Poems by Nancy Caldwell

I found the following poetic notes, which Nancy wrote while she had cancer,

as I was sorting through papers after she died.

No expectations…

No expectations

Seasons, tides do ebb and flow

I can learn to float

And float with joy, not

Bubbling joy, bubbles burst in spring

Breezes burst bubbles

I am alive is too vibrant

I am – solid –

is enough.

So fresh…

So fresh

so bare

so unpatinated with

loss

I love it, I embrace it

On a bus…

On a bus, leaving for a

long, long journey

into time

into fear

into darkness

Will it be dark ther…

(The last two poems were found in a notebook with notes made during a trip with the Batisseurs de la Paix - a French organization of Jewish, Muslim and Arab women who lay aside political differences to bake pastries together - to the railway yard at Drancy, from which Jews were sent to death camps, and the first Muslim cemetery in France, which was made for soldiers who’d died on the Western Front in World War I.)

Fifty-five Years and Five Minutes

(An unpublished essay, written in 2013)

Nancy Leenson Caldwell

On a crystalline autumnal Sunday, I peered into a small white church and was stunned by its azure ceiling. The weather-beaten steeple and cracked clapboard outside hadn’t prepared me for the flawless blue vaults within.

I liked the sanctuary immediately – the simple pews rubbed to ivory, red bouquets framing an altar as small as an after-thought, and the sky’s mirror image nested above. I liked its intimacy and the fact that I could walk in and be accepted. Five or six regulars were already seated. A trio was practicing songs in a corner to the accompaniment of a guitar. Everyone greeted me with undemanding smiles, nods and “Good mornings”. Even the required reading was right there, in a compartment at my lap; all I had to do was show up.

And yet, it had taken me fifty-five years and five minutes to get myself to this diminutive chapel at the end of a country lane bordered by a chaos of goldenrod fingers pointing every which way in the breeze. Yes, fifty–five years of learning my way past razor-sharp prejudices, and five minutes to walk down a path from my home at land’s end.

Sitting alone in a middle pew, I was set for take-off, ready to build on the kick-start sparked by the unexpected beauty inside this humble structure. I honestly hoped for some upward movement, something unearthly, but my soul didn’t soar or even waft on a gust. The service and I just didn’t, couldn’t, connect. There was no resonance - other than the enjoyment of color and place.

And yet, I experienced my own private hallelujah.

If any of the congregation had asked me why I was there, I would have explained that I’d developed an allergy to religious doctrine, and, with it, difficulty relating to people whose beliefs seemed illogical or nonsensical. This knot in my thinking was blocking my ability to communicate with others and I wanted to undo it. Tolerance wasn’t what I was looking for, because tolerance seems like a benign form of condescension. I just wanted to learn how to connect with people, whatever their religious beliefs. 

In order to do so, I had decided to take at least a year to concentrate on consciously and systematically putting myself through a series of experiences and encounters to begin to grow into the person I wanted to become. Such as:

A trip to England, where a smiling Sikh guide had punctuated the tour of her temple with repeated flicks to her loosely tied headscarf, as the pastel chiffon constantly fell askew.

A conversation with a Romanian math teacher, who beamed while describing how happy he’d been while attending public services in his country, since he’d grown up watching his grandmother lighting candles in clandestine ceremonies while living under Communism.

An excursion with a French organization for Jewish, Muslim and Arab women, who usually meet to bake oriental pastries, but who traveled this time to Bobigny, to see the railway station from which Jews had been sent to death camps, and the first Moslem cemetery in France, where soldiers, princes and a cabaret star, who was famous from Madagascar to Azerbaijan, had come to rest.

What had I learned from such experiences? Or rather unlearned? I’d gradually lost a temptation to act as a self-designated cross-examiner and drop questions such as  “Who in the world could possibly believe such dogma?” or “Why don’t people just wake up to this manipulation?” I’d tossed aside such reflexes and given free rein to wonder, asking myself, “Who is this person and what is his unique story?”

Once I recognized my hubris in reducing others’ existence to doctrines and rituals, I was able to give fuller breadth to my own intuitions.

Near the end of this exploratory year, when we were confronted with a friend’s impending death, my husband and I had wanted to have one last dinner with him and our common friends. For some reason, I refused to serve this meal on my best, but cracked and chipped china. I felt compelled to buy new dishes so our guest-of-honor and friends could take their places around a table, facing perfect unmarred circles. I suppose I was looking for solace in symbols - symbols of serenity and eternity.

Yes, here in this church, I felt like I’d partly succeeded in my endeavor, even if the rites and sermon left me indifferent. I no longer felt the urge to contradict others. I was able to look around and see each person as a vessel of hopes, thoughts, feelings, and - why not? - certain beliefs. I could enjoy the music, goodwill, and view looking up at the sheltering cerulean ceiling.

As I walked home, a passing member of the congregation stopped her car to ask me if I needed a ride. “No thank you,” I answered, “I live in the neighborhood, just 5 minutes away.”

