Mary's Eulogy

To borrow a line from EB White and his classic Charlotte’s Web, “It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Valjean was both.”

She was my friend, but when I first met her I was looking for a writer. Denise Zaccardi gave me her name, and she showed up in my office, this classy, feisty, brainy, beautiful woman. She wrote a piece for me called “Sustainable Manufacturing,” back in 1988 when nobody had ever heard the word “sustainable.” She told me later that she had no idea what we were talking about, but she was a pro, she could write anything she put her mind to.

She wrote all kinds of things, in her near-forty years as a writer: children’s books, marketing copy, radio scripts, reports for nonprofits with complicated names like Center for Neighborhood Technology and even more complicated agendas that she managed to explain in simple, compelling terms.

Much of her best work she did in partnership with the wonderful designer Kym Abrams. Every so often, I would find on my desk a book with a bold fresh look, arresting copy, and clear compelling messages, and I would think: Valjean and Kym, at it again, and find their credits on the inside back cover.

Her writing was like the woman herself: smart, stylish, no-nonsense, spare, honest, clean, beautiful. It’s hard work; she made it look easy.

So from that initial work together we became friends, and later almost like sisters. We shared that old Catholic background, and she came to church with me sometimes, here at St Gertrude’s, or other places. Like many people here, and in Africa, and elsewhere, I became part of her circle, and she became part of my family, attending my children’s weddings, visiting my mother, welcoming my granddaughter.

Three summers ago, she and I took a trip to Ireland, in search of her own family, the family her father James McLenighan left behind when he emigrated to America as a little boy. It was a magical trip, and I suspect she has told most of you the stories. She found the township where the McLenighans came from; she found the church where her grandparents were married, the graves of distant cousins, the records of the land they farmed. Most important, she found a whole new set of friends and family, and became part of their lives. That same gift of friendship she shared with all of us, and with the family in Africa, and with people all over this country, she brought back to the Irish countryside her father had left a century before.

As she became sick, she used her writing, that wonderful blog, to share with her friends and family what she was going through: her hopes, her determination, her pain, her acceptance, her love.

A few days after her death, I got a call John McLarnan, Valjean’s great friend over in Ireland, who celebrated his 94th birthday last Wednesday and whom Valjean and I had planned to visit next week. His words speak for me and I know for all of us: “When you’ve been given a gift, you have to say thank you. And it was a gift to have known her.” Thank you, Valjean.

~ Mary O'Connell