a tribute to Margaret Lois

 Margie

a smile that lights up a room,

eyes that twinkle with a nature so good

that you know that all of us can only be better

by being around her

for no snake can come into the garden while she’s there,

and we rise toward being as good as she know us to be

when we’re with her,

each of the sisters has had part of Grandmother shine from them,

Margie, to me, seems particularly pure

to that same gentle accepting love that just flows and flows--

best friend to my mother from childhood on,

Jean “Little Mother” and Margie her faithful sidekick,

partner to Bus in a relationship

with no telling where one stops and the other starts,

completing each other in a fullness all marriages should hope for,

mother to 3 children as fine and full as any could hope for

who live the joy in life and love for others that cascades from Margie,

grandmother to 7 grandchildren who know how much they can be

to rise to be who their grandmother knows them to be,

what a family from which she came!

many bright shining men with their cities upon a hill

and just as many extraordinary women who enabled the city to be built,

who supported the men with their love and wisdom

and who build the home as foundation for the marriage and the family,

they who kept the home fires burning, the children growing true,

staying true and steadfast to the man

so he could be sure and reach high:

Cora Goddard, Mary Jane Sherrod, Elizabeth Ellen Wayland,

and back to and through

Priscilla Thornton,

she whose father also came to the New World in 1635

and whose love sustained her husband David Beaman

in Lancaster, Massachusetts,

all those folks across the long years

who met challenge with hope,

doubt with belief,

darkness with light,

Margie so much the center that holds us

so that we can spin in the whirl of releasing the best of ourselves,

not even death could stop the grand upwell of love

that pours through and from Margaret Lois Beaman Jeffries,

she who God let us borrow for too short a time,

and can you blame God for wanting her back?

by Henry Walker

January 9, 2007