Love and Decisions: Addis Ababa and Dayton, Ohio

(An unpublished essay, written in April 2012)

Nancy Leenson Caldwell

“My story is about a man who was in love with two women…,” the student began his case study for his final grade in my seminar at the Ethiopian Civil Service University in Addis Ababa. This introduction was enough to perk up the other 86 students and myself, the teacher. All the preceding presentations had been about the administrative and other professional matters that I’d asked the participants to address, but such problems were all too familiar to everyone and had begun to pale. “One was Christian and the other was Moslem,” he continued.

“The man couldn’t decide which woman to marry. If he married the Moslem, his family would never forgive him. If he married the Christian, the Moslem one would be forever heart-broken”, the student elucidated with the poise of a statesman.

And then the student slumped his shoulders, leaned back in his seat and took a long pause - too long. Silence filled the room.

“Well?” I asked. The title of the course was “Decision Making” and the students were supposed to describe a moral dilemma in civil service management, and then analyze the processes they’d used to resolve it.

But silence reigned.

“So what happened?” I asked into my microphone, as I made the decision to broadcast the question on everyone’s lips.

“He couldn’t choose and he died,” the student said, getting up to leave the speaker’s platform, since he considered his presentation to be over.

The hushed auditorium was awash with shock, and then - with utter synchronicity - the whole class and I burst out laughing.

Now, shift westward 7,467 miles to Dayton, Ohio, where I have to take a shuttle to the airport one wintry morning to catch a flight after another management training program. The pale shuttle driver’s disheveled blondish hair and puckered brow match her smudged white, crumpled vehicle. Neither bodes well for driving fast on a highway in such foul dark weather.

As her only passenger, I sit in front and start a conversation:  “Am I your first trip of the day?”

“Oh no,” she answers, “I’ve been up since 4 in the morning and I’ll get off at 11. Then I’m going to have lunch with a friend.”

“That’s nice, you certainly have plenty of restaurants to choose from,” I said, waving at the endless stretch of chain restaurants.

“Well, actually,” she responds, “I have to drive 30 miles to get to my friend’s place. But it’s worth it. I need to see her and talk. You know, with my divorce and all.”

“Oh my, you just got divorced?” I ask.

Driver: “Yeah, and we were only married for 3 months…. He started cheating on me with an old girlfriend… He said that now that she was clean, and off meth and alcohol, he had to give her another chance… but I don’t believe it, because I smelled alcohol on her breath when she came with him to pick up the last of his stuff. That’s when I found her coming out from hiding in the bushes. … Yeah, I guess she thought she could hide there till he’d moved out his stuff.

“And to think how I rushed to get the car back every day so he could drive the kids around. She doesn’t have a car either, drives her parents’ car, says she’s going to buy him a car with her tax money.”

“You have children?” I asked, thinking of the timeline: a three-month marriage.

“He has 3 kids from a previous marriage. I should have known, I mean it should have been a red flag for me that he was 40, had three kids, and was unemployed.”

“Does this girlfriend at least have a job?” I asked.

“Yeah, she makes salads in a steakhouse: don’t know how much she could earn in a job like that. She lives with her parents….”

“So, are they all going to live with her parents? I mean with his kids and all?”

“No, he’s parked the kids with his aunt. She has a basement room, kinda fixed up, so they’re going to live down there. He only gets $400 a month for child support.”

“Shouldn’t the kids be with their mother?”

“Nah, they didn’t want to live with her. The girlfriend says she’s going to get them a trailer, but I don’t know if the kids will move there.

“I hope the whole bunch of ‘em are real unhappy. My friend at church says I should pray for healing my heart and not for them to be unhappy, but what I want is to heal my heart and for them all to be unhappy, so I’ve decided to pray for both.”

A letter to our children about an odd letter

and Nancy’s father.

By Nancy Caldwell

I'd like to give you an opportunity to know something about a man you never met, your grandfather, Sol Leenson.

There are many things I could tell you about him, but this story has always stuck in my mind. It began with a hand-written letter I saw on my parents’ dresser. I wish I could remember that odd-looking letter in more detail, but it was too long ago. When I asked my father, Sol, about it, he told me the following story.

My dad was reading a newspaper in Baltimore’s Penn train station while he waited for his regional manager to arrive from his employer’s headquarters in New York. This was probably in the early sixties and flying was less frequent. My father looked up from the paper when a frail black lady caused a commotion nearby by sobbing desperately to a policeman. Although the elderly woman was extremely distraught, my father realized she was speaking some sort of French.

He’d studied it in school and often used finely tuned foreign accents in his jokes, since he had an excellent ear for languages.

At first my father thought the policeman could handle the situation, and simply returned to his paper. But, when the policeman shouted “Can anyone here speak Spanish?”, my dad knew he could no longer remain a bystander.

He went over to the pair and asked the lady calmly what the problem was. She explained in Haitian French that she’d been visiting her daughter in New York and was on her way to visit her son in Washington. Her daughter had put her on the train in Manhattan, but when the old lady had gotten off, she hadn’t seen her son anywhere. My father explained to her that she’d gotten off one stop too soon, and was in Baltimore - not Washington.

