[Dialogue] Teresa Lingafelter -- a fine remembrance of Teresa from Catherine Whitney

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 Thank you James Wiegel for this nice tribute to Teresa Lingafilter.
I met Teresa and Bob at the Cebu House in the early 70's. 
She was kind and welcoming. I admired her sharp wit.
I'm sending her off with love and prayers for peace.

Elsa Batica
St Paul, MN

     On Tuesday, May 12, 2020, 05:23:45 PM CDT, James Wiegel via Dialogue <dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:  
 
 
TERESA LINGAFELTER, BELOVED FRIEND – MAY 10, 2020

Teresa was physically small, but she had a big presence. I think anyone who knew her would agree with that. She was razor sharp intellectually, and for that reason she could be testy sometimes, even gruff. In all the years I knew her, I can’t remember Teresa ever letting an idiotic statement stand without rebuttal. If you were the one spouting the idiocy, it could sting. But then, an instant after she slayed your foolish dragon, she would open up with a laugh, a silly joke, a sweetness and a vulnerability that was disarming and warming. She was a good friend.
Teresa was always youthful, with her wide, devilish smile, her forceful point of view, her robust struggles and great delights. But in other ways she seemed older than her years. When I first met her and her husband Bob, along with the band of miscreants who formed a community development cadre at the University of Washington we called Ithaca (yes, after Ithaca of the Odyssey), she was much more mature than me. I skated on the surface; Teresa was deep. She set me straight on many occasions, and I loved her for it. After the UW, Teresa and I lived through various cycles, including working together during an intense period in the seventies when we put our minds to the big idea of social change. After Bob died in 1996, there was a new dimension to our relationship—the humbling fact of our fragility.
If we’re lucky, there are people who come along in life and completely upend the way we think and live. Teresa was like that for me, as was Bob. The Lingafelters barreled into the world, working in some of the most crisis-stricken parts of the nation and the globe, and shook progress from the trees. They were talented and committed, and after Bob died, Teresa proved that she was a genius in urban planning. All those footprints of change. It was something to watch.
Down through the decades, separated by place, circumstances and divergent careers, our little Ithaca group survived as a touchstone of our lives, separate and common. We started getting together occasionally a while ago—kind of a “what’s up?” retreat. More recently we’ve met every two years for a few days at a wonderful house on Whidbey Island in Washington State. I describe these gatherings to friends as college reunions, but they’re not exactly that—more about the future than about memories. We talk about the issues of the day, the change we can make in our disparate corners, and what it will look like to grow old together. That’s what grieves me most—the idea that I won’t grow old with Teresa.
We were looking ahead to our next gathering when Covid struck. My last view of Teresa was on March 21, smiling out of her Zoom box on our first group get-together. She didn’t make it to the second. A brain tumor, hidden from view, its effects masked by the strains of the circumstances surrounding Covid, sneaked up on her while everyone’s attention was focused elsewhere. She didn’t survive the ordeal.
The loss is unspeakable, but in poetry Teresa’s steady voice speaks to me. I can close my eyes and hear Teresa reciting lines from a poem by DH Lawrence, an old favorite called We are Transmitters:
Give, and it shall be given unto you
is still the truth about life.
But giving life is not so easy.
It doesn't mean handing it out to some mean fool, or letting the living dead eat you up.
It means kindling the life-quality where it was not,
even if it's only in the whiteness of a washed pocket-handkerchief.

Go in peace, Teresa.


Jim Wiegel  

“That which consumes me is not man, nor the earth, nor the heavens, but the flame which consumes man, earth, and sky."  Nikos Kazantzakis

401 North Beverly Way,Tolleson, Arizona 85353
623-363-3277

jfwiegel at yahoo.com

www.partnersinparticipation.com
 

    On Tuesday, May 12, 2020, 02:39:48 PM MST, Michael Shaw via Dialogue <dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:  
 
    Friends,  
  Molly received a phone call this afternoon from Sarah Phillips today telling her that Teresa Lingafelter passed away on Mother's Day. The link below was from a GoFundMe page that was set up by Teresa's daughter, Rebecca. There are 3 separate posts that share the last days of Teresa's journey.  
 https://www.gofundme.com/f/teresa-lingafelter-home-care   
     

Peace,
Michael Shaw
d.michael.shaw at comcast.net
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