Dear Tim,
I first met Harvey maybe eight years ago. It was my second or third workshop, and I had been in RC less than six months. My first impression was that I could listen to him for hours, and I did-for that evening he talked on into the night until 2:00 AM. I was fascinated. I remember staying awake and transfixed, my attention never wavering. I felt happy and hopeful the more I listened.
The next day as I walked into the lunch room, there he was. I said hi, and he held my hand as we got our lunch trays. I asked him to tell me about his life, and he did. Then we sat down together at a table where we were joined by others, and he asked me if I had anything I wanted to talk about. I said no, that I just wanted to listen in. I was impressed as people around me burst into heavy sobbing or shaking when it was their turn and wondered what he did to make them discharge so.
He asked me if I thought RC was for working-class people. I replied yeah, but that it was going to take a lot of work. Meeting your father felt easy, natural, and effortless. He made me feel like I had come home.
Then he asked me to promise to write him once a month. I felt so important and honored and said that I would. But when I sat down to write him I didn't feel I had anything important to say. Finally I wrote him about something I felt real happy about, and it got published in Present Time.
Several years later, things in our Community got hard for me. I wrote your father another letter about having to interrupt the serving of grapes at four out of the last six workshops I'd been to. In the process of editing the letter, he made three phone calls to my house, all of which I recorded and still have on tape. He says in a deep, deep voice, "Leticia, this is Harvey Jackins." He published that letter in Present Time, too.
I heard Harvey was leading a workshop in New Mexico, just before the Worldwide Conference, and felt joyous that it was not too late to see him one more time. He was brilliant, though he was having a hard time with his memory and a hard time breathing. I thought for the whole workshop about counseling directions for him.
I vowed I would go home and write him a letter with all the thoughtful contradictions I could think of. I regret that he died before I got to write that letter, but I am thankful I get to write this one to you.
I feel truly blessed that I got to meet your father. I will be forever grateful to him for the way he touched my life.
Leticia Reveles
Austin, Texas, USA