While the policeman left to communicate with the Washington station, my father took the lady to a coffee shop to help her calm down while she waited for the next train. In those days, it was rare to see a well-dressed white businessman having lunch with an old black lady, so there were many stares.

Fortunately, the police were able to get through to the lady’s son and arrangements were made for him to meet her when she arrived.

The letter on my parents’ dresser was a note from the woman’s daughter thanking my father for his kindness. I’ve always liked this story, both because it showed my father’s kindness outside our home, and because the incident was one of the first to pique my interest in foreign languages.

***

Nancy’s letter to her parents, Rose & Sol Leenson, from Arequipa, Peru,

on the back of the above portrait photo.

My darling continued to share her love of the world’s diversity for the rest of her life,

including in the following presentation, which the Aquinnah Public Library asked her to give at the Town Hall on July 21, 2011:

“Multi-culturalism in France today:

A personal look behind the headlines at grass-root actions”
5:00pm to 6:15pm

The international press carried the quote from President Sarkozy that “Multi-culturalism in France is a failure”. This talk reflected a personal journey and looked behind the headlines at some of the multi-cultural actions taking place in France at the grass-roots level. Nancy Leenson Caldwell had been working in the intercultural field for over 25 years and living in it for over 50.  She was based in Paris, France, consulting for international corporations, volunteering with human rights associations, and teaching as a Maître de conférence at HEC (in addition to Sciences Po, the École Polytechnique, and the École Nationale d'Administration or ENA).

***

More tributes to Nancy

From Mariaurelia Dubusse, France & Peru

Une grande dame nous a quitté:  elle etait si joyeuse si simple si vraie et tellement remplie d’Amour...

Her warm, attentive gaze, which penetrated to the heart of everything and everyone

From David R. Frankel 

Nancy's deeply moving piece (in the Vineyard Gazette) is such a pure distillation of her voice and spirit, so clear-sighted and thoughtful, so elegantly and honestly expressed, and all the more poignant for the absence of self-pity.  Reading it, I could hear her again sweetly conversing, and see her kind face and warm, attentive gaze, which somehow always penetrated to the heart of everything and everyone.  What a wonderful gift of grace, strength, and wisdom from her to the rest of us on our own voyages to that horizon she saw so clearly! 

From Louis Carion 

C'est avec le cœur et la gorge serrés d'émotions et de tristesses que je vous adresse toutes mes plus sincères condoléances...

Je vous souhaite beaucoup de courage et de force.

Toutes mes pensées vous accompagnent.

Votre ami.

A radiant being

From Philip M. Weinstein 

There's little anyone else can say that would make a difference--and nothing that would mitigate your loss.  

But I wanted you to know how saddened we are by Nancy's no longer being here.  She was a radiant being, and she somehow managed--what I already know is beyond my own resources--to sustain her radiance even as her illness increased its claim on her.  One couldn't feel sorry for her: that was not how she treated herself, not how she wanted anyone else to treat her.  We knew she was deeply ill, but never because she said so.  Life was what she wanted to talk about, and there was still so much of it to discuss!

I vividly remember a vignette she passed on to me about the kind of work she did in France, and why she did it.  It involved an old French town and a new water treatment system and a fundamental divide: the town couldn't afford to pay, the water treatment company couldn't afford not to get paid.  Nancy labored to craft a mediating position in which both entities were able to finish up well beyond where they had been before.  She turned stalemate into win/win.  As we left your place that day, I remember telling Penny that, finally, I understood not only Nancy's work but the kind of thinking that made her work valuable.

Our hearts go out to you.

From Trevor Stuart (and Helen Statman of Cocoloco, England & Australia)

I met Nancy 42 years ago too at Shakespeare & Co. in the upstairs library with the bed bugs and ashtrays and a never ending supply of The Yellow Book(s). I sat with Geoffrey, Diana, Lindy and Nancy in thrall with your Under the Volcano discourse, Duncan, and it subsequently became my favourite book. You and Nancy hosted me for a very long time and I remember it vividly... some of the greatest moments in my life... even with Odile... (Celine's dots)... as well as countless splendid days in the Marais manor on Rambuteau...

Nancy was one of the sweetest, most charming, articulate, questioning, intelligent people I've met. I shall never forget her voice tone and snuffly laugh and her seemingly wide-eyed innocence which masked a piercing brightness. Be brave and philosophical, like Nancy!

From Joseph Mutti 

Oh Duncan, what profoundly sad news. It was, to put it mildly, a very deep shock. I'm so very sorry. I loved Nancy very much. I remember our meeting at Shakespeare & Co., the peniche years, the North African rugs, your visit to the cabin in the Santa Cruz Mountains... 

I can still feel her gentle kindness across the years. Her immense generosity. Her smile emanating such goodness and love. What a loss for you and your children. What a sense of immediate loss I also feel. I shall miss her very much. 

My love, sympathy, memories and gratitude for Nancy's entry into my life. 

Une très grande ouverture d’esprit,

une modestie qui l’a toujours honorée,

une capacité inhabituelle à passer d’une culture à l’autre

sans s’y perdre.

