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| ©Steve Shilling |
I spent the majority of my emotional existence for today in Moorestown New Jersey attending the beautifully arranged memorial service of one Mrs. Mary Lou Marcucci. An extremely kind-hearted and humble woman probably scoffing at the formalness with which I just introduced her. I wasn't lucky enough to build a lengthy report with her but I had the chance to accompany her, her husband Richard Marcucci and a handful of classmates of mine on a trip of Eastern Europe. After listening to the accounts of this woman's beautifully lived life told by her friends, colleagues, students and family members I came away with a positive sense of the beauty of death. Today, there amassed a group of individuals, all of whom immensely affected by the love this woman shared with the world; they gathered in order to celebrate as Mary Lou would have wanted them to.
"I’d like the memory of me to be a happy one, I’d like to leave an afterglow of smiles when life is done. I’d like to leave an echo whispering softly down the ways, of happy times and laughing times and bright and sunny days. I’d like the tears of those who grieve, to dry before the sun of happy memories that I leave behind when day is done."
-Afterglow, by Helen Lowrie Marshall
The above diptych is nothing supremely executed. Both images were shot with my Blackberry quite spur of the moment actually. I'd like to think that somewhere the energy of Mary Lou (and what energy she had!) was influencing me. The image on the left was shot earlier today after the service during the reception just before I left. I was discussing some personal difficulties I've been experiencing as of late with one of my closest personal friends and a truly beautiful person at that Mrs. Priscilla Taylor-Williams. One thing I gathered from listening to the stories and the life of Mary Lou was be it a birch tree or a building there was beauty to be found in it. Keep your eyes and your mind open to all that is beautiful in the world.
During my four years spent at Moorestown Friend's School she as well as Richard Marcucci and Konrad Richter have been enormous sources of support and wisdom. I can without a doubt say that I would not be who I was today and who I will turn into tomorrow without having them in my life. I am truly honored to have been a pupil of theirs.
Never have I come across a more apt and positive example of the Walt Whitman quote "And I will show you that nothing can happen more beautiful than death."
Excerpt taken from: Starting from Paumanok
Sincerely,
-S.
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