A friend of nearly fifty years died earlier this month after a long struggle with a difficult illness.

Last summer, on a visit with Marion, I asked if there was anything on her mind. She remarked that she had to write her eulogy. I offered to help, and she proposed that I wrote that eulogy, which is a great honor. But imagine the challenge of writing a tribute for someone so wonderful and so special, so dear to our hearts. I had planned on writing this sometime in the far-off future. But Marion’s death came too early. Anytime would have been too early. I do know, like so many of you, that this eulogy would have been much better if Marion had written or edited it. It would have been stronger, and clearer, maybe even poetic. She was, after all, a genius at making us all better in her kind and gentle way.

I met Marion in the fall of 1973 — almost 50 years ago. Right away, I recognized that she was brilliant — like no one else I’d ever met. She was also beautiful and stylish.  The consummate conversationalist. You were never bored in her company. Unmatched intellectual curiosity. A beautiful writer. Interested in all of us and everything. In fact, you became more interesting in her company. At home with big ideas about the universe and meaning and purpose and completely delighted with the silly and inane. I used to love that raised eyebrow and the tilt of her head when something delighted her. 

Since that first meeting and in all the years that have followed, I recognized the treasure that Marion was in my life. Recently, as I have met the friends and former students that I have heard so much and read the beautiful comments from her Bayview community, I realized that she was treasure to all of us — not just my dear and special friend.  The lovely community she has gathered around her is testament of how much she mattered and how much she matters still. Her close friends have remarked on her ability to listen carefully with support, to always be there in difficult times, to see us as the vulnerable and irreplaceable people we were to her. We felt cherished. She was a symbol of light and love.  

A great teacher will inspire you to fly and give you the tools to do just that. You can’t be a beloved teacher with just a command of content and a mastery of material. You need to be deeply present in the classroom aligned with the students teaching them about something you love. You need to be your authentic beautiful self. Parker Palmer, the educational philosopher, wrote, “Whoever our students may be, whatever the subjects we teach, ultimately we teach who we are.” And that indeed was true about Ms. Wrye. She was deeply and profoundly in love with her subject, enchanted by her students and alive with the challenge of creating a beloved community in her classroom.  Her unique and lovely spirt and soul were completely revealed in her friendships, in her writing and in her teaching.  

What and how she taught in reflected in the tributes that former students and fellow teachers have left on the Bayview Academy’s Facebook pages.

Miss Wrye gave me a voice

Inspired me and my career

My favorite teacher ever

No one ever taught me so much

Her lessons remain with me today. 

She created a safe space for us.

Miss Wrye changed the way I thought.

A student wrote that she incorporated Marion’s kindness in feedback into her own teaching.

Another wrote, she believed me to be better than I was or am and I will always want to live up to her opinion. I wanted to more like her. 

And directed to Ms. Wrye,

I am so grateful to you for the gift of yourself.

You opened my eyes to great storytelling and literature.

And there so many comments about how kind and loving she was after the death of a parent, or a classmate or a during serious illness or a family difficulty. One student remembers Ms. Wrye reaching out to the Alumni Association to raise money when own family couldn’t pay tuition in her senior year. Thanks to Marion, the student walked with her graduating class.

Miss Wrye also had her wonderful quirky style. A former student recollects one Christmas celebration where the school sponsored a classroom decorating contest. The students dressed up Barbie dolls as angels and hung them from the ceiling fan. When Marion turned on the fan, the angels spun around at breakneck speed. The fact that the students felt that this creative act would delight Miss. Wrye says a lot about the wonderful connection she had with her students. 

Marion was an inspired path-breaking educator, as passionate and as thoughtful about teaching as anyone I have ever met. As an educator myself, I was constantly impressed by the thought, the love, the fun she brought to the classroom. How I would have loved to have been a student of hers. She published several important essays about teaching in prestigious journals. Within the past year, she wrote a well-received article about teaching the essay form. She received a national award for her inspired teaching. Many of her students received prizes for their writing. Unfortunately, she did not finish her own story, a memoir she had been working on which would have given us all another glimpse of this amazing woman. 

