My Sister Marilyn

This  is a celebration of a life well lived.  My sister, Marilyn, passed away one year ago,  October 15th, 2024.  

Marilyn was my best friend, she listened without judgement, only offered advice when asked, and we shared secrets we wouldn’t tell another soul.  Marilyn was one of my favorite people, we talked every afternoon.  Sometimes we shared current family news, sometimes it was memories from the past.   Sometimes she was anxious to tell me what happened on the View.  I never had any interest in what was happening on the View but I listened just the same.  Being a vegetarian, she didn’t have much interest in how I was fixing chicken for dinner either ,but she listened.

I met many of her friends at Fellowship Square, so each day provided a rundown on the activities and what we call ‘he said, she said’.  She loved her group of besties and enjoyed playing Pinochle, Rummikub, Jeopardy and participating in Conversation Cafe and WII bowling. When she stayed in her own little cocoon she enjoyed expressing her creative side while cutting delicate paper designs, or coloring intricate pictures and scribble designs.   

Our brother Bert, was the oldest child in our family,  Marilyn came along thirteen months later and I tagged along thirteen years later.  Marilyn always considered  herself the quirky one, after all, every family has one and someone had to do it.  As the saying goes, she marched to a different drummer.  Whereas Bert and I were pretty traditional in our thinking, boring even. Marilyn was more a new age thinker and never boring.  Bert and I were perfectly happy living in the same town, even the same house for thirty years.  Marilyn loved nothing better than moving every few years. 

Her husband, George, was in the military and over the years they lived in: Nevada, Colorado, Massachusetts,  Kansas, Nebraska,  Japan and England. She enjoyed their stay in Japan but loved England and all things British. Although it was the 1950’s when they were in England she still enjoyed following the lives of the Royals and, of course, tuned into all the British programming on PBS.  

Although Marilyn spent years teaching Sunday School  when her boys were small, she had always been more interested in spirituality than organized religion.  She read the Bible through twice and has spent time learning about Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism and investigating a lot of different worship ideas.  Marilyn always said she wanted to have her own church so in her 90’s she started the church of Marilyn; every Sunday morning she sat down to study. She kept a library of books and Unity magazines that she studied and used for her church.   An important component of this study time was journaling her interoperation and feelings about what she learned.   

Whether there is something more when we are through with this journey, she thought we might keep on learning lessons we didn’t learn in this life. She believed in keeping your thoughts positive and not opening yourself to fearful outcomes.  Marilyn strongly believed we draw things to ourselves with our thoughts. If you keep expressing your worst fear that is probably what you will get. Marilyn believed living your life with intention means you are stepping out of mindless activities and being on autopilot. You are ensuring your life is based on your own conscious choice of how you want your life to be.  We are co-creators of our lives. 

In  2023 Marilyn decided she needed a plan for her journey’s end. She was thinking about the Chinese New Year and was reminded that she and I and our dad were born in the year of the Horse. So it makes sense to her that she should leave this spiritual realm in the year of the Horse.  In case, like me, you don’t keep track of the Chinese Year the next year of the Horse is 2026.  

Giving it more thought she decided she should leave at Christmas time because that’s when her husband  and our brother passed.  After further thought tho, she decided that wouldn’t work because that was the zodiac sign of Capricorn.  My goodness she couldn’t make the transition in the sign of Capricorn.  Marilyn is proud of being a Sagittarius.  Nothing will do but that she move her date up to early December.  Marilyn ’s birthday is December 7th.  She would be ninety-six in the next year of the Horse, I suggested she wait until the next horse came around but she would be one hundred and eight and that was pushing her luck.  She said that I would be eighty-four in 2026 and she figured I’d be able to take care of myself by then.   

This whole idea may sound strange to some people but to Marilyn it made perfect sense.  Now that she had that settled she could make other plans.  She could look at a magazine subscription and decide to renew for three years because that will work perfectly in the plan.  She could look her savings and know she would have enough to last until 2026.  To Marilyn’s way of thinking she always had ‘enough’.  She never thought in terms of  lack, only in prosperity.  She was generous, always supporting her favorite charities.

I’m sure Marilyn would say that God had a better plan and waiting for the year of the Horse wasn’t in His plan. She was fine with that.  

Marilyn was decisive, when she decided something it was a  done deal.  When she was eighty-five she decided to sell her place and move into an apartment for independent living at Fellowship Square.  We went to visit Fellowship and came home with a map and some apartment layouts. Marilyn loved to treasure map so she put the map on the wall where she would see it every day and circled the apartment she wanted.  Apartment 150 was the one she decided on.  In her own personal style, she asked God for apartment 150 or something better. When Fellowship had a studio apartment opening it was apartment 126.  I was a little concerned, but not Marilyn, she said 126 was what God chose for her and she knew it would be better than 150.  She loved 126, she saw her friends pass by her window all day long.  

Marilyn tells the story about how our mother walked with her to school in the first grade.  One day they arrived late and school had already started.  Marilyn was so embarrassed walking in late that she was never late to anything again.  You could always count on her arriving fifteen minutes early.  

Organization was Marilyn’s Superpower.  Our house motto is a place for everything and everything in its place, but Marilyn carried it so much farther.  Not only was everything in its right and perfect place, the hangers in her closet all matched, no maverick hangers allowed.  They all faced the same direction, spaced just so apart and the clothes were color coordinated.  Drawers were filled with plastic dividers to keep everything in order.  Marilyn had an overpowering need to rearrange it all every few months and to purge things she didn’t need.  She read about the need to purge and learned it was indeed an obsession,  the opposite of hoarding.  

Marilyn adopted the tree that is near her patio. She introduced herself to the tree but she waited a few days before she asked the tree if she could hold one of her branches.  She felt  you couldn’t just walk up and touch a tree without first getting acquainted.  Marilyn called this her healing tree and she enjoyed sitting under it and appreciating the lacy leaves and the fine branches.  She and the tree visited often.

Frankly, other than this tree she wasn’t a big outdoors person, maybe in her younger years but certainly not much in the last thirty or so.  She never watched local news, so seldom knew what the weather was expected to be the next day. Summer is hot and winter isn’t, so that  covers it.  She had little patience for people who complained about the weather.  She just didn’t pay any attention to it.  

Many years ago, Marilyn spent two weeks studying in Unity Village in Missouri.  She always read the Daily Word and enjoyed the  affirmation  of the day.  She blessed me with the Daily Word  forty years ago and we have been reading it together ever since.  I think this affirmation and reading was especially for Marilyn.

Living Authentically Is One of My Greatest Freedoms

I am free to be me.  I honor who I am, a divine being with abundant spiritual gifts that express through me uniquely.    

There may have been times I thought I needed to be more like other people and not stand out.  I may have sought to conform, to tamp  down my individually.  But doing this robs me of my freedom to be fully who I  am.  

Today I reclaim my spiritual freedom by allowing myself to live authentically.  I need not hide myself or pretend to be something I’m not.  The key to living my freedom is being aware of my true nature as a divine being.  The love in my heart, the ideas that fill my mind are all divinely inspired.  How I express those gifts is my individually made manifest and the fullest expression of my freedom.   

As with any life well-lived, there is so much more to be said, so many stories I’d like to share.  I hope you enjoyed this tribute to my sister, I loved her with all my heart.  She is not only missed by me but her two sons, Geoff and his wife Lucia, Glenn and Bev, a family who loved her unique personality, and many friends who will remember her with love.