remembering Joyce...

Last Thursday, I received one of those phone calls that no one ever wants to experience... one of those phone calls that begins with "I'm calling with really horrible news"... My former co-worker and friend, Joyce, took her own life last week to the shock of everyone who knew her. I had no idea that she was having medical issues, but I understand that she was in pain and most likely found out that she had cancer. That's when she weighed her options, and apparently decided that suicide was her best bet. On Sunday, I attended a beautiful memorial service in her honor. I just wanted to write some about her life and who she was to me.

It is always amazing to hear people speak at a memorial service. I didn't think that I knew Joyce that well because we only worked together for a couple years, but as her close friends and family stood and spoke about her, I realized that many things they said about her rang true to the Joyce that I knew as well.

She had an intense personality (and made no apologies for it either). At first it was intimidating, but then it was just Joyce. She was an "in-your-face" type: 100% outgoing, 100% Brooklyn... (I find it ironic that I will soon be moving to Brooklyn, which is where Joyce was from). It is also ironic that Joyce was completely capable of being private with her own life, but yet she would ask anybody anything at anytime, whether they were a friend or someone who had just walked into the store that we worked in together. She was personal (perhaps too personal at times), but you just had to get used to that coming from her. You came to expect that, at some point or another, she would ask you something that no one else dared to ask...

She had strong opinions and did not hesitate to share them. She was dead set against coffee, so I stopped drinking it around her. She hated cigarettes, but liked cigars. She's the only adult I know that would down a jar of baby food as a snack. She ate only organic food, she wore 100% cotton clothes... she was eccentric to say the least. She talked faster, walked faster, and drove faster than anyone I've ever known.

If there was one thing that Joyce and I had in common, it was our love for books and reading. She helped me get through Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Plato's Republic for philosophy classes. She had a gift for teaching (and mothering) and tutoring those younger than herself. I was not at all surprised to hear that she had regularly helped her nieces with their homework and helped them study over the phone. To quiz people was one of her favorite things: she tested me with the information I needed to know, whether it was for work or for an exam at school. And I would have to admit, I probably paid attention (and learned) more because I knew she would test me!

It was Joyce whom I first met outside the Judaica store when I went for my interview with the manager, Joyce who asked me after that infamous Purim play, "So who's the guy who played the King? He's good-looking, right?" (I married that King), and Joyce who advised me that I should only be feeding my baby daughter organic foods (and I took her advice as long as I could afford to!) It's difficult to see how much impact and influence a person has on your life until they are taken out of your life... I pray that I made as much of an impression on her life as she did upon mine. I will most certainly never meet anyone like Joyce, but I am hopeful that perhaps I will meet someone who shares some of her qualities: her genuine concern and interest in people, her intelligence, her sense of humor, her eccentricity.

She was a beautiful expression of G-d's creativity, and she will be dearly missed by many.