Remembering Marlene

Sometimes I walk the labyrinth to honor a person who has died.  On Tuesday night I walked for Marlene Linz, who died from cancer last Saturday.

The first time I met Marlene (I believe) was on the weekend that Peter proposed to her.  We were at Camp Mikell, where Peter and I had met as campers and served together as counselors and summer staff.  The first week I knew Peter, I was a rising sophomore in high school, and he was a senior.  I fell head over heels in love.  Sadly for me at the time, Peter fell head over heels for another girl in my cabin.  He was kind and gentle, but he had eyes for someone else.  At the end of the summer I wrote him a letter proclaiming my love for him, and he wrote back telling me he hoped we could be friends.  We have been ever since.

Over our years together at camp we grew close.  I so admired Peter for his enormous talents.  He could sing, dance, act, lifeguard, tell stories, and play guitar.  He loved puppets and hoped to become a puppeteer.  Best of all, he loved the kids at camp like I did.  Over the years I redeveloped crushes on him, but we were always best as friends.  We commiserated with each other through broken relationships and celebrated together when things were going well.  I often caught rides with Peter to and from camp sessions.  Once Peter drove 3 hours up from Atlanta to Sewanee, where I was in college, to sit and comfort me for a couple of hours during a particularly difficult time, before driving back 3 hours so he could be at his internship at the Center for Puppetry Arts the next day.  One of my favorite things in life was sitting around a campfire while Peter played the guitar, and we all sang along.

Peter and Marlene at Guest Camp

When I met Marlene at Guest Weekend at Camp Mikell one Labor Day weekend, I knew that Peter had found the perfect woman for him.  She loved him, but she did not get pulled into the "Peter fan club" behavior that some of us had a tendency to do.  She was beautiful and down to earth.  She was creative and practical.  I heartily approved and was thrilled when I learned he was proposing to her that weekend at camp.  I was blessed to attend their wedding and have visited them on and off over the years.

Peter's dreams came true as he began working on Sesame Street and then Bear in the Big Blue House and Between the Lions.  He and Marlene moved to New York where I visited them many times.  I was always impressed with how grounded Marlene was and how devoted she was to her children.  She also had a passion for pottery.  I prayed hard for her when she had to stay on bed rest for months during her first pregnancy with twins.  I don't remember exactly what it was she did during that time, but it was something creative that she could do from her room, and I remember appreciating her determined spirit. 

I later prayed hard for her when I learned she had breast cancer and again when I learned that it had moved to her brain.  Peter says that she did not fight cancer, she lived with it, and that is true.  Oh how she lived.

Jan and I spent New Year's with Peter and Marlene and their children in 2012.  Marlene was undergoing chemo and had her head wrapped in beautiful scarves.  I wasn't sure whether she would be up to company.  Jan and I were taking someone to a treatment center about an hour from their house, and they told us to come and stay.  Marlene sat in the dining room as the whole house centered on her.  She was very practical, resting when she needed to but still directing things from her spot.  It was clear that her strength fed the whole Linz household.  She told Jan that she drank 2 glasses of water every morning.  Jan has done the same ever since, and she thinks of Marlene each morning while she drinks her water.  Marlene was talking about dreams of helping women and children in Africa, even while she was in the midst of cancer treatment.

I didn't know the cancer had gotten worse until I received a message via Facebook that Marlene had died on Saturday.  I cannot imagine how Peter and their kids must be feeling.  I am glad that Marlene is no longer in pain, but I am deeply sad for her loss.

On Tuesday night I went to the labyrinth in her honor, even though it looked like it might storm.  Dark grey clouds loomed overhead.  Raindrops plopped down on my head as I wound through the first turns of the path, and I wondered how bad it would get.  Not bad at all.  Just a few sprinkles before the wind blew the darkest clouds to the east.  A mockingbird perched in the top of a crape myrtle nearby and sang through his repetoire of tunes.  As I traversed the outer circuit of the labyrinth, I heard an inner voice say, You have to let me go, Lauren.  I didn't feel Marlene's presence in quite the same way as I have for some others, but I realized I was, indeed, hanging on to her.  I didn't want to let her go.