From Olivier (and Anne) Faure, Paris

Mon premier contact avec Nancy était dans le cadre d’une interview qu’elle souhaitait faire de moi à partir de mon expérience de négociation en Chine. Partageant la même passion pour le thème de la négociation, nous avons établi des liens professionnels puis des liens d’amitié qui ne se sont jamais démentis sur plus de trois décennies.

Je revois Nancy comme quelqu’un de très attentionné, dotée d’une grande qualité d’écoute, toujours prête à l’échange, à la discussion. Nous avons travaillé ensemble dans le cadre de plusieurs projets de recherche. Je retiens aussi d’elle une très grande ouverture d’esprit, une modestie qui l’a toujours honorée, une capacité inhabituelle à passer d’une culture à l’autre sans s’y perdre.

Aujourd’hui, elle n’est plus des nôtres mais elle restera parmi nous dans le meilleur endroit qui soit, dans nos cœurs.

Toutes nos pensées et notre affection vont aussi à Duncan et aux enfants.

Olivier Faure

The wonderful turn of the serendipity wheel which brought her - and you - into our lives

From Eleanor Hubbard, Martha’s Vineyard

Believe me Duncan, I think of you and Nancy all the time all the time all the time. It sinks in and then ebbs out into the Land of the Impossible. Returning again when I least expect another wave.

Today a very old Chicago friend wrote asking why he hadn’t heard from me since October. To be up front I told him about Nancy. Why? I don’t know; I simply had to write about her and about the wonderful turn of the serendipity wheel which brought her - and you - into our lives. That happened one night at Anita’s. Yes, Anita’s. I told him about the cow bell and her amazing blue eyes and that the prospect of being on the island forever without Nancy was now a bleak impoverished forecast. Had I not met her, life would be so much smoother. But we did meet and that old song is just a silly pyramid of linguistic fop. Nothing makes anything even a tiny bit better. But writing words is what we who live by them, and love them, do. Nancy loved them too and in my library are several books and articles on cows and creativity, a fitting mix.

Why did this happen to Nancy? And to Anita?  And to the three friends of ours right ‘in process’. An epidemic of the cruelest sort I claim, but my lovely and empathetic physician at MGH tells me, “It is an epidemic but only of age.”  No No No.

Elle était si fine et intelligente, chaleureuse avec beaucoup de douceur

From Myriam (“Mimi”) Misrahi

Je ne sais quoi dire, je suis sous le choc. J'ai tellement souvent pensé à vous deux, à Nancy surtout sachant par quelle épreuve elle passait (et toi aussi bien sur).

Des la première fois que nous nous sommes rencontrées, j'ai été sous le charme de Nancy. Elle était belle, mais surtout lumineuse, si fine et intelligente, chaleureuse avec beaucoup de douceur.  Je n'oublierai jamais ces joyeux repas chez vous et ces plats plein d'amour qu'elle nous préparait.

Cher Duncan, je pense très fort à toi, à vos enfants.  Vous avez eu la chance de partager votre vie avec une merveilleuse personne, qui restera, je le sais, dans notre coeur à tous.

Je t'embrasse très fort.

With thanks to our dear friend, Felicity.

This warm and always dignified woman, so close to life with all its beauty and all its miseries

From Lilo (and Michel Salmon), Paris

Michel and I thought of Nancy - and you (!!!!) a lot; especially since Nancy told us quite a few months ago that some other organs had been effected. And when I did not receive an e-mail for some time, I just knew that the "remission", which was kind of miraculous in the beginning, had ended. My heart went numb and language sort of left me.

For weeks now I was trying to find a way to express to her what I felt. And just today, before we received the fatal e-mail from Marcelle with the beautiful pictures of her and you both, I knew what I could have said to her. I decided to tell her about a recent trip we had made to Ireland, which for me turned out to be a sort of spiritual experience and as I thought intensely of Nancy, this warm and always dignified woman, so close to life with all its beauty and all its miseries, so involved in "causes", so intelligent and thoughtful, now threatened by death, I pictured her, riding around on the West Coast of Ireland, as we did for a few days, being fascinated by its rough beauty of never-ending hill sites, waterways and lakes, patchwork of meadows divided by little stonewalls or hedges, with peacefully grazing beautiful sheep all of which was so simple - and so mystical ! And I wished for Nancy that she could just ride around in a comfortable car and wait for death surrounded by this beauty, with you by her side......

I myself know from experience (I lost my 16-year-old daughter more than 30 years ago) that Nancy's death will change your life profoundly and we hope for you that you will find a way to cope. Just do not wait for "time to heal all wounds" - it will not.....

Michel and I are happy to have known Nancy. She has enriched our lives and that of the people in our group - her beloved book club. Did you know that she coined us BBCE - Best Book Club Ever?

Nous t'embrassons, Duncan, as well as Olivia and Sebastian.

From Leanne Cowley (and Steven Galante)

What a warm, intelligent, sensitive, and beautiful soul Nancy possessed.

