I’ve learned not to get too close to the beautiful people I meet at the Mansion because we all know that sooner rather than later, we’ll be saying goodbye. The Mansion residents live at the edge of life, and they all know it.

People live at the Mansion, they go elsewhere when they can’t be cared for there and it is time for them to leave the world. I never get to say goodbye, which is the sad part of being a volunteer. One day they are just gone. Because of Covid, I didn’t even know she had left.

But I sure will miss her, so will Maria. We both admired her greatly. She always had something interesting

Madeline was exceptional. She stole my heart. It was so much fun to talk to h er.

She grew up in New York City, and when her father went to jail, she was sent to a Jewish orphanage in Brooklyn, where she learned to play the piano and sing. She spent years in community theater when she grew up, mainly singing Broadway Show Tunes.

She had a great presence about her, a sort of royal dignity and poise.

Madeline had style and class, she was curious and outspoken, and very bright. She had the New York edge and never lost it.

I loved to have her in my classes while she could come. She sang pretty often for the other residents and me. She loved to go to my reading hours and always had interesting questions about what I was reading.

She was always happy to belt out a Broadway show town. She always declined at first, then just sang. She pretended to be shy but was not.

It is not easy to leave one’s life behind and go into assisted care, but Madeline made it look easy, although I know she missed her family and her life very much. She cared a great deal about her dignity.

Every time I ever saw her with a dog, which was often, she would take my arm and look me in the eye and tell me the dog’s collar was too tight. At first, I explained to her that the collar was not tight, but I gave up eventually and simply said I’d loosen it when I got home.

The next time I saw she’d touch Red or Zinnia and tell me the collar was too tight.

Madeline left the Mansion two weeks ago – she came to my most recent meditation class but hardly spoke – and had to go to a nursing home as she began to fail. We knew she was fading and weakening, she no longer asked me any questions or pretended to know my name.

She died tonight. She was 99.

Madeline was a remarkable woman; she had an amazing life and loved to tell her story.

She had the grit and attitude of a  true New Yorker and never let anyone forget it. I never heard her complain or say a bad word about anyone.

She was a voracious crossword puzzle reader,  while, and she asked me to bring her crossword puzzles long after she could finish them. I knew she couldn’t see the mysteries, and I bought her a magnifying glass to read them.

But mostly, for the past year or two, she just pretended to be reading and finishing them. We love you, Madeline; you are one of the best and most original and proud people I have known. Maria says goodby and much love also, she loved having you in her art classes. I remember Maria giving her one last hug a couple of weeks ago.

Every time I came to the Mansion, she said, “thank you for coming.” But over the past two months, she wasn’t there. We will miss her. I never met anyone like her.

In the first few years I have known Marilyn, she always had a New York Times crossword puzzle in her hand or one of the crossword books I brought her. She couldn’t read the type in the past couple of years as her eyes failed, so I got her a powerful magnifying class. It worked for a while, but her memory and eyes declined, and she had to give up the puzzles. But she never stopped carrying the puzzles around until a few months ago.

She was friendly to everyone but mostly kept to herself. She was very grateful to be at the Mansion, she often said “I have everything I need here.”

Take care Madeline, I can already hear you belting out “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend.”