The phone rang just as we were about to leave for the evening. “It's Jon Healy. Are you both sitting down? I have some grave news.” Maybe I'd misunderstood. Grave sounds like great in a world full of wishes that can't come true. Strange. A voice comes over the phone line. I don't want to hear it, yet I want to know. So I listened in a nightmare state. Jon's sister, Ellen, was hit by a pickup truck that morning. He hadn't said yet whether or not she was still alive. I waited, hoped. But there was no hope. She'd been declared brain dead.
My mind filled with images of Ellen, tried to erase that final one. She was more than Sarah's friend, was close to our whole family. I suddenly wanted to be sure: were she and Sarah really only four years old when they met? I looked through my old Hallmark date books. Yes. June 24, 1967, was their first play date. I'd wanted Sarah to meet another child going to JCC day camp. And that child turned out to be Ellen. Ellen's spirit, the oomph combined with innocence that sparked their friendship 40 years ago, never changed. Part of her became an adult, yet she kept the child within.
Ellen was unique, truly unique, simply herself, no pretenses, enthusiastic about life and learning, off the wall in the best possible way. And creative, always ready to play, always inventive. And brilliant. Her PHD professor said she was one of the best students he'd ever had.
I used to go out dancing with my kids and their friends. Ellen and I had a special electricity, would mime crazy, anything goes, skits to the music, even when her leg was in a cast. She collaborated with me when I started performing, acting out one of my short stories. Sarah and Ellen had that same sort of electricity. One summer they painted together in the Shorewood alleyways, inspired each others' company. I never saw the paintings Ellen did that summer, but I know Sarah's were some of her best.
Ellen often came to our family dinners with the Leplaes, a lively presence in our games of charades, story-writing, pictionary, or whatever else we figured out to play. After she moved away from Milwaukee, she and I always made sure we'd take a bike ride together whenever she visited.
Ellen's life wasn't easy, was haunted by illness and accidents, falling out of trees, sledding into one. She seemed to take it all in stride. She had facial surgery as a result of the sledding accident. When we visited her in the hospital, she looked like Little Lulu, yet didn't appear at all nonplussed, didn't have to apologize for her swollen face.
Ellen's core, her intense interior life, always showed through. She cared about nature, about the arts, about the world, cared about friends and family. And we all cared about her. You can get a sense of the impact she had on others' lives if you read the blogs written about her and come to the memorial service at Rosenblatt Gallery, located over Artasia at 181 N. Broadway, on Saturday, November 17, at 1:30 PM. Ellen grew up in Shorewood, and I hope some of you reading this will share your memories with the rest of us.
The world needs more people like Ellen, but tragically we have one less.
