death with dignity

Tributes and memories have also been offered since the funeral:

John Lahr:
‘Courage wants to laugh, and Margie brought a sort of splendid sourness to her long battle with cancer. “It would be churlish not to fear death,” Margie wrote in Cancer Curmudgeon — her blog, an exceptionally clear-eyed, occasionally churlish witness to her medical travail, her gallant way both to make meaning of the absurd and to thumb her nose at it.

Always the generous hostess, Margie’s piquant humor, it seems to me, was the consummate expression of something essential about her: her civility. It made her painful leaving of life bearable for us. She is/was/forever will be singular in the imaginations of those who loved her. An unabashed combination of curiosity and moxie, Margie was, as we say in America, one Great Gal.’

Charles:
‘Thank you for the call [Marjorie's friend Pat called many people to tell them of her death]. It was touching to be remembered by Marge after over 40 years — but typical. There are few humans of my acquaintance whose image is so fresh & vivid in my mind. I remember her hugs — though her kisses were for Bobby.

An American humorist from long ago once said “a stranger was just a friend he hadn’t met yet”. Once Marge met & liked a stranger, that stranger was on her list life long.

I docked at Marge’s commune most Sundays. Allegedly a lunch destination for my daughter — when she was too young to be aware of her environment — Marge’s company was the motivation for me (it certainly wasn’t the food in those years). She would be up & about though the household was usually stone quiet.

While Marge’s life was always full of drama, my most dramatic experience with her was when I needed a boat & captain for a risky mission. My nephew Artie Ross spent a year in London during the early 70s producing a documentary on Chaplin, as the facilitator for Bert Schneider. Bert produced in Hollywood: The Monkees, The Last Picture Show, Easy Riders, Five Easy Pieces, The King of Marvin Gardens etc. He was equally well known as the financial patron saint for the notorious & controversial Black Panthers. The co founder of the Panthers, Huey Newton, had worn out his welcome in his Mexico refuge hiding out from a murder indictment in the States. Bert recruited my nephew to move Huey from Mexico to Cuba on his 60` motor sailer that Bert equipped with new diesels, radar etc. Cuba was viewed as Huey’s only safe haven from extradition.

Unfortunately, their first night out sailing from Miami en route to Mexico, the boat sank. Bert panicked as Huey was at risk to either be extradited to the US or arrested in Mexico for new infractions. After hourly calls from him as to why I couldn’t find a replacement boat & captain in Miami (cost being of no concern), I appealed to Marge.

She instantly said the “Pirate” could do it. He was a periodic house guest after his trips from Columbia with “cargo”. Marge managed to intercept him in Jamaica and successfully recruited him for the task subject to Marge vouching that my guarantee for payment, and reimbursement if his boat was confiscated in Havana, was good. All went well and there was an extra special party when the “Pirate” arrived in Miami.

I think Marge viewed life as a party. Her task was to see that no one stayed home. I’m sure her new job is at St. Peter’s knee making sure everyone who enters joins the fun.’

Susan:
‘Marge was a wonderful friend. She was born into a privileged and neglectful family, as I was. We first bonded at summer school when we were thirteen, and realized no one had ever taught us to hang up or put away our clothes. Our room was such a shambles that on visiting days, other students brought their parents to see our room. I think of Marge as the energizer turtle; never rushing, but outlasting everyone, never stopping to say “I’m tired” even though she sometimes got a little grouchy.

We shared many adventures at college, in Miami and other places. She was the perfect traveling companion except for the times she lost her keys, passport or whatever. In Miami she hung out with ne’er do wells and social rebels but managed to get her PhD in early childhood training. A magical transformation took place when she moved to London where she turned into a world traveller, knowledgable in cooking, wine, hotels, plays; the go-to person for the latest information about everything. Aways generous, her home was open to everyone, as was her fridge and her pocketbook. Her relationship to her body was extraordinary, as was proved by her blog. Someone once said of Marge “if she fell down the stairs she would say ‘what’s that noise’?”. And so it was; her illness merely a noise that distracted her from the things she loved; her family, her friends, her food. We will miss her.’

