ForeverMissed
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Her Life

Benji's Eulogy

October 25, 2014

Martha Bennington’s Eulogy for her sister Benji.

Delivered October 18th, 2014 at Burns Hall, the EastWest Center, Honolulu, Hawaii.

 

    I know Benji best from the bookends of her life, before the EWC and after the EWC.  Mostly I want to tell you about these bookend times, but also something on her EWC years.
     According to my mother, Jeannette (as Benji was always called during her early years) spoke at a very young age—and she spoke very well.  She loved nothing better than to be near people and talk with them.  She had a huge smile, no fear of strangers and related well to everyone.  She was an “easy” child. 
     But my mom was concerned that Jeannette had no interest in looking at picture books or learning to read.  She didn’t like coloring and just randomly scribbled across the page.  She never drew pictures on her own.  
     When she was 4 years old mom started to wonder if she had vision problems and took her to an eye doctor who examined her and exclaimed—“My gosh!  This child needs glasses!”
     The day they picked up her first pair of glasses, mom said Jeannette was unusually quiet in the doctor’s office.  Just kept looking around the room.  But when they stepped outside from the doctor’s building, Jeannette stopped in her tracks and her little mouth dropped open in astonishment as she looked all around her.  She looked up and she looked down.  She said to my mom, “Trees have so many leaves!”  Then she looked up at the sky and said, “Clouds are pretty!”  Jeannette had finally seen the world, and found it beautiful.
     She spent the rest of the day just walking around the house and the yard looking at things.  When it got dark, mom gave her a coloring book and for the first time in her life Jeannette colored a picture!  Within days she dropped the coloring books in favor of drawing. 
      Her first drawing, mom said, was of a tree.  Not just a generic tree but recognizably the tree that grew in the boulevard in front of our house.  The tree in the drawing was covered with tiny, perfect leaves. The drawing had a foreground, a background, and faint (but pretty!) white clouds in the sky.  It was art.  
     By the time she was 9 years old, and growing up in Indiana, no one doubted that Jeannette was going to be some kind of artist.  She could draw; she could paint; she could craft and she could sew...  She took every art or craft lesson my mom could find.  She started to enter contests.  First in 4H, then the county fair, the state fair, contests in newspapers and magazines.  She won or placed in so many of them! 
     She was a wonderful big sister!  If I accidently dismembered a toy, or gave my doll a tragic haircut—Jeannette could fix that. When I broke mom’s favorite vase, she could fix that too!  Good as new!  It took mom weeks to notice the vase was glued together. She always had time for me and never criticized me or picked on me.  She was just plain fun!
     Jeannette is 14 years older than I am. She left for College in the same year I started Elementary School.  We never lived together in the same house again.
      At her college, Western Reserve University in Cleveland Ohio, she studied Art, of course.  After her first semester there she became an official greeter for incoming new students.  She had the knack for mentoring young people right from the beginning.  It was at Western Reserve that Jeannette picked up the very cool nickname of “Benji” and was known only as Benji for the rest of her life.
      Her first job after college was as an Art Teacher at Roosevelt Junior High School in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and she loved teaching and creating educational tools, materials and programs.
      On her school breaks she used to go to New York City with our cousin Ruthie and the two of them spent hours and days going to NY’s great museums.  In the evenings they almost always scored tickets to a Broadway show.  Oh my gosh—she saw all the great Broadway Shows of the 50s and early 60s with their original casts!  My Fair Lady, South Pacific, West Side Story, Camelot—too many to name.
     While she loved teaching school, Benji wanted to see more of the world—more art, more life, more people.  She spent one summer doing a shoestring budget grand tour of Europe, seeing all the great art she could squeeze into 6 short weeks.  The next year fate sent her to Hawaii, for a summer art program. (That story is elsewhere on her forevermissed website. I won’t repeat it here.) After a few weeks in Hawaii Benji decided to stay and started looking for a part time job near the University.  
    Now the first bookend in my story is coming to a close. 

