I Need a Minute - delivered at the memorial service for Peggy Rose Johnson

It is so nice to be among so many folks all gathered to celebrate and honor Peggy’s remarkable life. She deserves no less. I have lots of stories of life with Peggy and I want to share the glimpse of her that I got to see. I just hope you’ll bear with me because before I do that I need a minute. A moment to catch my breath. A moment to grieve the loss of her physical presence. A moment to rage at cancer. A moment to curse the healthcare system. A moment to acknowledge and accept that something has in fact ended. That something seismic has shifted. I don’t think it will be along minute but I do need a minute.

Don’t misunderstand. I know that our collective memories can sustain us. I know that spirit is real and some say eternal. I truly believe that the gift of Peggy’s love and being allowed to love her is not diminished with her passing. And I know that there will be joy again. After all, the bible says “Weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning”. The truth is that, for me, morning has not yet dawned. So I need this minute to say goodbye to my sister. To release the grief and find the heart to choose joy again.

I need a minute to say out loud how much I will miss her grace, her wit, her intellect, her style, her heart, her warmth, her easy affection, her artistry, her steadfastness, her love. The way she called me "Valerina" and I’d call her "Peggylita" in reply; and then, we’d laugh a loud knowing laugh. I will miss that. I will also miss her independence, her resourcefulness, her sass, her protectiveness. Hell, I’ll even miss her stubbornness and her walkabouts. Do you know about those? Well, Peggy would disappear for long periods. We learned to hold her loosely, that holding too tightly bristled her. “Has anyone heard from Peggy? ” has been a part of nearly every conversation that my sisters and I have had for more that 20 years.

It is ironic that oh so private Peggy had her private world broken open by her fight to survive. She had to do lots of learning to trust others - to let us all in. And the sisterhood wrapped around her tightly and held her up. On May 28th,  I knew that Peggy had passed away without being called. I knew because my phone was silent that morning. No call. No text. There was no report on how her night went, no itinerary for her day, no planning for her care, no rally for prayer. There was silence. And then, quite frankly, there were no words-there are no words.

So, I’ll need a minute. A moment to remember being on stage with Peggy. And how she danced to Black Butterfly in the opening of SHE SPEAKS wearing the infamous black catsuit. Or that time when Johnnie Gamble forgot his lines during our production of HOME and shooed us off the stage. Peggy and I stood backstage looking at each other incredulously wondering what the hell to do. Eventually, we found our way. We always found our way.

I'll need a minute to remember walking along the highline in NYC talking futures and being old ladies on a beach somewhere with someone young and cute bringing us cocktails. A moment to remember that first Girls' Night and how we brought up the sun, spent from sharing. And remembering every Girls' Night thereafter as we loved each other into our respective womanhoods.

Ellen once wrote that Peggy was "the kind of woman who couldn’t cross a threshold without making an entrance". Make no mistake. Peggy knew the power of her presence and she wielded it like a weapon with both boldness and compassion. I’ll need a moment for remembering that compassion too.

 Recently, I posted a reading about death on facebook. I posted it because it felt like something Peggy would have said. It was written by Henry Scott-Holland in 1910.

"Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened everything is just as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life we shared so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference in your tone. Wear no false air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a neglible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well."

This piece is so spot on that I hear it now in Peggy’s voice. And I reply: "I love you my beautiful sister, Peggy Rose. I hear you. And I will do my best but all is not yet well with me. I need a minute."