Also, David Finkle’s obituary can be found at: http://huffingtonpost.co.uk/david-finkle/unforgettable-characters-_b_903580.html

This concludes Marjorie Walker’s blog: 100 posts.

Richard’s Tribute

It was just last Christmas, wasn’t it, it was the party for Margie’s birthday, her last birthday party. She’d insisted that nobody should waste effort and money and time on bringing presents, and I understand that. You get older in this life, and you’ve got the stuff that you craved for when you were younger and couldn’t afford it, and then people might give you presents for the sake of giving you a present, which neither they want particularly to give, and you don’t particularly want to receive it, and you end up with more stuff that you have to get rid of. She cut right through that, in that wonderful laid back way of hers, and said ‘No presents, please’.

And so we showed up and I though you know what, I’ll give her something with no package, no baggage to it, I’ll say a poem. And I thought you know Margie, she’s the same birth sign as Jesus Christ, and it’s deep midwinter, and so I thought I needed a poem that would speak to that. And also this hopeful, brave woman; I mean the cancer thing, it’s extraordinary, because whenever I was at Margie’s, it never occurred to me. The thing I felt most wounded for, on her behalf, was the damage to her voice. She was working with this kind of constriction in her voice; and you know she wasn’t like that normally, in the old days when I met her, and I felt sad for that. But she didn’t give a damn because this was just a condition, but you know, actually, living makes all of that redundant.

The poem I brought her then was ‘The last word of a Blue Bird’, by Robert Frost (see Birthday Party blog). It was written for a little girl, in the winter, about looking forward. But actually, when you think about it, there’s a whole different realm of meaning in the poem, because it’s a proper poem; and Margie and I saw it as a much bigger metaphor for her life.

And lo and behold she’s left a request that we do a poem today.

Margie’s life was such an extraordinary journey. As we all see here today, she touches people in wildly differing worlds, and lives, that would not normally meet each other; she was a great gatherer of the ungatherable. There is a Frost poem that begins ‘Something there is that does not love a wall…’, that talks about unexplained, mysterious natural forces, and Margie was surely one of those… but I think the poem that sums her up beautifully, again from Robert Frost, is this one:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Trudy’s Tribute

My memories of Margie will always make me smile. Our dear, adventurous, quirky, laidback but tenacious friend. It’s our travelling together that especially prompts memories about her spirit that I think you’ll identify with. I once joined Margie at Angkor Wat, in Cambodia. Margie’d planned the trip, and had of course selected the very best hotel, no less than the former prince’s summer palace, where Jackie Onassis used to visit him. Knowing that I loved baths, when I arrived she’d drawn up a huge tub and had it filled with rose petals – what a welcome. Duly refreshed, we immediately started exploring the wonderful temple ruins, and a tropical monsoon soaked us, so we went back to the hotel. I’d have settled for a long siesta after lunch, but Margie wanted further exploration. We didn’t have any dry clothes left, so she suggested we venture out in the hotel’s white waffle dressing gowns – nothing else on, just the robes. Other memories include being with Margie in Delhi, awaiting our friend Kathy’s arrival. Margie suggested we dress in local costume, the salwar khamiz, had our hair coiffed a la memsahib, and chewed betel nut. Our resulting appearance, including the red teeth, gave Kathy quite a surprise. In Jordan’s Petra, we pretended to be temple girls and danced the seven veils, having ensured no one else was around.

Margie also enabled her spirit reach countless strangers, through her brilliant blog, Cancer Curmudgeon. And with the help of Antonia, Margie was able to blog until just a couple of weeks ago, and the comments she received are amazing. [Here Trudy read a selection of comments, many to be found on www.opensalon.com, where Marjorie also posted.]
Margie, you were much loved, and you’ll be much missed; but your enduring spirit will always make us smile.

The minister then invited any of us to come up and light a candle, and say anything that they might want to share with the congregation. Reverend Ian himself began by lighting a candle in Hester’s name, ‘who’s sorry she can’t be here today, but her thoughts are with us all.’

