maddy

Maddy, I've been thinking so much about you the last several days. Remember the day we spent in Miami Beach before our wedding and how we got so sunburned? Having you there on my wedding morning gave me such a warm feeling; I'll never forget laughing with you and eating bagels and orange juice in the suite while I fixed my hair before the ceremony. The best part was riding back to the hotel after the reception in that convertible, my veil blowing in the Florida breeze and us finishing off the last bottle of champagne. Thanks so much for being there that day... it meant the world to me. I love you! - Jamie

What STella said.

But don't go gently or forget to rage.

Phil

Maddy, I love you, and I wish you the mercy of a god created in your own beautiful and compassionate image. Go happily, if you MUST go!

STella

Maddy, I just spent 3 days with my family in Connecticut and they all have you in their prayers. The nieces and nephews, who were young chidlren when they first met you, are now adults (some with children of their own). They remember CYRIL-your stuffed hippo who would say outrageous things to their parents like "stopping picking on that child old cow" or "feed them chocolate, chocolate, chocolate not string beans silly parent"...they wish you peace and safe passage.

My son Simon and I sat today and went through photo albums of you and he. You gave him his first solid food (you looked quite attractive in the photo where he spit it back in your hair-captured on film for all times). Again, you let stuffed animals talk to him and let him tell them his problems and worries.

Last year you told me that I was a good parent and that he didn't think of washing the dishes because his brain wasn't totally formed yet. You took me off the hook and, by the way, his brain some how formed and he washes the dishes all the time. I wish you could now tell me when he'll get a job!

Now I'll tell your Philly and other friends something they probably don't know: Maddy lived with my husband and I for quite some time and this brilliant, intellectual, articulate, educated woman and I would have Harlequin Romance (the "lusty ones") marathons and see how many we could read in one night (they are all 183 pages). Our record was 5 each and we learned a fact about male anatomy: men have throbbing "thighs" - it remained a joke between us for the past, oh my God, 27 years that we have known each other.

Jean asked me the other day where we would put all the love we have for you if you left us-it would make such a big tear in the fabric of the unvierse.

I will find a place for the love I have for you-don't know where or how--but without that love I wouldn't be whole.

I love you Maddy and you taught all of us so much and made us work to be our best.

Jean and Luce-I send you love as well because you are both with a close friend and will loose her and miss her and mourn her and then cherish her. Staying behind is even harder.

Ruthie

You are in my thoughts and prayers. Basil and I have been talking about you - he sends his love.

Love you, Brenda