Ann Robertson's speach at Mums memorial

Dear Yetta

When Death Comes by Mary Oliver

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn
. . .
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
. . .
When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened
or full of argument.
I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Dear Yetta – our dear, beloved Yetta – you most certainly did NOT “simply visit this world”. You took on this miraculous gift of Life with your arms and heart and mind wide open in amazement and love.

Your whole life, you embraced Life with courage and passion and a sense of adventure. You took huge risks, always – particularly risks of the heart.

With care and creativity and grace, you continually wove community around you – even in your dying. Your bold warrior-woman spirit emboldened all of us to think more expansively, love more expansively and act in the world more expansively. You would not allow us to settle for being comfortable or complacent in our good fortune and privilege.

 

And, your values and commitments, Yetta, were not just abstract ideas but catalysts for action in the world – the Queen’s House, Delphi, Circle Craft, CESO, Bokenbaevo, the Gabriola Commons. You were the kind of person the poet, Marge Piercy, was surely thinking of when she wrote:

“I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,

who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.”

Your sense of family did not begin and end with biology or legalities. And, for those of us lucky enough to become part of your constellation, we were bound forever by the gravitational pull of your faithful, loving heart.

For me, personally, that meant that there you were, beside me, at many of my own life’s turning points – holding me up as we buried Denton, hosting my wedding feast and, at one of the lowest points of  my life, showing up on my doorstep with Hector, week after week, to take me tromping the ravines and trails until I was exhausted and then feeding me one of your hearty, nourishing soups.

Yetta, your huge, brave heart and spirit encompassed it all – encompassed all of us. And now you are gone from us. But your legacy of ever-expanding love, fierce courage and endless curiousity will continue to inspire us and prod us, as you have always done.

May we all, as did you to the end, live our lives “married to amazement”, “taking the world into [our] arms”.

Farewell, our dear, beloved Yetta.