All of us visiting Marion these past years acknowledge the beautiful caretaking of her by Jayne Martin and her close friends. To take on the responsibility of caring for someone you know will pass away in your care is the truest act of love. Because you know on some level, this story will not and cannot have a happy ending. But the kindness, patience, the daily drone of chores, the hard work of caretaking, the demands on your energy and time, the challenge of taking care of someone who is suffering, watching a loved one fail – takes immense sacrifice and generosity. Sometimes, it takes more than we have to give but we do it anyway. So, on behalf of all of us, Jayne, thank you so much for taking care of our beloved friend with all her quirks and foibles. And thanks as well to Marion’s visitors who delighted her with their company and conversation and comforted her in so many ways. 

Marion was extraordinary, wasn’t she? 

Of course, it is one thing to write a eulogy for Marion and to actually deliver it, to acknowledge her death means facing a  bitter and unreal truth, that our friend and teacher has passed away. It is hard to reconcile any loss that is as painful as this one. Some of us have the comfort of a belief in the afterlife. If so, Marion is in heaven, starting great conversations with her favorite poets and philosophers. Maybe she is making some wonderful new friends, like us. I can picture her there in a small carefully organized room with a beautiful window view with her books, a journal and a favorite pen, some Barbie Dolls, a cup of coffee, and maybe the Bee Gees, playing in the background. A chair pulled up close for a friend’s visit. I am certain that everyone in heaven agrees that it is much more interesting place now that Marion is there. Also, I am so certain she misses us. How could she not? She loved us so much. 

But even if there is no afterlife, she is always with us. I believe that we pass along some of ourselves to people we have loved and cherished.  It is not genetic DNA but something as precious and as powerful – we pass on our unique way of being in the world.  I also believe that we have all been written into her spiritual will. We are her legacy. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to find the strands and traces of Marion in our hearts and souls and minds – that thrill at being alive, a loving awe and curiosity about the world, the beauty of a poetic soul, an orientation toward the good and the generous, a love of our friends and family. I know that I am a much kinder, more reflective, a more full-of-life person because of her. I think you are, too. 

Of course, you cannot make such an impression on people without leaving an immense gaping hole for us all to fill with love and kindness and a love of life, celebrating our great good fortune of knowing Marion and being embraced by her. How lucky we were!

Marion’s friends are working on developing a scholarship or writing prize at Bay View to recognize her immense contributions to the Bay View community.  We want to develop a tribute that really reflects her legacy of exceptional teaching. More about that later.

Over these nearly fifty years, Marion and I exchanged a lot of our writing. I have folders full of her essays, reflections, and poetry.  A few years ago, I wrote a poem about her and sent it along for her review. She read it carefully and kindly made it better. She urged me to publish it right away. Instead I let it sit and mature and ripen with time. I am hoping she would have approved of this new version. It is called At the beach, without my poet

At the beach, without my poet

This precious morning beach walk

You were on my mind.

If you were here, my poet, we would toss out lovely names

Of what we see

And hear 

And feel.

Like scattering bread for the birds

Our words taking aim at the truth in this very moment.

Fresh and awake

This morning

For the first or maybe

For the forever time.

You, my poet, would say, 

“Look, see how the tern folds, 

And unfolds his wings.

He sails and pivots

Like an origami bird.”

And I, would say

“Exactly, my friend. So perfect.”

And, touching your hand, I would whisper 

With a smile. 

“That bird makes his own magic.” 

Noting to myself, 

Like you the magic you make, my poet

With your words

Your poetry

Your love

Your life.

And I would say, 

And watching the sea shift and balance.

“Listen, hear, how its heart beats

The exhale and inhale of waves 

The wash of warm water at our feet.”

And you, my poet, would say,

“Exactly. Just so.”

And we would stand in veneration 

In full regard of our shared time here. 

Blessed in the grace 

Of embracing our friendship

This ineffable and irreplaceable space

That we have built together.

Just ours

With the gifts we bring and bestow on each other. 

My poet adding her breath to the universe. 

Another sacred moment. 

Once hers, now ours.