As I walked I kept looking to the east, hoping for a rainbow.  It would be so perfect, I thought.  A rainbow for Marlene.  It didn't come.

When I reached the center, I looked west, where the sun was descending behind some clouds.  A few rays of light streamed out from behind the clouds - it was like paintings you see that make you think of heaven.  Sunlight and clouds and blue sky in the background.  Stunning.  No rainbow, but a glimpse of heaven instead.

Still, on my way out, I kept straining to see a rainbow.  Surely it's going to come.  And then I realized that it wouldn't.  That's for you and Peter, I seemed to hear her say.  I don't need anything so dramatic.  Ever practical, even in my imagination.  She died in her own room in the house she loved, surrounded by her family.  She is at peace.

As I left the labyrinth, I took a picture of a tall sycamore, illuminated with golden light, leaves quivering in the breeze.  It reminded me of Marlene, deeply rooted, its presence offering strength and comfort.  When I see it I will remember her. 

Although I didn't know her as well as I would have liked, I am so glad I was blessed to know her at all.

Farewell, Marlene.  May you rest in peace and rise in glory, and may God bring comfort to all who grieve.  Your spirit will linger in our hearts.

View from the DSU Prayer Station - Into the Woods

I prayed for a student with cancer today.

I cannot imagine.  As always when I pray for people with big, scary stuff, the words seemed so inadequate.  I have to trust that God speaks through them because the words seem so small, such tiny points of light to hold in a very dark space.  Like trying to light the way through the woods with a laser pointer on a night with no moon.  Healing does not always mean cure, and God's outcome is not always the one for which we've hoped.  Please, God, speak hope through the words that are too small to carry such a huge burden.

When I was a junior in college, my mother got cancer the first time.  My brother and I found out at Christmas break that she was going for an appointment to learn what it was.  I remember the day I got the call saying that it was indeed cancer.  I think it was a Sunday.  I don't even know how I got there, but I was wandering around in the street outside the old dining hall at Sewanee and I bumped into my friend Giles.  I think I told him.  He invited me in to the Banana-mobile, his big yellow station wagon that often let us know where he was on campus, and he played music for me.  Might have been Enya.  I remember being numb.  I didn't know what to do.  I didn't want to be alone that semester.  But I didn't want to talk.  I remember that I didn't tell my dear sorority sisters at first.  It seemed like I might crack under their love and concern.  I kept trying to hold it together.  I didn't know how to feel.  Though my head knew it was so, my heart had not considered that my parents were mortal. 

I wished.  And wished.  And hoped.  And prayed.  That my mother would live.

And she did.

I remember going to the rooms of friends and just sitting so that I could be close to them.  It was hard to focus on anything, and it was a very challenging semester of work.  I went home one weekend after my mother had her surgery, and all I can remember is how irritable I was.  I don't think I was very helpful at all.  I wanted my mother to be my mother.  I didn't want to take care of her.  I wanted her to take care of me. 

Today I was inside again for the prayer station, under the Into the Woods sign.  I went to see the movie last Friday.  "Sometimes people leave you, halfway through the woods..."  I am grieving for the people who leave us.  My mother battled cancer a second time, and she came out again safe on the other side.  I continue to be grateful for the extra time with her. 

It was very hard for me to cope with my mother's cancer when I was 20.  I cannot imagine what it would be like to HAVE cancer while in college.  I pray that God will lead the student I prayed for through her time in the woods and give her the comfort and strength and courage and support and healing she needs.  I wish...

We are not alone, but sometimes it feels like it.  I wish for this student that she would not feel alone, that she would feel God with her and that all who are struggling right now may feel the peace of God's presence.  There were two prayer requests today, two very big prayer requests, one at the prayer station and one from someone who saw our sign outside the chapel and came in for Eucharist.  "This is how you can pray for me," she said.  Please pray for them.

Prayer Station goes Into the Woods

View of the Student Union from the Prayer Station