Carla Miller passed away on Friday November 23, 2007. She had been a Trinity County resident since 1978 and has been an environmental activist since 1984. She was a director of Safe Alternative for our Forest Environment (SAFE), the Editor of the monthly SAFE newsletter, SAFE NEWS, SAFE's treasurer/bookkeeper and the SAFE representative to the Trinity County Natural Resource Advisory Committee (NRAC, which advises the County's Board of Supervisors). She was also an Administrative Assistant to the South Fork Coordinated Resource Management Plan's (SFCRMP's) Coordinator and to the South Fork Trinity River Land Conservancy (SFTRLC).

The evening after Thanksgiving Susan Bower was very honored - and delighted for Hayfork Valley - to be invited to give the little talk accompanying Dawn Hospice's fifteenth lovely "Light up a Life" ceremony on the lawn of Highland Art Center.  It's focus is to honor those in our community who are dying, and the family, friends and Hospice Workers surrounding them with love and support. Just hours before she was to speak, one of Hayfork's offspring and dear friend, Suleika Porritt, forwarded the poem below which Susan read at the Lighting ceremony.

When Susan arrived home from this most inspiring event, Tom Stokely called with perfectly timed news about the perfectly timed passing of Carla Miller.  She had spent a lovely Thanksgiving with friends at one of their homes and afterwards taken home by them.  When she didn't answer the  phone the next morning, one of those friends went to Carla's house and found her peacefully dead on her couch.  Perfectly timed, because Carla was experiencing and facing increasing pain and severe degeneration of her body, of her "worn out shell".

Carla indeed did use her precious piece of life to help the life of our community in many ways.  For SAFE, she performed many tasks including editor of the Safe News which she so diligently and regularly helped produce for many, many years.  SAFE's most creative fundraising efforts were often thought up and organized by Carla. In fact, her very last call to Susan was with ideas to raise money for SAFE.  Carla also contributed her time and talents to a multitude of other community groups, especially those centered in Weaverville.

SAFE's recent dinner honoring Carla and Bill was most timely and enjoyed by all.  Please stick around Bill; we so enjoy you and are awed by your most excellent and cogent letters-to-the-editors.

In this season of song, of lifting up once again those battered goals and ideals of humankind: love, peace and joy - for starters - we sing you a song of thanks Carla.

And we take time to remember your contributions with gratitude:

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This is a poem written by a teenager with terminal cancer. She wants to see how many people get her poem.

SLOW DANCE

Have you ever watched kids
On a merry-go-round?

Or listened to the rain
Slapping on the ground?

Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight?

Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?

You better slow down.
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.

Do you run through each day
On the fly?
When you ask,“How are you?”
Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done
Do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores
Running through your head?

You'd better slow down
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.

Ever told your child,
We'll do it tomorrow?
And in your haste,
Not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die
Cause you never had time
To call and say,"Hi"

You'd better slow down.
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.

When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift....
Thrown away.

Life is not a race.
Do take it slower
Hear the music
Before the song is over.