‘This is Gerald. Thanks for this Quaker-like moment. We first met each other in the 80s, as part of the Patrons of New Art at the Tate. I’ve always, for whatever reasons, I always called Marjorie ‘Babe’; I want to remember her; I miss her enormously; and now we are all of us diminished, and always will be. My last memory of Babe was at my place in Tuscany, cooking in the kitchen, which she often did – chaos on the floor – the light and the life. Go peacefully, Babe.’

Iwona: ‘Bye Margie’

Anthony: ‘‘So many wonderful memories and experiences we shared with Marjorie, but I’ll just mention one. Whenever we travelled she had this uncanny ability to source out the most amazing restaurants, in the middle of nowhere.’

Pat: ‘I have to share that two weeks ago today I was sitting with Marjorie, and I said to her ‘Marge, you seem intrinsically happy’ and in her generosity that she used to share with all of us, she said ‘yes, I am intrinsically happy, and not only that but I am the happiest that I ever have been.’ I wanted to share that – and I also wanted to share that she did not die without knowing of the demise of the News of the World.’ [much laughter]

Scarlett: ‘This is for marjorie, thank you for being such a good friend and being so kind to me- I will miss you.’

‘I’ve lit two candles, one for myself and one for Sid, who couldn’t be here, but who asked that whatever ritual Marjorie had asked for, could we participate in it on her behalf. Sid was one of the Americans, like Susan, to whom Marjorie would offer endless generosity, as she did even to the odd English people she picked up on her way.’

Simon Parkes: ‘I am the person that Susan alluded to and I interviewed Marge about cleaning houses … and Susan and Marge and I once had a wonderful week in Maine, traveling around; we went into an antique shop and I saw a lovely chair, and I bought it, and it’s now in my bedroom – it’s very simple, with wicker seating – and I said to Marge ‘How am I going to get it home?’ And she just said ‘You’ll find a way.’ And I did. Thank you Marge.

Lutz: ‘Margie was a wise woman, I learnt something from her – not just one thing, but one comes to mind just now: that when hope fails you, there’s still curiosity.’

Rawle: ‘I lived with Marge as long as I lived with my own mother, and there are so many stories… the good, the bad and the ugly… But there’s one thing I’ll always remember, that I said to her about that big wall of books, ‘The thing is, have you read all those books?’ ‘No, but I bought them.’ [laughter]

Jane reads
‘Dialogue’ by Michael Hamburger

Tell us again of love and death,
Opposed, that we may picture both
Who cannot think them separate.
Death a mere empty frame we hate
And only love
At one remove:
So giddied by the turning wheel,
We need a mirror, loss, to see the loved one whole.

Never again, since she
First breathing on the mirror hid
The microcosmic mystery,
To leave us lost; till newly centred, grown
More partial, we should need
No other loss to prove
The wholeness of our love,
Nor any quickening discord but our own.

Susan’s Tribute:

Tribute by Susan Morris

I want to start by telling you about how I met Marge. I was awarded a Fulbright on film and television in London, and I called my friend Linda to tell her I was coming, and Linda said ‘How can I help you?’ and I said that I needed a place to live, and Linda said ‘call me back in 10 minutes.’ And I did, and she said ‘call this number, and no matter how much it costs, no matter what the conditions are, you have to take this flat, because it will make your entire time in London.’ And she was right.

So I got introduced into this extraordinary world of Marjorie Walker. I had the basement flat, but she gave me the room upstairs, that was my study, and we spent days and days and days together: excursions, shopping trips, travel, parties, all sorts of things. And at first I just couldn’t understand Marge, she had that very mumbling, soft-spoken way of phrasing things, it just tripped off, and I didn’t always get it … and then one day I was at a dinner party, that she gave because Matthew Collings wanted to know about the history of the Turner Prize, and she had been one of the original Patrons of New Art at the Tate, and she went into this whole other mode that I’d never seen her in where she was completely clear, articulate, straight line of thought, it was just another Marge. So there were these other elements that I saw that were just totally extraordinary.

