We spent the week just south of Taos, New Mexico, near the Rio Grande Gorge, accompanying my brother-in-law, Miles, as he passed from this life.
It’s hard to believe that just a few months ago, he was with us in Palm Springs for our Christmas gathering. His vibrance and humor were unmistakable—he lit up the room. But the cancer he’d been quietly living with took hold quickly after that.
Miles was a gifted potter—50 years at the wheel. I remember a set he created after the Mount St. Helens eruption, using ash that had settled around his Seattle home. Out of chaos, he created something beautiful. That was Miles in a nutshell.
Walking through his studio last week, I was struck not just by the sheer volume of his work—wheels, kilns, shelves of pots, clay everywhere—but by how much of a scientist he was. Glaze test tiles, pH strips, hydrometers, specific gravity charts, oxide samples, notebooks full of glaze tests and firing schedules. He was always exploring, always learning, always tinkering.
And there, on his desk, right beside his glaze notes, was a book of poetry by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. It was open to a group of poems on death. The one that caught my eye was “I Wage Not Any Feud with Death.” A verse struck me as just right for him:
Nor blame I Death because he bare
The use of virtue out of earth;
I know transplanted human worth
Will bloom to profit otherwhere.
Surrounded by his tools, notes, and art, it was clear that Miles had already come to terms with his impermanence.
After his passing, friends and family reached out to share stories and support. One came from our son-in-law, Bill, who remembered a typical Miles moment: thirty years ago, our daughter Corinne went to answer the door at their home in Lincoln, Nebraska. When she opened it, there was Miles, unannounced and unexpected, on a cross-country trip delivering pottery to clients. He stayed a few days and, as always, left behind a few pieces of his work. Bill texted a photo of the bowls and dishes—they’re still in use today. “Miles’ hands,” he wrote, “are on every mug, plate, vase, and pitcher.”
His legacy lives on in the things he made.
That’s What’s Next, I think.
Not just death—but the imprint we leave. The objects we shape. The people we touch. The quiet ways we keep showing up.
Sometimes What’s Next isn’t reinvention. It’s continuity—how what we’ve done carries forward, even when we’re gone.
And sometimes it’s just clay, a kiln, a glaze recipe… and a poem left open on a workbench.
