Marion Louise Simmons
We are here to celebrate the life of my mother Marion Simmons.
I want to start by reading the words of a nineteenth century Professor of Divinity at Oxford. They are quite well known and I think appropriate for today:
“Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was.
I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident?
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner.”
going home
I then went looking for some words by the great Jewish poets; Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Paul Simon, Carole King. There will be more on my mother’s love of music, but found that they did not really speak about death or loss much. I found this song by Leonard Cohen, whose CD my mother owned:
“I’m going home without the sorrow
Going home sometime tomorrow
Going home to where it’s better than before.
Going home without my burden
Going home behind the curtain
Going home without this costume that I wore…”
an avid reader
Good, but not really of great relevance. However, my mother was an avid reader and she had found a poem that meant something to her, so much so that she had it stuck on her kitchen wall. I thought I would read it today, as I believe it captures something of both the humour and spirit which will be well known to those who knew Marion. It is called ‘I am fine’.
“There is nothing the matter with me
I am as healthy as healthy can be
I have arthritis in both my knees
And when I walk I talk with a wheeze
My pulse it is weak and my blood it is thin
But I’m awfully well for the shape that I’m in.
How do I know that my youth is spent?
Well my get up and go has got up and went
But I really don’t mind when I think with a grin
Of all the fine places my get-up has been.
Old age is golden I have heard it said
But sometimes I wonder as I get into bed
With my ‘ears’ in the drawer, my ‘teeth’ in a cup
My ‘eyes’ on the table, until I get up
‘Ere sleep overcomes me, I say to myself
“Is there anything else I should lay on the shelf?”
When I was young my slippers were red
I could kick my heels right over my head
When I grow older, my slippers were blue
But yet I could still dance the whole night through.
Now that I’m old, my slippers are black
And I walk to the shops and puff my way back.
I get up each morning and dust myself down
Then read the paper, in my dressing gown,
And whether the forecast is snow, rain or shine
I know that I’m special, I’m me and I’m fine.”
sharply intelligent, liberal, humanist and tolerant of others
That poem summarises Marion’s style and personality, confident in herself. All who knew her, knew her as a survivor, someone who kept her spirit up. She may not have been lively in body of late but she always remained very lively of mind. And not just stubborn or opinionated, although she could be those things at times, but sharply intelligent, liberal, humanist and tolerant of others. She would take people as she found them, and people appreciated her genuineness and warmth of spirit.
And she could be generous too, in the most meaningful of ways, not with money (because she had little of that) but as often as not in her time. Such as reading the TV listings to her blind friend every day. Or “teaching the old folk” as she used to say, when in her seventies she would offer to ‘train’ other elderly folk in how to use a computer (a task that in reality Marion knew very little about).
a music DJ
Or can I mention her ‘other life’ as a music DJ, giving talks and playing songs to a variety of care home crowds. She loved putting together a playlist* and selecting songs, which her audiences appreciated enough to keep calling her back. Or looking after the kids in the nursery when I was small, probably in truth only so she could keep an eye on me, at least at first.
But she loved seeing a new generation grow, and I was pleased that she lived long enough to know that she was to become a great-grandparent thanks to Matthew and his partner Sarah (whose pregnancy has meant she could not join us today) . And also the grandchildren of her much loved brother Dennis’s children Andy and Peter, and my sincerest apologies go to Peter for his having to distribute my mother’s Hanukah and Christmas presents for his grandchildren, which became a regular January or February ritual that I tried my best to discourage as she got older, but failed. And she was blessed with lovely neighbours in Silverston Way, including Gerald and Liz whose babies Rosie and Aiden Marion loved watching grow into the charming and lively little people they are today.
a model for how to live a good life
My mother lived a long life, and saw many things over the best part of a century. She had her struggles and trials, but she will be remembered with love and admiration, not just for the way she endured but for grasping at life and doing good at it. Being good, making a meaningful life. In her special way, I think she provided a model for how to live a good life, independent to the last.
Those who knew Marion as a young woman will no doubt recall someone quieter than she became and more nervous than those who only knew her in her old age might recognise.But I will always recognise the beauty she held, both inward and the strong young Jewish woman who stands out in some of the photos we have from her youth as quite striking, and whose looks I am constantly reminded of in that strong resilient Jewish face I see reflected in Marion’s granddaughter Lauren, who I think resembles her greatly.
And that was the woman my late father Geoffrey fell in love with and married. Marion had a good life with Geoff up to his death at the too young age of sixty-nine, but she remembered him very fondly indeed in the quarter of a century that followed, never remarrying, and so it is only fitting that their bodies should lay at rest together here at Bushey in the same parallel plot.
* I have recreated one of my mother’s playlists here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1WCYs1VDyveezj92KrukNJ?si=201df2e073794ed4&nd=1&dlsi=520c54d8dcaf43bc