But there’s a whole flood of different things that come rushing back to me, one of which involves you Simon. My friend Simon Parkes who does a lot of radio broadcasting, said he needed to do a programme on cleaning and he said what should I do, and I said I have the perfect person for you. And so Simon came over, and ended up talking to Marge about her incredible lack of tidiness, and taking her shopping for cleaning supplies [laughter], and it was just the most marvelous program, and totally Marge, who was completely upfront with her … issues.

Which also reminds me of a time in Conway Street when the house was being renovated by David Challoner and we had to basically work with her to make sure that the kitchen would not be open to the dining room, because if you ever did see it you would never believe …[laughter louder than speaker] the amazing meals that that complete tornado had produced.

And there’s lots of amazing food stories, all the cooking and the shopping, and all the rest of it, and one Christmas she begged me not to go to a Christmas I had arranged to attend, and it was just the four of us, it was Rawle, Mike, Marge and me, and it was just one eatathon. You remember that, Rawle, don’t you?

She had an incredibly long fuse for really interesting unusual people that many of use may not have ever tolerated. I remember one occasion in New York when we went to La Monte Young’s, and Marian Zazeela’s, he was an avantgarde composer who had his own kind of museum in TriBeca and we went up there and we laid on the ground looking up at this light show and hearing this music for I don’t know how long – it was just one of those crazy things. And then having dinner with them, with La Monte Young looking like Santa Claus in his fleece clothes … crazy crazy stuff.
Or the times that we spent in Italy at Gerald’s, with Yolanda, Yolanda will remember this, driving around – I was the only one who could drive a stick shift – going on these pilgrimages to see paintings, or to buy food, or to do whatever, at this incredible place.

And I do remember being in Florida where my mother lived, and her father lived, and Marge and I would be on the phone back and forth, trying to deal with our parents, and she said one of these extraordinary things to me ‘We don’t understand how much we disrupt their lives’; just one of her phenomenal insights into how we all work and move.

One of the things that is for me the most overriding was her phenomenal generosity; I think for me Marge was a person who expected nothing in return when she gave; that she never kept score when she gave, it was just completely heartfelt and and she could never give you enough. So when I was leaving London after being here for 4 years – originally supposed to have been 9 months and in part I think I stayed for 4 years because of Marge made my life so wonderful – she gave me a big going-away party, and what she did was she had a fortune-teller come, because she said: it’s all about the future, because we don’t know what it holds.

The Reverend’s Welcome:

We’re here to do honour to Marjorie Walker, and we’re here because in one way or another, death affects us all. My name’s Ian, and I was a friend of Marjorie’s for 18 years. We met when we were both selected for training as psychoanalytical psychotherapists, and we remained friends ever since. I was moved when during her first bout of illness, she asked me if I would be able to officiate at her funeral, were the worst to happen. Well, the worst did not happen, and Marjorie’s illness went into remission. However years later the cancer returned, and with it my plan to emigrate to Australia with my family. We all said what we thought then was going to be our final farewell; that was 7 years ago. But the cancer went into remission again, and we kept in touch by email, Marjorie in London, myself in Sydney. Seven years later, we decided, my family and I, to return to London, to family and friends. I let Marjorie know about this, and she said ‘I can’t wait!’ I said ‘You’ve got to.’ I visited Marjorie as soon as I got back, and that was in late March, and she was still walking around, but clearly unwell. ‘Thank God you’re back! I didn’t think I was going to make it’ she said.

On behalf of Marjorie, Mike her son, and myself, I want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for being here today. And I hope we will give Marjorie the best sendoff possible, the sendoff she deserves.

Marjorie grew up in the mainline area of Philadelphia, the daughter of Miriam and Mike Girsh. Her father was a successful entrepreneur. Marjorie had a difficult start in life; her mother had a breakdown, and was hospitalised. Divorce followed shortly after. Miriam remained in care of psychiatric institution for the rest of her life; her father remarried. And although Marjorie never spoke much about it to me, when she did it was clear that unsurprisingly it had impacted upon her life. She went to Bennington College boarding school, where she told me she flirted with the idea of being a Catholic. I was quite interested in this, and she said, ‘don’t get excited, it was only so I could have an extra day off, a Saturday and a Sunday’ and she said ‘anyway, it was too difficult to learn the Catechism, so I decided to stay Jewish’. Apocryphal? I don’t know, maybe, sometimes, Marjorie’s stories were apocryphal.