 

I would like to share a memory of my own that may bring a smile, silly as it is. I will always associate ground cherries with Nancy...  She was so enthusiastic about them when we served a bowl of them with the appetizers, that night you came to dinner at our Vineyard house, and I was delighted to find a fellow aficionado. We subsequently exchanged a few emails extolling their virtues and trading recipes. Now I will cherish that association even more.

Voiceless is what we are

From Catherine Legrand, who made Nancy’s magical coat (and Catherine’s husband & long-time colleague of Nancy’s, Yves Halifa), Paris

Voiceless is what we are, feeling miserable to have lost our dear friend Nancy…. Dear Duncan, let us know what we could do to help. You life will probably take another turn. We are standing by your side. 

From Steve Schwab

I just now decided to open your website to see what you have been up to. Now, with tears in my eyes, I reach out to you. Whenever I visited you, your love for Nancy and her love for you filled the room and made me feel softened and warmed in a way difficult to describe. I will always remember her welcoming smile and lovely eyes. The two of you seemed to play off each other as if teasing. No doubt, she tolerated some of your peculiarities where others might have become annoyed.

At my Zen gathering, we chant a prayer of compassion. I'll include you and Nancy.

Cette permanence de son sourire et de sa voix, si douce, nous réconforte.

From Michel Affortit, France & Rwanda

Il n'est jamais trop tard pour dire combien Nancy manque à ceux qui l'ont cotoyée.

Elle est venue au Rwanda partager la douleur et l'espoir. Elle nous a aidé à formuler le thème de la négociation, si important pour qui milite pour la Paix et particulièrement l'éducation à la Paix.

Umuseke au Rwanda et l'association Par La Main, en France ont été soutenu par sa force et sa présence.

J'ai été reçu à Paris où elle m'a offert le gite et le couvert, et j'en garde un énorme souvenir.

Vous étiez là, Duncan, mais je ne voyais qu'elle.

Aujourd'hui que l'association Par La Main, comme l'association rwandaise Umuseke, se heurtent aux réalités financières, son soutien moral, pour résister à l'abandon, est encore présent.

Cette permanence de son sourire et de sa voix, si douce, nous réconforte.

Il est des départs qui ne sont pas des absences, ni des fuites, mais des sources d'inspirations.

Croyez bien, Duncan, que nous vous comprenons et que nous sommes persuadé que Nancy est là, encore proche de vous et de nous tous.

Vos activités ne vous méneront pas au Rwanda, mais si c'était le cas, vous serez le bienvenue.

By Sebastian Caldwell

I saw her in a dream the other night, she looked well, her hair was

natural and freshly cut. Looking into her deep blue eyes, I said she looked beautiful and gave

her a hug like when she picked me up at the gate at Logan last summer.

I noticed that she had a bluetooth earpiece, oddly, as if to

communicate from beyond the sight of mortal eyes.

It doesn't make sense that she's gone, it’s like saying the sun isn't

coming up tomorrow.

Somehow the universe seems more spiritualized and principles

overshadow particulars.

I feel Mom watches over us, guides and protects us, seeing truth

unrestricted by the errors and limitations of our world.

I will light a candle in Lisieux

From Felicity Cumming 

So very very sad to learn that Nancy is no longer with us, but am so grateful for the truly wonderful photos of her which I will always treasure. I send you hugs and much love through the ether, I will be thinking of you and my many happy memories of you both. I will light a candle for you all in Lisieux. Love Felicity

So vibrant & beautiful to the end

From Susan R. Suleiman

Oh dear Duncan, what terrible news you’ve sent.  I am sitting here in Budapest, remembering the last time I exchanged e-mails with Nancy—it was this past February, when she wrote to me that she was reading my book (The Némirovsky Question: The Life, Death, and Legacy of a Jewish Writer in Twentieth-Century France) and I responded how happy I was that she was feeling better.  But of course I also saw her - and you - this past summer, and it really didn’t occur to me that it would be the last time. 

 

I’ve just looked at the photos you’ve posted—she was so vibrant and beautiful as a young woman, and remained that way right up to the end!  I grieve and… hope we will have a chance to remember Nancy together in a few months, on her (and our) beloved Vineyard.

 

Love,

Susan

Nancy était l'intelligence, la générosité, la tolérance, la douceur, la créativité, l'amour de la vie

From Simone Thomas (and her husband, André Thomas)

Comme nous sommes émus, tristes, et désemparés. Je m'inquiétais et malheureusement, je n'avais pas tort.

Nancy était l'intelligence, la générosité, la tolérance, la douceur, la créativité, l'amour de la vie et encore tant d'autres choses. Elle va nous manquer beaucoup mais ce qu'elle a donné, ce que j'ai vécu avec elle lors de nos rencontres, ne s'effacera jamais. Cela fait partie des trésors que je garde précieusement. Je suis tellement heureuse de l'avoir connue. 

Comme vous êtes beaux tous les deux sur cette photo.

Nous sommes éloignés par la distance, mais si l'envie se présente, venez nous voir. Nous en serons heureux.

Nous vous embrassons bien sincèrement et nous adressons notre tendresse à Nancy.

