[Oe List ...] Fwd: [Dialogue] Teresa Lingafelter -- a fine remembrance of Teresa from Catherine Whitney

Tue May 12 15:38:15 PDT 2020

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: James Wiegel via Dialogue <dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Date: Tue, May 12, 2020 at 5:23 PM
Subject: Re: [Dialogue] Teresa Lingafelter -- a fine remembrance of Teresa
from Catherine Whitney
To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net>, Michael Shaw <
d.michael.shaw at comcast.net>
Cc: James Wiegel <jfwiegel at yahoo.com>

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 <http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=123>

“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 <marilyn.oyler at gmail.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
040414
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