Maurine Holbert Hogaboom Exits Stage Left

Maurine Holbert Hogaboom

Yesterday a good friend died. Her name was Maurine Holbert Hogaboom and she was 98. If you want to read about her amazing life—how she journeyed to New York from rural Texas as a member of a burlesque troupe, how she found a living in the theatre, how she was called up before the House on Un-American Activities Committee and was blacklisted for her support of the American Negro Theatre, how at 70 she found the love of her life and moved to St. Mary’s City—you can click here to read the article I wrote about her six years ago. But I want to take this occasion to express my gratitude that she entered our lives and voice my sadness that she is gone.

Until the end, Maurine opened herself to everyone and every experience. Each decade, she declared, was better than the one that preceded it. She called her friends her “earth angels.” Her life, she always maintained, was filled with blessings.

She suffered an aneurysm Saturday morning and never regained consciousness.   I visited her before she died, and as I looked at her lying in her bed, seemingly asleep, her eyes moving under her eyelids and her long white hair flowing over her pillow, I thought about how the community she had nurtured was now gathering around her.  Just as she had cradled her husband when he died, so now her friends, watching her around the clock, were cradling her.

The literary passage that surfaced for me was the blind seer Teiresias’ final prediction to Odysseus during the hero’s journey to the underworld:

Then a seaborne death
soft as this hand of mist will come upon you
when you are wearied out with rich old age,
your countryfolk in blessed peace around you . . .

The woman who embraced life so joyously seemingly was finding a way to embrace death as well. I have no doubt that she is making the most of her latest adventure. God speed, Maurine.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

9 Comments

  1. WordPress › Error

    There has been a critical error on this website.

    Learn more about troubleshooting WordPress.