Marjorie married Joe Walker and she became stepmother to his son Steve, and then Michael here was born. Sadly the marriage was not to last, and they divorced. Because of her childhood experience, she developed an interest in psychology, and in particular the impact that the early years have upon our subsequent development. In her 30s she completed a PhD, and published her book Your child’s development from birth to adolescence, co-authored with Richard Lansdown. Marjorie lived in Miami during her young adulthood – her hippie phase, as she referred to it. Have we got anyone here from her hippie phase? That was wild. An interest in Buddhism followed. She described her home in Miami as a place which everybody gravitated towards, and she said to me ‘The house was always full of people; hippies, Buddhists chanting – oh the chanting – in hindsight I know it was hard on Mike.’

Mike and Marjorie later moved to London, she then worked for the Open University. She developed a serious interest in contemporary art. As I’ve mentioned she was selected to train as a psychotherapist at the Association for Group and Individual Psychotherapy, before transferring to the British Association for Psychotherapy. She spoke with great affection of her deep love for you Mike. In a whisper, only a couple of weeks ago, she said to me ‘He is my first thought upon waking, and my last thought before sleeping. I love him more than he will ever know.’ She went on to talk of the joy her grandchildren Juno and Clara gave her, and how much she enjoyed seeing them. She spoke with admiration for Hellen, her daughter-in-law; she said ‘Hellen has been amazing, incredibly strong.’

What’s a priest doing, taking a funeral for somebody who comes from the Jewish tradition, you might be asking. Well, the planning of this celebration of Marjorie’s life actually took place at her bedside over a period of weeks. We met twice weekly for four weeks, during which time she listened to the music, the prayers and the psalms that I suggested, and from those she made her choice. So everything that you hear today is what Marjorie chose herself. However, Marjorie was always one to surprise me, and no sooner had we agreed on what the service was going to be, I noticed that she snuck in ‘Amazing Grace’, from where? I don’t know, but ‘Amazing Grace’ came. The week before she died, she lay in bed propped up with pillows, and she fixed me with that steady eye she sometimes reserved for being extra serious, and she looked at me as if urging me not to forget this bit; with all the energy she could muster, her voice now little more than a whisper, she said ‘The most important part of my years in England has been my friendships. Every friend – and I mean every friend – has given me something of themselves. It has been very special. I’m so grateful. During these last months of my life, I have really enjoyed the quiet times I’ve had with friends. Let them know, let them all know; and you too – everyone should have an Ian. Tell them about mourning. I don’t want anyone to sit shiva; but it’s good to talk. Tell them to come back here for refreshments and to talk to each other, and to share their memories of me. And if it’s nice, they can take a walk in the gardens.’

Well, while this service is not in the Jewish tradition, Marjorie and I tried to be respectful towards her family’s religion, and althought she decided to use a priest, all the biblical readings are from the Hebraic Old Testament. Marjorie made me laugh when she told me ‘I didn’t even know I was Jewish, until my father took me to a room they were dedicating to my mother’s memory at the Synagogue.’ ‘Are you serious?’ I asked. ‘Nah, but it’s a good story.’

Marjorie would take a very serious situation, to which she applied her humour and intelligence, to provide a way of thinking about what was happening to her. Her blog, which some of you may have seen, ‘Cancer Curmudgeon’, is typical of this.

During the last period of consultation with me she became so sick and medicated that it was sometimes difficult for me to get all of the facts straight, so forgive me if in this eulogy I’ve missed some important points.

Throughout her illness, Marjorie retained her dignity and sense of humour; she always asked others how they were faring. Every time I went to see her the first question was ‘Have you eaten? Do you want something to eat? Do you want a drink?’