If only that suitcase could have been permanently stored in the attic

From Valerie Sonnenthal, Chilmark town columnist for the Vineyard Gazette

Thank you for allowing the Gazette to share Nancy's amazing writing about living with cancer. If only that suitcase could have been permanently stored in the attic. Thank you for sharing her, her words and so much more.

How incredibly open she was to difference of any kind

From Sarah Hoadley

I will always treasure the memories of I have of spending time with the two of you in your apartment in Paris when Brad and I were on our honeymoon 18 (!) years ago. You guys were our first stop and you took us out for our first proper/incredible/lovely meal in the city as a newly-married couple.

What always stuck in my mind when I thought of Nancy was how incredibly open she was to difference of any kind. She really welcomed it and celebrated it. I know that must sound trite, but my then-24-year-old self was pretty impressed by that. Her daily life seemed to be a demonstration that difference was nothing to fear whatsoever, and that, instead, it held the promise of possibility and even the potential for something wonderful. It was a pretty fantastic example she set.

I'm also grateful that we got a chance to visit the two of you on Martha's Vineyard back in 2007 and see for ourselves the beautiful life that the two of you created there. Nancy took Brad and me to her favorite swimming spot that we had heard her talk about for so long and we got to meet your dad and some of your family. It was really special to be included in all of that. …Brad and I loved and admired Nancy very much. She was so lucky to have you & your kids, as I know you were all lucky to have her.

All my love,

Sarah

From Anissa Tai (and Cor & Thea Baaijens), Holland

I can find no words to comfort you in the terrible loneliness of having your heart torn away. You have both been in my thoughts and prayers all year and will continue to be. 
Cor will call you, we send you every strength and all our love. 
Later, please come and stay awhile with us and rest. You have been a tower of strength during poor Nancy's illness and you must be very tired. You are always welcome, don't forget. 
All our love. 

“Did she finish her book?”

From Natasha Cashman

I adored Nancy.... I enjoyed working so much with her.... The last time we met was for lunch at the Wepler, Place Clichy. You had just come back from Boston, after her first treatment with this doctor you had found. She was full of life and hope, it was wonderful to hear her, and she gave me so much strength for all that was happening in my own family.... She was wonderful, and as long as all those who crossed her path still walk on this earth Nancy will be remembered and will live on in our hearts and memories. I have so many happy memories of her. She’s very much alive for me, and I’m so glad we at least had that precious lunch together in Place Clichy.

I looked at the web site you’ve put up, and I’m so delighted to hear that you intend to finish her book for her. It was so important to her, and answered the question I asked myself on learning of her passing… “Did she finish her book?”

My heart and thoughts are with you,

Much love.

Nancy in the Clouds

From Chuck and Tannis Hannaford, New Mexico

The Pueblo Indians here in the Southwest have some most beautiful and profound views on death. Death in this world is birth in the next, and death in that world is birth in this one. An interesting rotation. The passed ancestors and loved ones visit us in this world in the form of Clouds. Clouds are not just weather as most Westerners view them, but Spiritual Beings, that bring rain, blessings, and fertility to the corn and the living. The Pueblo will tell you that with a Good Heart one can call the Clouds because they are Ancestors and Loved Ones. The Clouds will respond to the calling of a Good Heart. I have always viewed Clouds differently after learning this. There are a number of rock art depictions of Clouds as Spiritual Beings, the concept goes deep into times past. Anyway Duncan, see Nancy in the Clouds. 

Her love dwelled in the shadow of her movements

From Elizabeth Martin Webb (Nancy’s traveling nurse)

I think she would have chosen no other place on this earth to say goodbye than in your arms. How she loved you, and I know she reaches back to you every time you reach out to her. You could see her great love for you in her eyes, and hear it in her voice, and it dwelled in the shadow of her movements…. She was a person who was truly alive, and present for her life. Not every person is, but she achieved that plane. 

I think the two of you sent some sort of blessing with me in that way…. I met a quiet man who is kind and who reads too much. I married him because he is a rare sort these days, and of course because I love him. 

Thank you for teaching me how to really live life, and for sparking my adventurous spirit. 

I think of you often.

Grief & rage

From Anna Edey

I am so very sad about the loss of Nancy - it seems so recent that I had a sweet sharing with her at Salon. She was a very special woman…. You clearly also have a bounty of love and joy and friendship and respect and fun and challenges that you shared with Nancy over all those years - those memories will always be with you, and will gradually sooth and overpower the grief and rage that fill you now.

Clicking on the icon to the left will lead you to a wonderful tribute to Nancy and her teaching, which Victor Combal-Weiss posted on the PROJECT ALBA website in August 2011. Nancy provided free consulting to the social enterprise, which helps small farmers diversify their crops, grow nutritious vegetables, and increase their income in countries such as Cambodia.

***

Nancy Caldwell’s Rwanda Diary:

(I found the following notes in a school notebook)

Approaching Kigali on Oct. 14, 2008

I have danced in airports before:

-Singapore at 50 (business class at that)

-Peru – can’t remember anymore.

