest in a place that was ready to be put onto paper. The letters are shaky and for a moment Katherine closes her eyes and sees the trembling fingers of her friend, moving deliberately across this very sheet, focusing with every ounce of her remaining strength to just keep the tip of the pen against the top of the paper.
    As wild and free as Annie was, and remained, she was also exact. Annie seldom hesitated. She would have hesitated in writing