On Friday the 8th July, in the mid afternoon, she slept. Friends who were visiting her momentarily left her bedroom, to take a break and to sit in the drawing room. At that point, Marjorie Walker died, peacefully.

Richard’s Tribute

I met Marge in 1996, through my wife Iwona. Marge and Iwona became friends in 1993, Iwona had met her at some function or other just at the point when she was embarking on a freelance career as a curator and publisher. Iwona was officeless, and renovating her house, so basically had no place to work. When Marge heard this, she immediately responded by offering Iwona her office at the top of Conway Street. This was just typical of Marge, an act of spontaneous generosity, without condition or expectation of favour. As it turned out, and again this was fairly typical of Marge, the office at Conway Street proved a bit too chaotic [laughter]. But Marge’s generosity, and the contact they had there, cemented their friendship, and became the basis for something that was very important in all our lives.

I met Marge not long after Iwona and I got together, and the thing that first struck me about her was the slightly distracted, offhand kindness she showed to the both of us. She invited us to dinner as a couple, and introduced us to many of her lovely and interesting friends. She let us use her house one Christmas while she was in Miami, and she often called up with theatre tickets, or offers to cook the most elaborate, delicious meals. Over the years we grew closer, and when our daughter Bella was born, Marge had a hugely beneficial effect on her infant life, by lending Bella’s two rather ignorant and vaguely terrified parents her wonderful book on child development and parenting. I remember thinking, as I read the extremely useful and practical sections on caring for babies, that the book genuinely reflected Marge’s character. It was intelligent, practical, and most important it had no interest in making you feel guilty for not knowing how to be a parent. Our daughter Bella has been doubly blessed in our friendship with Marge, because a few months after she was born, Marge’s first and much-beloved granddaughter Clara was born. This had the effect of drawing our families even closer together, further enhanced by the arrival of her second granddaughter Juno. Marge knew my parents, and also Iwona’s parents, she and Mike and Hellen and the kids shared Christmases with us, and all of it was good. It is our hope, and I think was also the hope of Marge, that our families will remain close, that the children will remain lifelong friends.

My own relationship with Marge was very close, and forged, in addition to the more important connections I’ve just mentioned, in the most unlikely of places, in our shared passion for golf. I think it amused Marge that Iwona, who she knew to be one of the most sophisticated members of the London art world, had chosen to marry a suburban Canadian golfer, and more than that an unemployed suburban Canadian golfer, who had a lot of time on his hands to play golf. And golf we did, in all manners of weather, and on all manners of golf course. Through all of it – howling winds, horizontal rain, childish temper tantrums born of over-expectation – she was fantastic company, cheerful, amusing, and surprisingly competitive. We had great fun; and we met, due to Marge’s amazing talent for friendship, a great many lovely people, many of whom are here today.

But golf was only a small part of what interested Marge. Many of you here will know her through her intellectual interests: her long and serious engagement with Jungian psychoanalysis; her passions for the theatre and for visual art; and her keen and often sardonic interest in things political. Marge had great hopes for President Obama, and was I think of a generally optimistic, liberal disposition, both intellectually and politically. She liked to hear other people’s opinions, and she had a talent for gathering intelligent and opinionated people around her, to the immense enrichment of all those who knew her. Like many of you here today I witnessed and indeed feel in some odd kind of way to have been privileged to be part of Marge’s long and courageous battle with cancer. She fought this terrible disease for over 10 years. It came, and went, and came, and went; and finally came again to stay. Throughout all of it she was to me an inspiration: in her quiet and unremarkable way, Marge was one of the most courageous people I ever had the honour to know. I cannot remember a single moment in all the time that I knew her, when she felt sorry for herself, or complained about her illfortune. As the disease advanced in all its appalling cruelty, she never once succumbed to despair in my presence. She faced what was coming squarely and strongly, without evident fear, and with the most remarkable grace.

I think what Iwona and I will remember of Marge most vividly was her amazing talent for friendship. She was a good and loyal friend, who cared about us for who we were, and not what we could do for her. She was a gift; and we will miss her enormously.