Chicagoland
BJ Hutson Remembered
Passing of BJ Hutson, Founder of Downers Grove Area SFG Study Group
It was late fall last year when I received a phone call from BJ Hutson, the founder of the Downers Grove Area SFG Study Group which meets in my home. She had kept in touch with study group members although she had ceased attending regularly, and she wanted us to know that some time after she had been in a car accident, she discovered she had bone cancer. The depression she had been experiencing lifted with that news, she said, because whatever the outcome, she had time to think and organize and prepare. She said she was in a beautiful place, and that much love was being shown to her. Since the conversation was important, and it is my habit, as a writer, to take notes anyway, I recorded those parts of the conversation.
On Tues., July 26, 2011, I happened to come across the paper with those notes, while I was looking for something else. I noted the time, for some reason – and that evening learned that the time I rediscovered those notes was just about the time BJ died. Whether it was BJ herself prompting me to find them or my own spirit guide helping out doesn’t matter; the point was that those who would be grieving at BJ’s passing might benefit from the reminder in those notes that she was prepared for her transition. Special friends like DG SFG members Dorothy May and Diana and Brian Carter, some of the many who visited her regularly, feel that she did so with grace.
Her memorial service was held on Aug. 6, where Diana honored BJ further by delivering a very moving and eloquent eulogy. In it, she said that “BJ superlatively exemplified what we came to earth to do…learn about love. BJ knew a lot about that as demonstrated by the groups she began, the parties she hosted, the e-mails she sent, and what showed in her day-to-day actions from keen interpersonal insights to witty jokes.” In conclusion, Diana hoped we would remember the BJ who “danced with angels among mountaintop rainbows and soared with eagles as they aimed toward the sun.” I believe we will.
– Joyce Tumea, DG Area SFG Study Group Host