But this time I was ready to backstep.

Taxi ride to airport

5 am Paris – dark, empty streets

radio announcing worst economic crisis

Brussels – gray, cold houses uninspiring

Next stop Kigali.

*

I wasn’t happy when I looked at my ticket and saw the plane was arriving at night, especially after having seen that scene in the documentary.

We left Brussels around 10h30.

All through the flight, it felt so almost banally normal. I could be flying to Boston.  The window seat was fun for about 2 or 3 unclouded hours.

Now, it’s nighttime or rather dusk outside my window. I’m getting a little nervous again. I hope Michel and Jacqueline are there to meet me.

Nancy Aronie, boarding the ferry as I was leaving for France and Rwanda: “How do we grow.”

On the Vineyard, I was growing in depth – learning, feeling, strengthening my sense of balance, which so far seems to have helped me upon arrival in France – clarity, teaching, making the most of my nomadic experience.

Trajet left: 34 minutes.

I hope with this experience to grow in breadth… See more, understand more… More in the sense of quantity. Gain a wider world perspective.

Already being on this flight is strange, trying to mesh the familiarity of sitting in an international airliner and trying to realize the foreignness of my destination.

What will happen when we get there?

What will it be like?

Traveling by airplane is like going to a big surprise party.

32 minutes to go – the sky is completely dark. The plane is so calm. The projected Google Earth map shows Africa, exactly half in shadow and half in daylight.

27 minutes to go.

The US is bathed in sunlight.

How could Africa be half in sunlight, I thought the evening came differently at the equator than closer to the poles. Is that line somewhat curved?

The plane on the map is just about at Kigali.

What time at night was that return flight? I imagine basically the whole African part will be at night.

22 minutes. I think I’ll read second-hand smoke and think about “memory.”

Morning – open the door and voilà it’s Africa, a woman with a baby on her back is hoeing a plot just across the road from the city center.

M: What peace, les gens travaillent dans les champs.

There is a certain sense of wealth, abundance, serenity when the weather is warm and energy-giving everyday.

*

WHAM! BANG!

2:00 in the morning, the building shakes. It must be an earthquake. I should put on shoes and go outside.

Wait – a voice is railing. Someone is ranting the same phrase over and over through a loudspeaker system and a huge crowd is repeating. Drums are banging in the background.

Is this the déclenchement of another genocide? Instead of going out and standing in the street, maybe I should be hiding in a closet.

2:15 The exact same phrase is still being repeated. I hear the word Rwanda in it.

I’m shaking and trembling, fear of an earthquake, murder. Je reste figé au lit.

2:30 ça continue.

2:45 The rant changes, the music becomes a bit more joyful. I let myself fall asleep.

Michelle is lucky on her airplane.

*

Billboards:

Carefree pension plan

Banking by internet

Buy a home in the latest development

Turn your goals into achievements

If you have 10 cows then you are a T.

The sides of the road are like a highway. There’s a constant traffic of people of all ages, alone and in groups, in both directions, on both sides. Better dressed, barefoot, carrying huge sacks, jerrycans, babies on the back, wheeling triangular wooden carts. Just like a highway at home; you wonder who are these people and where on earth are they going? Unlike highways in our cities, there are no lights. Besides the car lights, there is nothing. The nights aren’t especially bright at all. The walkers have nothing to illuminate their way or to indicate to passing cars that they are there, in their human fragility.

Some people are actually sitting along the edge of the road, chatting as if in their living rooms as the cars whizz by.

*

Driving along narrow roads, often dirt and in terrible conditions – you notice the flash of silver or see someone bearing a wooden handle. These are machetes and hoes. It is terrifying. You look at the man’s face. Is he a murderer?

Shivers down my spine.

You see it more and more. Women are walking, balancing hoes on their heads.

At the US embassy, all is tight, clipped and cropped. Right angles, straight lines, each blade of grass seems to stand at attention. (Look around the corner) the strict/accurate one-inch borders are maintained by a gardener with a… machete.

*

So, this is me again.

So, who is this old woman sitting alone in a scrubbed refectory, being served a petit déjeuner complet by a young girl nervous about getting it right? Bread, butter, passion fruit (?), jam, tea, Nescafé, sugar - all pristine, all lined up, ready for just one person: me.

Most, if not all, of my contact with the Catholic church has been from traveling. Latin America, France, many many years ago.

*

Democracy & Human Rights

Last day, last minutes…

I walk into the yard to admire the sky, the plantings, and it’s a yard. Music is coming from the next-door neighbor’s yard.

There is no fear, there is peace.

The airport bar/lounge bridges a road. To my right the wall is almost all window. It is early dusk. This will be a great view to watch the quick nightfall.

5:50 Let’s see what happens.

Horizontal layers of rosy white, grayish white, wisping around a pearl white… and the rest that unmistakable dusky light blue.

There is a TV on with the standard nonsensical, aren’t-we-all-such-a-dynamic-normal-family advertisement. Potato chips, diapers. The colors look so superficial “undeep”. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen such colors. It’s exaggerated for TV, standardized; looks on people’s faces – the knowing, loving mother and the impish, basically good-at-heart kids.

