Dear Amelia,
I'm just home from your memorial service, which was SO like you: the old-time music, the poems, the prayers, the dear little curly-headed blonde in a blue satin dress dancing in the aisle; another, slightly older, in an elegantly spangled froth of a dress and a hat with a feather -- an outfit fancy enough to meet the queen; at least a hundred bowed heads of every age, their voices blending together in prayer,singing along quietly with first recorded music, then guitars played by your son Dan and a younger, dark-haired fellow in a dark suit -- it was beautiful, Amelia, so touching -- and then the doves soaring up from your children's and grandchildren's hands into the brightest, bluest of October skies, all those tear-bright faces watching the snow-white birds dip and swoop and wing away west, then north over the chapel roof in perfect formation. You'd have loved it all, every person, every moment!
Your life, Amelia, has been a candle in the window for so many. So may it continue, through the agency of your poems, and the memories we carry of your gentle voice and humor, your unfailing kindness, your wonderful smile. How grateful I am to have known you -- and to have been there today, to bid you not good-bye, but so long. So long till we meet again, dear friend, as I know we will, at an even bigger party, one you won't have to miss.
Till then, I will remember you with love. You, and dear Max, and Dan, and Pam -- ALL your children and their children -- every single sister, brother, cousin, aunt, uncle, nephew, niece -- everyone who carries a bit of your light, your life, your love.
Always, Marjorie##imported-begin##Marjorie Rommel##imported-end##
