Emily was a FORCE: She entered a room talking—loudly—with a big smile and an enthusiasm that was so palpable it felt like it could knock you down. She did not do things by halves. Her Goodreads challenge numbers were always insane. She had read 241 books of her 245 book goal this year; she would have easily reached it had she not been hospitalized. She re-read all of “Jane”—she was always on a first name only basis with this favorite author—every year, but her tastes ran the gamut from theological treatises to cookbooks to the Cormoran Strike books and the Isabel Dalhousie series (which she turned me on to) to Virginia Woolf and DH Lawrence. She took up knitting and was constantly on the lookout for yarn shops, where she bought piles of yarn to make into scarves for friends, beautiful shawls for herself and blankets for her beloved nieces and goddaughter. She was a ferociously loyal friend; I feel like I know a lot of her friends myself because of her Facebook posts celebrating the births and milestones of their children and asking for prayers for them in difficult times. She was a doting aunt and godmother—her Facebook feed is crammed with photos of Maddie and Hailey and Patty. She HATED grammar mistakes and often started Facebook posts with an exasperated “PEOPLE!” before taking up whatever the latest offense was and finishing with “That is all.” (I was often tempted to sign our Christmas card “The Becker’s” just to get a rise out of her.)
She traveled to Los Angeles and was a contestant on Jeopardy. She called her condo Orchard House after Louisa May Alcott’s home, and made it a cozy refuge where she would enjoy fancy tea in beautiful teacups. We shared an obsession for Princess Kate—our last text conversation was about her dress to the Royal Variety Show earlier in December (I liked it but Emily wasn’t a fan of the shoulder pads). She loved art, and on a visit to NYC taught me to appreciate (or at least not rush past) all the medieval Madonnas at the Met Museum. She loved opera and singing and performing in musicals, and somehow continued to even when the drugs that preserved her life destroyed her hearing. (I saw a lovely memorial post this morning from her local community theater group filled with fun photos of her in their productions—she would have loved that!) She loved to travel, which was a challenge for her, but was able to go on several trips to Duck, NC in the Outer Banks, to Colorado to see her beloved sister and her family, to colonial Williamsburg, to Houston to see her cousins and goddaughter, and of course to Pittsburgh. And this year she made her first transatlantic flight, for a week-long holiday in Edinburgh, Scotland—a dream come true that dominated her blog posts for weeks.
Emily was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at 11—a late age that was itself a testament to her toughness; she didn’t like to admit to being sick. The drugs that have vastly improved the prognosis for CF patients in recent years came a little too late for her, and by 2005 she was near death. A double lung transplant in July of that year—still a relatively new and dangerous procedure at that time—saved her life and made her a passionate advocate for organ donation. She never forgot to thank Suzanne, her donor, each year on the anniversary of her transplant, and she would have been thrilled to know that even after so many years of medical struggles, she was able to donate some of her own organs. She outlived her original life expectancy by 11 years, but her death still caught me by surprise; I always thought of her as the unsinkable Molly Brown, someone whose sheer force of will and personality was unquenchable, but she herself was very aware of her mortality. One of her proudest accomplishments was the acceptance and publication of her book, “Living Memento Mori,” that crackles with wit and brio and her tremendous Catholic faith. She was funny—she called the hospital that she spent so much time in throughout her life “the resort.” Her deadpan last Facebook post—“ICYMI, I’m at the resort with pneumonia for Christmas. Not sure when I’ll be sprung”—was typical of the humorous way she dealt with the challenges that shaped her life. Sadly for me and all the family and friends who loved her, it was not to be, but I know that on the last day of a year that was one of the most adventure-rich of her life she was indeed sprung to the resort she strived her whole life to achieve. And so on this first day of 2024, as you are making your New Year’s resolutions, I have a challenge for you: PEOPLE! Live every day of this new year, no matter what it brings, with exuberance and joy like Emily did. That is all.
- Memorial tribute by Emily’s loving Aunt Mary