Remarks, Snippets of Memory, and Loving Notes about my little sister, Elena
On the Occasion of her Memorial Service, August 11th, 2018
By the time we come to my comments, I am sure that we will have collectively met my goal for today’s event: To thoroughly embarrass Elena with all the attention and praise we have heaped on her today. I am sure she is looking at us over her proverbial glasses, with her eyebrows raised almost to her hairline, basically saying, “Are you done yet?” Well, not quite. My little sister…
• The one who was a runner and a climber at 2 ½ and who did not fall off the ocean liner on the way from Colombia to New York on home leave;
• The one who on her 8th birthday did not want to break the rule of no more than 4 kids in the tree house at a time. So when another guest wanted to climb up, she tried to solve the problem by climbing out of the tree house on to a branch—which broke and sent her down 20 feet to land flat on her back on the relatively soft ground—in between the wire fence and the concrete patio. She was sore but fine;
• The one who was a volunteer visitor/counselor to male prisoners while in graduate school, where she learned that this was not what she wanted to do in her life;
• The one who told her graduate school mentors—all Ph.Ds—that the protocols for the study they had asked her to replicate was flawed, which is why it did not work. When she repeated the study at their insistence, and it still failed and they still did not believe that the protocol was wrong, she changed departments to complete her MS in International Nutrition—a field she had to create the curriculum for, because they told her there was no such thing….
• This is also the person who, when first posted to Guatemala, decided that she wanted to drive her VW bug down, through Mexico to Guatemala, picking up the Pan-American Highway. She didn’t actually feel that it was a good idea to drive alone, so I went with her. (Big help, but we made it.) That is where the saying, “I bet you feel better now” came from, because we discovered that our metabolisms were totally different. She could get along for hours on a cup of coffee and a pan dulce for breakfast, whereas I became “peckish” after a couple of hours and needed protein soon! We would stop for a bite and invariably, I would get something down me, sigh, and say “I feel better now.” She gently teased me regularly after that.
• Elena valued family connections dearly. She was the impetus for a family reunion with brother John’s family in Washington state, with all kinds of fun activities like camping and canoeing. Dad was sure he would not be able to go canoeing, but she figured it out and I have a lovely picture in my mind’s eye now, of Dad sitting in the canoe, after a lovely turn around a beautiful lake, saying with wonder in his voice, “I never imagined I would ever be able to canoe again.”
• My sister never had her own children but when asked, often said she was borrowing mine. She always took her responsibilities as an aunt seriously, staying in touch with all her nieces and nephews, even when it was difficult because of distance and differences in interests. All my children went to Guatemala to visit with her, and Chuck and Keeley, John’s adopted sons came to visit her here when they were of an age to come visit an aunt. Then, last year, she had Charlie and Gia, Chuck’s daughters, come to Ox Hollow Haven in Texas with her. And she had a special place in her heart for Shahayla, brother Scott’s grandchild in every sense of the term. She valued education and enrichment for all of them, determined to offer them opportunities they might not have otherwise. She was a wonderful aunt.
• Elena did not talk about her work much to me—we were more interested in catching up on our far-flung family, but there are two memories I want to share. The first was early on—perhaps from Guatemala—when she told me about seeing a classified map—did not tell me any details, since she was scrupulous about maintaining security. What she did say was that she thought she had seen it before, when she knew she hadn’t. The map showed places in whichever country this was that were “hot spots”, areas of social tension and violence. When she thought about it she realized it reminded her of a map showing areas of food insecurity or malnutrition, so she got both out and compared them, to discover an almost perfect match. She told me because at the time I was Coordinator of Psychologists for Social Responsibility—an organization committed to using psychology to build cultures of peace with justice. She thought that this kind of evidence about the overlap of violence and lack of food would be useful to our thinking.
• The other memory I have is of hearing her voice break on the phone when I was talking to her in the midst of Hurricane Mitch in Honduras. She was checking in to say she was okay, but she told me about seeing the video of a woman, holding a young child, who had come to the highest ground she could find, and she was standing waist-deep in flood waters, just hoping that the water would not come higher, that it would not sweep her away, before someone came to help. To Elena, that picture epitomized the plight of the Honduran people as their entire country was inundated by that hurricane. She had such respect and affection for the Honduran people—their steadfastness and resourcefulness, their quiet dignity.
• I also want to tell the story of what Dr. Warren, her oncologist, said about his memory of their interactions when she first came to him, back in 1996. He said she was full of questions, concerns, researched everything he said and came back to ask for more studies on different aspects of the breast cancer she was fighting. He said he had begun to despair that she would ever accept treatment and finally gave her one more obscure study that he had found, which convinced her to go ahead. He said that she then followed every protocol, every suggestion (after thoroughly researching it), came in with nutritional ideas that she included in her treatment of herself, and proceeded to last long enough for the field to develop new meds that she could take when the cancer metastasized in 2011. She was wonderful to work with, but she kept him on his toes. Together they bought her many years more of good times with her friends and family. And, as Elena said, they understood each other.
• And, finally, I want to talk about mint chocolate chip ice cream. What a boon to mankind—and especially to Elena. No matter what, mint chocolate chip ice cream did the trick of setting her stomach, and she often ended the meal by holding up her spoon—saying, “I have a spoon,” so while I was in the kitchen getting ready to serve ice cream, I would not have to ask. It was a lovely little joke that carried us through many difficult times in the last year. And that is one of the sterling qualities I will always treasure in my sister. She looked at life with an “It is what it is” attitude and had a wry comment that helped us all smile at the human condition in all its complexities.
So, blessings on you my dear little sister. I love you and honor you for the pioneer woman you have been in your life, quietly and competently taking up the tasks that came before you, and leading the way for many, many who have found you to be a wonderful guide and mentor. May we all live as full lives as you have lived.