 

Benji found this new little organization called the EWC that was hiring.  Which is where all you people come in, and you guys know the next part of this story pretty well, maybe better than I do. 
     But guess what?  I have been looking at the EWC over Benji’s shoulder almost all my life, since I was about 12 years old.  I have some observations.  Maybe even insights. 
     Anyway, here is my very Benji-centric story of the EWC: 

    When Benji chanced upon the baby EWC, she was walking straight out of the mindset of the earliest 1960s.  For those of you who don’t remember the early 60s.  We were the generation that was going to bring peace to the world and understanding among nations.  It wasn’t a question of “if” we could.  We knew we could and we knew we would—it was just a matter of time. 
     So when Benji started working here, in 1961 I think, she saw the potential of the EWC immediately.  I mean she really, totally got the universal potential of the EWC.  She saw the EWC as both a microcosm of the world as it should be, and as an engine, a tool, to change the world.  
     When the EWC offered her the job, Benji jumped at it.  And she began in a surprisingly mindful way to influence the path of the EWC, to make it be the epic institution she wanted it to be. 
     She “tweaked” things—a very Benji move.
     The tools she brought to her  EWC jobs were simple, but formidable: 
                She had the ability to find and tell a compelling story. 
                She had a vibrant, out-going personality and people almost always liked her.  
               She knew how to mentor young people. 
               She knew how an educational organization worked.
               She was ethnically unprejudiced, and she was fearless
               But most important of all, I think, she was an instinctive, accomplished artist. 
     She had an artist’s eye for line and form, for color and design.  For when you need symmetry and when you don’t, when you need balance and when you need tension.  When you need light, and when shadow has meaning.  She mindfully applied these artist’s instincts and sensibilities to the mediumof the EWC.  She wanted the EWC to be a masterpiece! 

   The result, of course, was a wonderful and unique SYNERGY.  My Oxford Dictionary defines Synergy in part as The interaction or cooperation of two or more agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.” 
     Benji tweaked and synergized the EWC every day and in every way she could.  She tweaked and inspired individuals.  She told mindfully tailored and targeted versions of the epic story of the EWC, over and over to anyone who would listen—student, staff member, casual passer-by, people at every show, concert or event she ever attended—wherever in the world she was. And because of her powerful personality & story-telling skills, most people just believed her.  The EWC in that moment became entirely the epic and legendary institution she said it was.
     Every EWC event she heard about, attended or had part in planning was given the Benji tweak, the mindful fix of an accomplished artist. She never stopped tweaking. She even tweaked Directors and Presidents. 

    Every organization needs synergy to be great, and for the EWC Benji personified and super-sized that synergy.  The EWC was everything to Benji.  It was her best friend, her girlfriend, her boyfriend, her lover and her child.  She loved the EWC without reservation. Anyway, that’s what I saw, in all those years of looking at the EWC over Benji’s shoulders. 

    She wasn’t perfect, my sister.  I know that.  Sometimes her boundless self-confidence could translate into high-handedness. She could be careless of details.  Sometimes she took the people she loved most for granted.  And oh my gosh—she could be crazy stubborn, just crazy stubborn over things that make no sense to me!
     But we are none of us in this world required to be perfect. We are, I think, required to be kind.  And Benji was kind. We are required to try, to aspire.  And Benji tried with all her heart.  She did.  You all were lucky to have her!

 

    And that brings me to the second bookend of my story—Benji’s last years, living close by me in Minnesota. 

    We were sisters who knew each other, and yet didn’t know each other.  Remember, I last lived with Benji when I was just 5 years old.  But turns out?  We were so compatible in so many ways.  We shared a similar point of view on the world, and world affairs.  She had lived and travelled in Indonesia and many other places in Asia; I had lived and travelled in India.  We both loved and collected Asian art.  We liked exotic foods. We read many of the same authors. 
     So we had a lot of fun in those first couple of years. Benji had enough energy that we could go out to see shows and museums.  She loved going out to lunch and we searched the Twin Cities for ethnic restaurants that could give her the flavors she craved from her Hawaii years.  We found more of them than I knew existed in Minnesota.  And we played cards.  Lots and lots of lots of cards.   

