Bob Myers, a prof of Maddy's from Widener who she cherished could not be at her memorial, but sent these memories to share. Jean O.
I first met Madeleine when she enrolled in the Psy.D. program at Widener University. In her first semester in the program, she was required to take a course I taught that concerned child and adolescent development and the treatment of the sort of problems they sometimes have. Aside from the fact that she stood out in the class by virtue of being a non-traditional student in the program (she was older than most), her English accent also made her stand out. I quickly learned that she was quite bright and sassy. She frequently challenged me to support statements I made.
As she progressed through the program, I became aware that she seemed to be joined at the hip with another student, a Greek woman named Vasiliki Galani. They always seemed to arrive to class at the same time and to travel together. Eventually, I discovered that Vasiliki was Madeleine’s wheels and drove Madeleine to various places, including classes.
Madeleine became aware of my interests in computer science and that I used an IBM clone. She, on the other hand, preferred the Apple
computers and this difference led to many discussions between us about the relative merits of each type of computer. In the fourth year of her program, she took an elective course that I taught, Psychology and Technology, and staunchly maintained that her Mac was a better computer than the IBM clone I was using for demonstrations in the class.
In her last year in the program, I was designated as the chair of the
committee that was to examine her for her final examination. She had difficulty with one part of the examination and the committee
recommended that she retake that part after a period of remediation. As the committee chair, it was my function to meet with her and to help her understand what she had done and why it was necessary for her to retake the examination. During the time she was meeting with another faculty member to prepare for the retake, we were in touch and I gave her several pointers about taking the re-examination. Eventually, she did take the exam and passed it and was able to graduate from the program. We met once after that for a celebratory lunch and continued to stay in touch by e-mail. It was during lunch that I learned more about Madeleine than I learned in all of the years I knew her. I learned about her work as a successful consultant in Canada, about why she left England, about her visit to Viet Nam, and more about her affiliation with a worldwide group of James Joyce scholars. I also learned about her paranoid neighbor and about her love for animals. As we were leaving the restaurant, she got into a discussion with the owner about coffee beans and how they are roasted, reflecting her interest in preparing her own coffee beans.
It was a sad day when I received an e-mail from another faculty member telling me that Madeleine was ill and had asked that I be notified. At first, she did not want many people to know she was ill and I felt honored to be among those that she wanted notified. I went to see her in the hospital before she began her course of chemotherapy and, on that day, she seemed to be in good spirits. I continued to stay in touch with her, knowing that the chemotherapy would be devastating. When she told me that she was to receive the chemo as an outpatient and that the hospital had no way of transporting her, although they did wind up giving her vouchers so that she could take taxi cabs, I was outraged by the thought of her having to take public transportation home following her chemo and offered to drive her home on each of the days that she received treatment.
After the first few days of chemo as an outpatient, her oncologist
decided to continue the treatment with Madeleine as an in-patient.
Madeleine expressed fear and regret that she would not be able to attend a retirement dinner in my honor and I promised that I would make sure she participated in some way. There was a point when she had requested that the hospital staff not allow visitors to her room, but she eventually did allow me to come. My first effort was to bring a Power Point presentation that was to be shown at the dinner. However, it would not run on her laptop (underscoring my preference for IBM clone computers). The next time I came to visit her, after the dinner had been held, I brought a videotape of the event, but she was exhausted and unable to watch it. That was the last time I saw her. The next thing I heard was that she had been moved to ICU. From that point on, most of my information about her came either through Jean Olgivie or from reading the blog that was being kept to inform people of Madeleine’s status.
I have always felt it to be a privilege to be a part of the lives of the
students who came through the graduate program of The Institute for Graduate Psychology and to feel that I had a role in their growth and development as professionals. With Madeleine, I was also privileged to know her as a friend and to be witness to the bravery and determination with which she faced her illness and its implications. I was saddened by her death and I will miss her.