09/07/2024
My littlest big sister Alisa passed away January 30th this year. I was able to play music by her side with Mom, Dad, and our sister Robin as she slowly withered away for a week. While it was horrible to watch someone so strong fade away, especially because we all knew that she didn't want to go slow like that, it was also so beautiful and important to see my parents understand Alisa in a deeper and more honest way than they ever could before. In the ways that she wanted to be perceived. We felt her love through the people she loved, touched, and taught during her short but very full life in Chicago.
Alisa was always defining and redefining herself on her own terms, as we all should have the freedom to do. It's easy to understand how our horizons can become too narrow to truly see each other as we are. Alisa continues to teach us after her death that what might seem like failures can be the beginnings of important and new lives and opportunities that we simply might not understand... yet.
There is always going to be an emptiness in me where I can't see or call my sister. I'd even love to hear her bitching about something stupid like kaiser rolls or blanched peas or truffle oil again. But I simultaneously feel so full from the love and support of family and friends and strangers (who are also family), and knowing that she is now always with me.
One of Alisa's many communities was Aloft Circus Arts, and they put together a virtual memorial for her including beautiful words from people she touched and videos of Alisa flying and performing. Please check out the memorial at the link below.
I'm much more comfortable speaking from the heart than writing anything down these days, so I'll let the words of one of Alisa's favorite songs from the Grateful Dead finish this up:
"Faring thee well now
Let your life proceed by its own designs
Nothing to tell now
Let the words be yours, I'm done with mine"
In the early hours of Tuesday, January 30th, 2024, Aloft was beyond devastated to learn that we lost one of our beloved members of our staff and community, Alisa, to small cell lung cancer. This special edition of our newsletter is to celebrate Alisa's life, love and the light she brought to Aloft.....
