Marcia Leversee

A remembrance of Marcy's life was held at our home on Saturday, October 10 with immediate family and longtime Keene friends in attendance. Masks and social distancing were observed. Below are welcoming remarks from Gordon and a picture of a Japanese maple that was planted in her memory. Remembrance of Marcy’s Life: Saturday, October 10, 2020 Welcoming remarks: Gordon, with Kate and Anna. I want to begin by offering thanks to all of you for coming to this remembrance of Marcy and in support of her community of family and friends. I also want to offer special thanks to “The Ladies” group who for the past 35 years or so met on a regular basis as friends and moms and without whose help this gathering would have been so much less…I imagine a dispirited milling around of sad and hungry people on a cold and rainy day…April, Claudia and Erika--thanks so much. And special thanks also to Len for agreeing to offer a eulogy and to herd us cats through this day. Finally, my special personal thanks to Kate and Anna for bending their lives toward home this last year. That meant the world to Marcy and still does to me. So thank you. As Marcy wanted, and COVID-19 makes necessary, we are a small group of family and longtime friends who have shared our lives with Marcy in this place. In the last weeks of Marcy’s life we often did our “circumnavigation” of her world, this place, this sun-drenched natural world, and asked, “Why would anyone want to leave all of this?” The answer of course, was that there was no answer, but leave we all will—leave the feeling of sun and wind on our skins, the smell of late summer and early fall, the sounds of laughter, the touch of family and friends….and cats. And for Marcy, leave the garden weeds in peace because no trip around the yard ever ended without at least a handful of pulled crabgrass, of nightshade or worst of all, bittersweet. And so, we come together to mark her passing and celebrate her life, a life she described as “small and private” but one that we saw as large, good and generous and meaningful. Marcy and I were partners for 50 years of life projects, from our first farmhouse fixer-upper in Maine where we sat evenings in the 1800’s family burial ground with “the ancestors” and held hands as the sun set, to our alternating career projects, life in Keene, and or course our most beloved project of all as parents of Kate and Anna. Special thanks to them for teaching us so much about love and the meaning of life. I think we share that daily sense of loss, of things missed: Ordinary pleasures like good company, good food and good fun shared, wise counsel, loss and disappointment. But also all of these things that live on as warm memories-- Contentment recollected. So my hope for the day has already been met, we are here together. Which brings me to my last and most important thanks--to Marcy. Without her—none of this. Thanks for coming.