    After the first couple of years Benji slowed down a lot.  Her mind was good, her personality intact, but her body was failing. In January of this year she was briefly hospitalized with a septic infection, and then spent the next 3 months in a nursing home, recovering from open sores on her legs that would not heal. 
      She returned to her apartment in early May, happy to be home—but weaker. She had trouble walking.  She couldn’t do stairs at all.  A simple curb defeated her.
     She had down-sized her apartment three times while she lived in MN, going from a lovely, spacious 2-bedroom place, to a 1 bedroom, to a smaller one bedroom. Just before she passed away, we had signed her up to move into a studio apartment, with heavy assistance, the very next month. 
     Walking even 20 or 30 feet had become an enormous chore.  She started falling.  But she never complained.  Well, hardly ever…  She was unfailingly cheerful. Benji always and forever looked forward to the next great thing, the next fun event.
     My husband Tom, my daughter April and her fiancé Andy were wonderful to Benji.  They welcomed her to be part of all our family holidays, our birthdays, our random events.  They helped her in and out of cars and houses.   They carried her stuff. They listened to her stories. They made her feel loved. Family is a wonderful thing.  They are there when you need them the most.  I am so glad for my family! 

    The week before her 80th birthday, which was on August 17th, Benji fell and dislocated her shoulder. It was an uncomplicated dislocation, easily repaired, but I think it left her weakened and a little depressed.
     It also meant that she couldn’t get into our car and go out for her birthday party.  We had promised her a late brunch at a very trendy new place in Woodbury, one that was famousfor their Bloody Mary bar!  As you may recall, Bloody Mary’s were one of Benji’s favorite drinks.  Instead we had her 80th birthday party in the community room of her senior center.  April or Tom, I forget which, pushed Benji from her apartment to the big community room in her brand new wheelchair. It was a simple family party, and Benji was happy. 

    A week after that, on August 25, as I arrived for our regular Monday afternoon card game, I found Benji sitting in her recliner in front of the TV, snoring softly. The morning paper was at her side.  One arm trailed to the floor. At first I thought she was just sleeping, because Benji was known to have irregular sleep habits and quite often would be dozing when I arrived.   So I sat down beside her.
     After a minute or so of sitting and waiting for her to wake up as she usually did when I sat by her, her breathing sounded funny to me. So I tried to wake her up.  I shook her arms, which seemed way too limp. I shouted her name. Nothing.  She was unresponsive.  So I called 911.
     They took her first to our local hospital, then to Regions Hospital in St Paul, where all the best specialists are.  She remained unresponsive through all this commotion of transfers and doctors’ examinations.
     Her blood pressure on first admittance to hospital was perilously low.
     Her heartbeat was irregular. 
     They thought she might have a collapsed lung.
     They were sure she had another massive infection.  Sepsis.
     She had multiple CT scans and MRIs.  These showed no obvious damage to her brain. But she never did wake up. 
     Her medical directives were clear, and recorded in her chart. DNI—Do Not Intubate DNR—Do Not Resuscitate. She told people here she had had a wonderful life, and she did not want to be kept alive by machines.  When it was her time, she was ready to go. 

    For the next 6 days we all sat vigil.  Mostly me, but April came regularly too and spent time with her.  I called some members of our extended family and told them that Benji was dying.  I said that I would put the phone up to her ear if they wanted to say goodbye, but that she couldn’t reply.
      We tried to never leave her alone.  I knew she did not want to die alone.
      April recorded some Hawaiian music, so Benji could have something of Hawaii to listen to as background. I talked to her endlessly.  I told and retold some of her favorite stories— mostly stories from Hawaii and the EWC.  I told her my favorite family memories with her. I told her people were calling from all over, and sending their love—because I knew so many of you would call, if you had only known she was dying. 
     She never did wake up.  Was she there?  Was her mind present?  I don’t know; I really don’t.  Maybe.  Her body was minimally functioning.  She didn’t seem to be in any kind of pain.
     By Saturday, August 30th, she looked, I don’t know, smaller. Less present. More peaceful.
     Sometime in the early afternoon, her breathing changed and I felt compelled to get as close to her as I could.  I put my left arm around her head and my right arm across her chest.  I said “Benji, Benji, I’m here and I’ve got you, kid!  I’ve got you.” and “I love you, Benji.” She took three steady, measured breaths and then she just stopped.
     I couldn’t believe it. 
     Benji was gone. 
     How could such a huge personality just be gone? 
     And I cried. 

The day that Benji died was a perfect summer day in Minnesota.  The sky was a brilliant robin’s egg blue, and it was filled with pretty white clouds.