It is challenging for me to write about Marjorie in the past tense because she feels very present, and always will. I met Marjorie when she lived in New York. We were both journalists, theater lovers, animal adorers, metaphysical explorers and passionate walkers — although no one could walk as briskly and for as many hours as Marjorie. No one was as wise a friend either, or as radical a spiritual thinker, or as compassionate and kind. She was a dear, dear friend, not so much the calm in the storm, but able to calm the storm. I loved and love her great intelligence, her ability to cut like a laser to the essence of an issue, and her wit. She was always upright and often a little formal in her bearing, but her sense of humor was sharp and hilarious and it was not a respecter of convention. I can see her now, reacting to a slightly off-the-reservation comment, her mouth forming a small O, her eyebrows rising, and then a brief pause before she would burst out laughing. I last spent time with Marjorie in February, when she came to New York with her beloved Italian class for the opera. In 30 hours (Marjorie was precise in describing the length of the visit!) we lived out all the wonderful moments of friendship with Marjorie: we went to the theater (walking there in the frigid night), an off-off-off Broadway show Marjorie, a true culture vulture, wanted to try. We went to dinner — a new restaurant that chief foodie Marjorie selected. We stayed up until the wee hours talking and talking and talking (Marjorie’s insights as always having a last influence on my thinking). I woke up around 7 the next morning and found my guest room tidied, everything folded neatly …. and no Marjorie. I was flummoxed but then remembered Marjorie had told me sometime around 1:30 am that if I wasn’t awake she would leave and walk to Lincoln Center where she would meet me for the opera matinee with her Italian buddies. Lincoln Center was a 2 mile walk in arctic weather. A “Marjorie walk” for me was brisk, the tempo never slowing, and yet calm, a time for prayer and meditation, the longer the walk and the colder the weather, the more invigorating. On the morning that Marjorie moved onward, stunned, unsure of what to do, I was led to take “a Marjorie walk.” Starting on the upper West Side, walking across the top of Central Park, past the Harlem Meer, through the botanical garden, and onto 5th Avenue, I headed at a steady clip towards the Guggenheim Museum. It was a very cold morning, perfect "Marjorie walk" weather, and it was somewhere along the path by the Harlem Meer lake that I looked to my right and was sure I saw Sheba, Marjorie’s beloved precious girl - and after John her greatest true love. And in the mind’s eye, I saw Marjorie, hands in the pockets of her zip up jacket, scarves wrapped around her neck, wearing corduroy pants and her walking boots, striding along behind Shebes. I thought that if I told Marjorie this story she would understand totally and then laugh and make some trenchant joke about Shadrach and Abednego and coming through the fiery furnace intact. Godspeed magnificent Marjorie. We love you. Suzanna January 12, 2019