I am very late in posting this, but better late than never. I am one of the 2 people who accompanied Spring on her final journey, and I was honored to be present at her departure. Following is a slightly edited version of what I shared at Spring's memorial service.
Memories of Spring Friedlander - notes
We met at a regional cohousing conference in Sacramento in 1996. We both stayed at a house in N Street Cohousing. We slept on mattresses in a large living room. We started talking and found out we had many things in common.
We saw each other at various events thereafter, and began a friendship.
We evolved a pattern of getting together 2 or 3 times a month for a walk, a meal, and a nap. I learned about the virtues of napping from Spring.
Some things I learned about Spring:
She was the least defensive person I have ever met. She was very assertive, but always willing to hear my response and negotiate.
She was a problem solver. She was very intelligent, with many physical and mental skills. She viewed almost all situations as problems to be solved. Often this was helpful, but sometimes I needed to say that I was not looking for a solution; I just wanted to be heard. She would always respond positively to this.
She was also a master networker. Whenever she learned something new, she would pass it on to people she thought should know about it. She loved connecting people, especially connecting someone with a need to someone who could fulfill it.
She was very self-aware. She had ADD, and was up front about it. This helped me understand many things about her behavior. When I met her, her emotional awareness and social skills lagged behind her mental and physical ones. She knew this, and in the time I knew her, intentionally worked to develop these areas.
She had significant physical limitations, due to an accident that occurred before I met her and which injured her back. She maintained a complex routine of holistic health work, both with practitioners and on her own. This included a restricted diet that changed over time, on the advice of her practitioners. I learned the basics of her diet restrictions, and we developed ease when ordering in restaurants. She worked hard to maintain her level of activity and normalcy.
One of the most important things in her life was her house, Prudence Crandall House. This was a large house in North Oakland, which she maintained as a coop house. Shared living was very important to her both as a personal lifestyle and as a movement. One of her great frustrations was that she was never able to establish the kind of community that she craved in her own house, although at times she came close. As I saw it (and as I told her), one issue was that she wanted diversity in her housemates – diversity of age as well as race. She loved having children in the house, and enjoyed the opportunity to establish close relationships with them. However, that same diversity often meant that residents had different life goals and different priorities than she did, and they were often not willing or able to prioritize the household community as much as Spring would have liked. Also, there was a fundamental power imbalance. Spring was the owner and landlord; the rest were renters. Spring wanted an equal balance of power, but she had veto power, and sometimes had to use it when she felt the house was not being maintained properly.
I think giving up her dream and selling the house was one of the hardest things she ever had to do.
In recent years, I became aware that Spring was experiencing some deterioration. She could no longer take extended walks. (Neither could I.) She got thinner. She developed an allergy that bothered her more and more. She became less able to fulfill her time commitments. Being with her became more difficult, because it took her more time and energy just to maintain her body, and she was less able to be active and outgoing as before.
I know she was at least as aware of this as anyone. When she began to talk about choosing to end her life, I was able to hear her and find a way to understand where she was coming from.
It was always very important to Spring to be a contributor. Like me, she learned the Jewish value of tikkun olam – making the world a better place. I think it bothered her very much when her physical deterioration made it impossible to find energy to give to the community around her. She began to talk about wanting to end her life before she ran through her money, and wanting to leave her money to people and causes that would use it to help make things better in the world.
Spring researched her options for ending her life very carefully. Eventually she decided on going to Switzerland and using Dignitas to fulfill her last wish. I think she felt this would provide the easiest exit for her and be the least burdensome on those around her. She postponed the trip for many months, because she wasn’t ready (“First I want to go to the Jewish Film Festival,” etc.). Then, at the beginning of this year, she felt that her deterioration had increased to the point of being a burden to herself and everyone around her, and decided that the time had come. I was very honored to be asked to accompany her on her last journey on this planet.
On her last full day, we went up a mountain. At the top, there was snow, and a wonderful view of the surrounding area. I’m happy to think that this was one of Spring’s last experiences.
Carol Ruth Silver has written a report on the details of Spring’s departure. I will only add that she had absolutely no ambivalence or doubt about her choice. She affirmed it twice to the Dignitas doctor who visited her on 2 successive days. She affirmed it to the women who assisted at her departure. And once she drank the fatal dose, she lay back with a wide smile on her face, and started to sing! I believe she died completely happy.
I will miss her, of course. I choose to remember her as she was for most of the time I knew her: An active, socially conscious, community-oriented, generous, self-aware, always-growing human being, and a good friend.