She lived three doors away on our short street and, at age 96, ranked as our most beloved neighbor. We all knew her as a woman who felt passionately about life and who approached daily living in the spirit of adventure. Always anxious to find out for herself what was real, she had a reputation for risk-taking.
In her twenties she lived in Paris and met James Joyce and his wife Nora. Maud also got acquainted then with Ernest Hemingway. Decades later, at age 79 she traveled alone to explore parts of Africa and returned changed by the experience.
In her 95th year, she exhibited her art for the last time. Till only a few months ago she continued to be active in our neighborhood, engaging passers by in conversation as she sat in her wheel chair outside on warm days.
Two weeks ago, however, Maud Morgan died, bringing to an end an earthly life which had touched a large circle of friends, neighbors, and colleagues. The people close to her felt a loss, of course, but most of us were moved to thanksgiving for her long life and for the vitality that she shared with us.
The “services in celebration of her life” were conducted by an Episcopal priest in a Unitarian church. As always when a friend has departed on the great journey forth from this world, I felt deeply moved in recalling her life and commending her to God.
The friend chosen to offer a personal remembrance did so with grace and style. Among other humorous anecdotes, she told of Maud buying a daring wedding dress when on a trip in Mexico in 1972 and wearing it to the amazement of all. The dress, in the words of the speaker, “protected the property but didn’t spoil the view.”
The speaker also told of Maud’s lifelong search. Among its parts were “mysticism, religion, and trusting in strangers.” Unlike most people, Maud distilled her experience of living in her art. She was convinced that you could not know anything in advance. “Feeling her way was her way.”
Since my teens, I have always firmly believed that personal life continues after death. To me, then and now, death cannot be the last word; human beings are too rich in reality for our lives to end with our last breath on earth. Whether by divine gift or not, I persist in believing that our destiny is life with God stretching forever.
This faith makes the prayers of a well-crafted memorial service so moving to me. Thus when the assembly recited the famous words of Psalm 23 – – “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me” – – the words reverberated in me.
Those words I first learned in the third grade in public school, amazingly enough; they have worked in me ever since, shaping my view of a world that is otherwise so often cold and cruel. But, the psalm says, God cares for us no matter what.
And the words of Psalm 121 evoke similar feelings: “The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in, from this time forth for evermore.” Nothing so valuable as a human being made in the divine likeness can ever leave God indifferent.
The great mystery of love and death will always fascinate spiritual seekers. Every time someone dies and we review the person’s life, it is a call to confront earthshaking mystery. How can one ever get used to such a tremendous event? I sometimes shake in wonder at the way things are – – that dying is the destiny of every human being in passage toward a fuller life.
How is it that the hymn to love sent by St. Paul to the Corinthians never fails to affect us after so many readings? “Now there remains faith, hope and love and the greatest of these is love.”
And next a hymn, simple almost to banality and yet filled with meaningful sentiment, brought tears to my eyes. “Now the day is over, night is drawing nigh,/ Shadows of the evening steal across the sky.”
Yes, Maud’s day on this earth is over but, her Christian faith proclaims that she will continue to live and much more abundantly. Her élan and zest for living cannot die; the personal love that we celebrated in church has embraced her with fullness of joy.
Richard Griffin