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"I am Mother Goddess. Source of life and love. Breathing vision into manifestation. Bearing children of body and soul. I am the blood of life. The pulsing throb of passion. I am the full moon glowing in the sky. And the beauty of all creation. I sustain all form. With the milk of my devotion. And dissolve all woes. With the power of my love. I am the starry sky. The rolling earth. And the heaving sea. From me all doth proceed. And all shall come back to me."
About Wendy
My beautiful sister Wendy, passed away yesterday at 4:00pm.She was surrounded by all of her family and close friends.
After being told by the doctors that Wendy only had a fewweeks to live, we brought her home to die with us.
To care for someone who is dying is both a gruesome and wondrous experience. To know that my sister died with all the love and care we provided for her meant so much to all of us and to her.
With the help of Hospice, my sister Jen, my mom and I took care of Wendy around the clock and watched her body die over a matter of 6 days.
I can't think of any group comparable to Hospice. These people are truly angels. The compassion they show andthe dignity they provide to the dying is something beyond words.
Wendy was a follower of the Goddess and used her spiritual strength to help the innocent and the abused.
Wendy was a feminist that wore pink and got her nails done.
Wendy fought hard for women's right and single handedly took on the Connecticut Department of Corrections, and after years of hard work, got the sexual harrassment and abuse of female corrections officers investigated and stopped.
For many years she was the Executive Director of the Women's Center in Willimantic, Ct., and dealt the women and children that had been beaten and sexually abused. She opened many lines of communication between her organization and others that dealt with theses issues. She pulled together members of the State Police, the Dept.of Children and Youth Services, other agencies and got everyone working together so the victims of abuse could be helped and the perpetrators could be brought to justice.
Prior to her death, she was the Deputy Superintendent of the New Haven Juvenile Detention Center. She loved her job and loved the people she worked with. She wrote a wonderful program that has been dedicated to her. The program was a reorganization of the staff and detainees with the endresult being that restraints on children went down over 70 percent.
She was courageous and fought hard against those that would hurt others.
My family and I will truly miss her.
We will be holding the wake at Impelliteri-Malia Funeral Home in New London on Thursday, Feb 15th.
Wendy is being cremated and there will be a memorial service and the spreading her ashes sometime in the spring.
If you would like to be informed about the time and place of the memorial service please write to me at ppieniadz@gmail.com.
I'll be sure to send out an announcement when we pick a date.
Patty
To Help
Please feel free to add comments, tell us stories or send me pictures that you might have of Wendy. I will gladly add them here.
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2 comments:
I love this shot. That is the patented Wendy 'look'. I never knew what she was thinking when she threw that look my way, but I knew it wasn't in my favor. I'll miss that look.
I remember this look very well - I got this one a lot. :)
I met Wendy around 1998, as she was beginning a couple of women's spirituality groups and had recently opened The Goddess Shoppe. I was lucky enough to learn from her and was eventually initiated by her. We had a falling out a few years ago and our relationship was never the same afterward, though I did see and speak to her once or twice afterward. I have many regrets, mainly that I wasn't ready to learn what she wanted to teach me. I hope that in the future I can continue to learn from what little time I had with her and teach others.
Wendy changed my life forever and knowing her opened many doors for me. I met many other strong, amazing women through Wendy. She helped facilitate the relationship that eventually got me my first invitation to a homebirth. She encouraged me to study midwifery, she knew that was my life's passion before I really knew it myself.
I remember walking with her and the dogs in the woods behind the house in Coventry on a beautiful early autumn day, this was shortly after we met.
I also remember a snow day where she, Michelle and I stayed home from work and went out to play instead.
I am grateful for all that I learned from and through her and will miss her dearly. She was an amazing woman and I can only hope to meet another woman who can hold a candle to her strength and power. I am proud to say that at one time she was my friend and mentor.
I can still hear her voice singing:
We all come from the Goddess
and to her we shall return
like a drop of rain
flowing to the ocean
Rachael (McGrath) Clark
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