{"id":626,"date":"2018-05-30T22:00:01","date_gmt":"2018-05-31T05:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.diamantineclarity.com\/bjou\/?p=626"},"modified":"2025-06-04T01:22:42","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T08:22:42","slug":"immortal-beloved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.diamantineclarity.com\/bjou\/2018\/05\/30\/immortal-beloved\/","title":{"rendered":"Immortal Beloved"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

(poem: W H Auden)<\/em><\/p>\n

Shawna Denise Hensley<\/p>\n

April 5, 1972 \u2013 December 15, 2017<\/p>\n

Requiescat In Pace<\/p>\n

520 530<\/p>\n

My Heroine For All Time.
\nLove, Always,
\nForever, and Ever,
\nand Then Some….
\n\u2013 William<\/p>\n

Ave Atque Vale<\/p>\n

\n

Shawna’s death notice, obituary and online memorial were scant, almost nonexistent. This is what they should<\/strong><\/em> have said, at the very least, and even this does not do her justice:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Shawna Denise Hensley, born April 5, 1972 in Nevada City, CA, passed on December 15, 2017, age 45, in Davis, CA due to a tragic accident. Shawna was a truly wonderful person. The kind of person who, after they have passed, you do not have to skew the facts, or build up their life-reality, or outright lie, about who and what they were and chose to be and what they did, and how they lived their life, just to make them sound decent or good.<\/p>\n

Shawna was a rare, truly good person, genuinely kind and caring toward all, human animals and non-human animals alike, and our mutual, shared environment. She lived her life as a compassionate, empathetic, pacifistic, non-violent woman in more ways than most people can muster. She left behind so many people who cared about her they are almost innumerable. Shawna positively affected everyone with whom she came into contact, and made their lives better through that interaction, whether they realized it, or acknowledged it, or not. She was an activist at heart, always striving to help make the world a better place, in many, many ways.<\/p>\n

That being said, Shawna was imperfect, as are we all, with all the faults and frailties and shortcomings and flaws that we all share, as part of the Human Condition. She always sought the truth, and would not want us to shy away from it now. However, I reserve the singular right to perceive her as ‘perfect’ in my mind’s eye, a shining shimmering diamond in the rough. As it is, it would behoove all to attempt the near-perfection she was working on. Her physical beauty was surpassed only by her inner beauty.<\/p>\n

Shawna attended Nevada Union High School in Nevada City, CA (Class of 1990), and California State University at Chico (CSUC). She achieved much in her shortened life, as bright, smart, intelligent people are wont to do. If you were lucky enough to share in one of her life-adventures, you had no idea how lucky you were.<\/p>\n

Shawna is survived by her family, her mother, Linda Hensley, her father, John Hensley, and her sister, Kristen Hensley, all of Shawna’s hometown of Nevada City, CA, companion, Seth Hanowell, of Davis, CA, and long-time friend, William Donnelly, of Chico, CA. A memorial service was held on Saturday, January 27, 2018 in Nevada City, CA.<\/p>\n

She will be missed by many, but none more so than I.<\/p>\n

R.I.P.<\/p>\n

Shawna Hensley; Shawna D. Hensley; Hensley, Shawna Denise;<\/p>\n

\n

Sudden Light<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have been here before,
\nBut when or how I cannot tell:
\nI know the grass beyond the door,
\nThe sweet keen smell,
\nThe sighing sound, the lights around the shore.<\/p>\n

You have been mine before,\u2014
\nHow long ago I may not know:
\nBut just when at that swallow’s soar
\nYour neck turn’d so,
\nSome veil did fall,\u2014I knew it all of yore.<\/p>\n

Has this been thus before?
\nAnd shall not thus time’s eddying flight
\nStill with our lives our love restore
\nIn death’s despite,
\nAnd day and night yield one delight once more?<\/p>\n

\u2014 Dante Gabriel Rossetti<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

Death Is Nothing At All<\/strong><\/p>\n

Death is nothing at all.<\/em>
\n It does not count.<\/em>
\n I have only slipped away into the next room.<\/em>
\n Nothing has happened.<\/em><\/p>\n

Everything remains exactly as it was.<\/em>
\n I am I, and you are you,<\/em>
\n and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged.<\/em>
\n Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.<\/em><\/p>\n

Call me by the old familiar name.<\/em>
\n Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.<\/em>
\n Put no difference into your tone.<\/em>
\n Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.<\/em><\/p>\n

Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.<\/em>
\n Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.<\/em>
\n Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.<\/em>
\n Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it.<\/em><\/p>\n

Life means all that it ever meant.<\/em>
\n It is the same as it ever was.<\/em>
\n There is absolute and unbroken continuity.<\/em>
\n What is this death but a negligible accident?<\/em><\/p>\n

Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?<\/em>
\n I am but waiting for you, for an interval,<\/em>
\n somewhere very near,<\/em>
\n just round the corner.<\/em><\/p>\n

All is well.<\/em>
\n Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost.<\/em>
\n One brief moment and all will be as it was before.<\/em>
\n How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014 Henry Scott-Holland<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Inscription For A Gravestone<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am not dead, I have only become inhuman:
\n<\/em>That is to say,
\n<\/em>Undressed myself of laughable prides and infirmities,
\n<\/em>But not as a woman
\n<\/em>Undresses to creep into bed, but like an athlete
\n<\/em>Stripping for the race.
\n<\/em>The delicate ravel of nerves that made me a measurer
\n<\/em>Of certain fictions
\n<\/em>Called good and evil; that made me contract with pain
\n<\/em>And expand with pleasure;
\n<\/em>Fussily adjusted like a little electroscope:
\n<\/em>That’s gone, it is true;
\n<\/em>(I never miss it; if the universe does,
\n<\/em>How easily replaced!)
\n<\/em>But all the rest is heightened, widened, set free.
\n<\/em>I admired the beauty
\n<\/em>While I was human, now I am part of the beauty.
\n<\/em>I wander in the air,
\n<\/em>Being mostly gas and water, and flow in the ocean;
\n<\/em>Touch you and Asia
\n<\/em>At the same moment; have a hand in the sunrises
\n<\/em>And the glow of this grass.
\n<\/em>I left the light precipitate of ashes to earth
\nFor a love-token.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

\u2014 Robinson Jeffers<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n