5:50 The rose is gone, so is the blue. Now only shades of pearl and gray.

Behind me are large swirls of gray,

I do miss the ocean, Martha’s Vineyard, Duncan.

I feel good and hopefully strong enough to meet whatever is waiting for me in Paris.

6:00 The swirls have straightened into horizontals. The original horizontals on my right are blending into each other. A bit of pink is reappearing.

6:05 Bushy tree I hadn’t noticed before is a dark silhouette. I… suppose it was green, when it was noticeable.

Airport streetlights have just gone on, a faded orange is entering the sky. The bar needs its electric lights for illumination.

6:10 Basically the sky is dark with a slit window of pale blue and pale pink sky.

6:15 The slotted window is darkening and blending in with the rest. (So many Germans in the bar lounge). I hear them speaking behind me. The conjuncture of two genocides doesn’t escape my notice.

6:20 The floodlights are doing their job. A few traces of blue-gray left. The tree is becoming invisible.

6:25 It’s nighttime, except for those who can see in the night.

*

A mes amis à Umuseke,

En pensant souvent à la largeur de votre accueil, à votre savoir-faire, gentillesse, et à votre sagesse.

A bientôt, j’espère,

Nancy

A farewell & thank you letter to Nancy Caldwell from her Rwandan friends of UMUSEKE

***

Nancy’s haikus while she had cancer

For Anita & Fred Hotchkiss, February 5, 2016, Subject: Hi, I'm in a haiku mood today...

Thinking of you while
the snow falls and hoping for
only happy news

Love,
Nancy

(Nancy wrote this knowing that Anita was suffering from cancer too.

What she didn’t know was that both she and her dear friend would lose their lives around the same time.

Anita was one of the most sparkling, enthusiastic, widely cultivated women we ever met.)

Fred Hotchkiss’s reply:

Had to educate myself via Wikipedia -- my inept reply:

 

You are a perfect

haikuist in 5-7-5

will spring soon be here?

 

[Wikipedia

Is my encycloped’ya

naturalement]

 

love

For Anita & Fred Hotchkiss, Feb 7, 2016:

Your words are so warm
A crafted nest of kind thoughts
Thanks from our island

For Eric Leenson, Feb 14, 2016:

Here are some haikus from the book, Haikus for Jews: For You, A Little Wisdom, for you:

No fins, no flippers,
    the gefilte fish swims with
        some difficulty.

Firefly steals into
    the night just like my former
        partner, that gonif.

Is one Nobel Prize
    so much to ask from a child
        after all I've done?

Love,
N.

For Susanna Caldwell Linfield, February 14, 2016

Lately, I've been in a haiku mood. Here’s a thought from last night.

D brings boxes up
    Vietnam days' cards and games
        I dream your childhood.

We miss you.
Love,
Nancy

Susanna’s reply:

Dearest Nancy,

I love your Haiku

I am thinking of Vietnam

What splendor Our Zoo!

For Julie O’Connor & Dan Burstein, Mar 8, 2016, Subject: Carrots and such

Drinking carrot juice
in my haiku Spring, I think 
of you with much joy

Love,
N.

Dan Burstein’s reply:

Saw fifty robins

This first morning of bird spring

Thought of Vineyard soon

...and seeing Nancy and Duncan

For Duncan, Mar 18, 2016, Subject: This sucks!!!!

This sucks, we are too far apart

Love,
me

The above is not a poor haiku attempt

For Dr. Arlan Fuller and Janet Gallant-Wood, N.P., March 20, 2016

It could read a little corny, but this haiku came to me while walking down the street and since it captured my feelings, I decided to send it to you.
  

Paris in the sun

My spirit sprouting joy, with

sparkling thanks to you.

For Jennifer and John Fisher & “Dr. Fuller and Co”, January 1, 2017:

Bright peach sunlight greets
the welcoming bright blue skies
of this new year's dawn

The morning is so beautiful, it put me in my haiku mood.  

With so many, many ... thanks for this front row seat,

All our best for a Happy New Year,

Nancy and Duncan

For Karen Pickus, Chef/ Food Stylist for Good Morning America, Feb. 6, 2017

Thank you for the soup
 Your visit in winter light
And friendship so warm

For Joan & Henry Kriegstein, March 6, 2017:

Beautiful morning
So happy you are our friends
Thank you for your light

For Joan & Henry Kriegstein, March 8, 2017:

A haiku about your generosity:

Through the seasons, your

Castle cradles our souls

And feeds our spirits

“For Dr. Fuller and Co”, March 10, 2017: 

C-A-1-2-5
How can you rise, when buds sprout
And my roots feel strong?

Celebrating Olivia’s birthday on the screened porch that Nancy loved so much.

This was one of our last festive gatherings with my beloved, since she died just a few months later.

***

 (another work in progress)

Please send pictures or memories of Nancy to caldwellnd(at)aol.com.

Everything on this website is under copyright.

© Nancy Caldwell or © Duncan Caldwell.