LRRH con't'd

Readers: What kind of date do you think Big Bad Wolf has in mind?

(Spots by Pascal Lemaitre in Sept. 27, 2010, The New Yorker)

Wouldn't Mag have loved this? (See this post) as do I!

LRRH

Mag loved all the classic fairy tales. With her first grade classes, year after year, she used The Gingerbread Man in her curriculum with a great deal of creativity. Her class explored and discussed many versions of the story and always had a spectacular Gingerbread Tea in the fall when all the parents came to participate.

Her own personal favorite fairy tale was Little Red Riding Hood. There was something provocative and risque about the relationship between the wolf and LRRH. Mag believed that both characters lived in each of us as archetypes. Her goal was to love both roles and to nurture each appropriately, and she did a fine job all her life.


12/16/96

Emily,
I don't know if we're headed toward Grandma's but the trip sure is filled with adventures. May we wander off the path together many more times in the years ahead.

Right now I'm just waiting for that wolf to show up. If he doesn't come soon I'll have to go looking for him.

Merry Christmas

Love,
Maggie

Letter Packets

Some years ago, I was ruthlessly sorting and throwing things out. My correspondence from the previous ten years was spared . I have thrown out letters in the past and regret it mightily to this day. My plan on this day (perhaps the summer of 2000?) was to save many of the letters and label packets according to their authors. I envisioned bringing the bundles with me to a nursing home someday where I would wistfully go through each one and relive the memories associated with each friend. Some people to whom I told this plot thought it totally bizarre while others were hatching the same plot themselves.

Now that Maggie has died, I remembered that surely I must have a packet with her name on it. Yes, indeedy. It has been brought to my bedside where I read a few each night and call her presence to mind and heart. One of the last things I whispered in her ear was, "Think of all the secrets we have shared, Mag," and these letters are proof. Before reading them, I thought I might share them with her family, but have subsequently decided that they'll remain between the two of us, except for some loving excerpts and tributes to them

The letters stop circa 2000, as that is when email became so much more prevalent in my life. I love email because of the speed with which I can type and communicate, affording me a greater volume of missives and intimacy with others. Yet, there are no more packets in my future and for that I am sad.

Maggie's Presence

After our family/guests left this morning, we started the laundry and clean-up, preparing for round #4, which starts on Friday. The heat and humidity slowed us down and we decided to take some beach time. After all, we have a wonderful 660' sandy beach and don't sit on nearly enough. It's one of the dangers of having a year-round house on a lake. You're not really on vacation when you're there.

As I sat and swam and felt perfectly quiet and content, I thought of my dear Mag and how much she loved swimming. She lived just down the street, a block from the Atlantic Ocean and never took her location for granted. Her alternative home in NH, was near mountains and lakes and there, too, she always sought life on the water, delighting in fresh water as much as salt water. Earth's waters always restored and refreshed her and made her giggle.

In the last two years, she was rather reduced to sitting in her chosen spot in her living room where as she put it, "My world has become small, Em." I replied that was true, but that her small world was larger than most people's and had actually expanded in many ways. Because of her extraordinary ability to connect with people, with the spiritual, with possibility, this absolutely was true and she knew it. What a gift it was to have had her in my life and to continue to feel her presence.

Tribute to Maggie (Oct. 24, 1944 - Jul. 10, 2010)

My guess is that everyone who knew Maggie, secretly thinks that s/he was her best friend. Mag made everyone feel like the most special person in her life. She drew people to her with her immediate delight in their presence, her loving tolerance and her sincere curiosity about every detail of their lives.

Mag was the ultimate Question Queen. She had the propensity to aid people in understanding their own truths. Maggie was commited to insightful questioning, questions that inspired deeper introspection, clarifying questions, challenging questions. .She was a gifted, guiding, enlightening and most of all loving spirit like no other. ..

When anticipating time with Mag, I woud plan ahead with determination that THIS time I would ask her more questions than she would ask me. It never happened. I don’t expect she had a single friend who could claim that Mag talked more than she listened in the relationship. People of all ages flocked to her for her big love.

Even during my final conversation with Maggie, after her week of difficult testing when she lay on her bed unable to turn over or sit up, she continued to ask loving, probing questions about my life. For as long as she remained conscious, she displayed her abiding and deep curiosity about the people she loved.

There is no one who takes her place, serves her unique purpose among my friends and family. And yet, because of who she was, she has left me with the ability to continue our conversations spiritually and to remain together without physical presence.