Word got out and they came from everywhere.  The death of a queen will always draw a crowd.  Family, friends, and loved ones put their lives on hold and gathered in the room where she lay dying.  The doctors had done all they could and now all that was left was to wait and say our final goodbyes.  Mojo, the Queen of Fun, was leaving us.

She had led a remarkable life.  Her early life in Detroit.  Her time in the 60’s rock and roll scene, partying with the Who and Jethro Tull and touring with Mad Dogs and Englishmen.  Her days in New Mexico with the Hog Farm, living off the land high in the mountains. On to California, tending bar in Marin County while raising two daughters on her own.  There she joined the Renaissance Faire, where she became a prime instigator and purveyor of her own brand of crazy fun.  Finally she moved up to the Russian River, immersing herself in the community while going back to school and earning her degree. When the Iraq war came she became politically active and joined Women in Black, protesting on the street corner in Guerneville every Friday.  Finally, her daughters grown, she settled into enjoy her passions, art, coffee and pot.  Now the final chapter was about to come to a close.

It was the culmination of an ordeal over the last year and a half…of illness, of doctor’s and hospitals.  Doctors had been slow to diagnose and by the time they did the end seemed almost inevitable.  Yet she chose to fight on and we backed her with all we could.  Through the illness and the frailty and the pain, the procedures and the treatments, the complications and the set backs she fought on with a warrior’s spirit.  Indeed we were in the middle of planning a fundraiser for that weekend to raise money for treatments when fate intervened and the fundraiser became a wake.

I got the call from Anna Wednesday morning that Mojo was back in the hospital.  When I got there I found Simone waiting outside her room.  Simone had been Mojo’s core support during the ordeal, putting her own life on hold to take care of her mom.  It was a heavy burden, as anyone who has cared for an ill parent knows, but Simone bore it with grace and dedication, taking on the cooking and cleaning, always there to help with meds or changing bandages while helping keep Mojo’s spirits up. Now it was the end game.  Time for one final duty…deathwatch.  The hospital moved Mojo into a hospice room and Simone and I agreed that she would stay the first night and I would take the next.

Mojo and I had been dating for six years.  We had met decades before while working at the Ren Faire and had been close ever since though fate took us on separate paths.  Kindred spirits who loved a good laugh and the embrace of friends.  The flirting had begun at an Easter Beer Hunt, leading to a brief courtship that almost ended after one date which ended in disaster and embarrassment.  Given another chance we booked a weekend up at Orr Hot Springs.  It was there that the spark of romance would ignite a flame that would burn for the next six years.

Mojo and I never lived together.  I don’t think either of us could have handled that, plus my work schedule would have made that difficult.  I would come up on the weekend and we would share whatever adventures presented themselves.  Sometimes there would be a party, an open mike, or some other event happening, at which she would likely be at the center of whatever was happening.  It was often said that the party didn’t really start until she got there.  Other times it would be a quiet night in front of the tv, and maybe a soak.

Sundays were about sleeping late.  A trip down to the local coffee house for a wake and bake session with the gang.  Then a day a lounging in front of the tv, especially if the game was on, or a walk through the woods.  A game of fetch with Mojo’s dog Lucy, our constant companion and co-conspirator.

Of course the summers were spent on the river.  Kayaking was Mojo’s religion, to be on the water, at one with the flow of nature.  The river had a calming affect on her soul while invigorating her spirit and she rarely missed an excuse to commune with it.  I was new to kayaking and so it was a bit of a learning curve, but it became clear at once that if I was going to hang with Mojo I was going to get wet.

The years went by and the adventures continued.  There were good times and bad.  We were together through the death of her mom and the death of mine.  Through feast and famine.  From the dark days of war and recession to the promise of hope and change, we carried on.  It wasn’t always easy, she could drive me crazy at times.  A personality as big as hers takes some patience, but I understood that this was part of the package…what made her who she was.  If  she was spontaneous and unpredictable it was from an abundance of vitality and irrepressible spirit.  Now the cancer that ravaged her body had drained her energy, but the spirit endured.

When I got to the hospital the next morning more people were arriving as the news spread.  They were coming from near and far.  Swan and Ashley came in about mid-day.  Others gathered as day stretched into night.  That night we gathered in her room one more time to talk and laugh and share our love.  Cory sang one of Mojo’s favorite songs from “Jesus Christ Superstar”.  When the nurses weren’t looking Lucy was smuggled in for a last farewell.  Then the others left and Mojo and I settled in for the night.  I read to her and we held hands and talked into the night until the drugs took effect and she drifted off to sleep.  I put a couple of plastic chairs together and tried to sleep but it took a while before exhaustion overcame me.

Morning brought a fresh round of visitors.  A gypsy camp sprung up in the parking lot out back.  People brought food and drink to share among us as the vigil grew.  I found a comfy chair in the hallway  outside her door and faded into it, bleary from lack of sleep and lost in my own thoughts.  Madeline arrived for one last heart to heart with her mom.  Their relationship had seen some rough patches, mostly because they were so much alike.  Now was a time to put all that behind them and to hold each other one more time.  Early in the afternoon Mojo’s brother Max arrived from LA.  Late in the afternoon the room cleared out and most of the visitors gathered outside while she rested.  After a bit one of the hospice nurses went into the room.  Soon after she emerged to tell me Mojo wanted to see me.  I quickly headed into the room while she went to gather the others.

Mojo lay in the bed beaming peacefully.  As I approached the bed she mouthed, “I love you”.  In a bit of a daze I took her hand as I knelt beside the bed.  Soon the room filled up and I was engulfed in a mass of humanity focusing their collective love on her, which she returned with all that she had left.  I had seen death before.  I had been at my brother Bill’s bedside when they pulled the plug.  I remember the confusion and fear in his eyes as he woke from a week long coma gasping for air and finding none.  This was a totally different feeling.  There was no panic, no fear.  There was some sadness, but it was comforted by the overwhelming love that filled the room.  The gentle afternoon sunlight seemed to envelope us and fill us with a sense of peace.  There were tears mixed with the prayers, but there was a sense of joy in our oneness.  Mojo gazed back at us with an expression of eternal bliss.  She had fought the good fight, had gotten every measure out of life.  Now at the end, the battle nearly over, she lay in peace, surrounded by love.  At one point the nurse gave her some medicine “to help with her breathing” and afterward her energy began to wane.  As I held her hand I felt her pulse weaken until it faded away and I knew that she was gone.  Mojo, the Queen of Fun, had left the building.  Gathering ourselves we slowly rose and filed out of the room as Madeline prepared a sacred ritual.

The next night was scheduled the fundraiser which had become a wake.  My thanks to Kym who’s hard work through the pain made it happen.  The spirit of Mojo was everywhere among the crowd that came to honor her.  We rocked the joint and raised a good sum to help cover expenses.  Through the love and the tears and the joy that night you could feel the warmth of her giant smile over all of us.  It is a warmth that I have felt many times in the years since.  A few days later I was cleaning my desk and came across a receipt  from Orr Hot Springs and the date on it stopped me in my tracks.  The receipt was for the weekend of May 5th and 6th of 2006.  Exactly six years to the day from when our time together began and when she left.  Six years that I will cherish the rest of my life.  And when my time has come may I face it with the dignity and grace that I felt in that room, on that day, when we said farewell to the Queen.