Judith

Silently, one by one in the infinite meadows of heaven,
Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the Angels.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Evangeline





We love you Judith, you'll always be in our hearts...



Judith Nelson

Judith Arlene Nelson Judith Arlene Nelson, "Jude, Judy" died peacefully after a battle with cancer at her home in Sheffield, on February 7, 2011 at the age of 66. Born in Springfield, Vt., Judith traveled internationally and lived for many years in Boston before moving to the Berkshires and sharing her time between Sheffield, and Tucson, Ariz. Judith was tremendously talented and professionally accomplished as an artist. She received an undergraduate degree in Illustration from Syracuse University in New York, a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and a Master's degree in Education from Lesley College in Cambridge Massachusetts. She worked from her beautiful studios in Sheffield, and at the base of the Catalina Mountains in Tucson, Ariz. There she created children's books and many other illustrations from greeting cards and toy packaging to character development, new product concepts, and numerous licensed characters. Judith free-lanced for such companies as Hasbro, Milton Bradley, Mattel, Fisher-Price, Walt Disney, Hallmark, Parker Brothers, Tyco, Tonka and Playskool. Additionally, she worked as assistant art director for the Arthur License participating in the creation of over 50 Arthur books. Judith had a meticulous eye for detail and leaves a legacy of beautiful paintings, prints, and countless books. Judith is survived by her partner Steven Levine, his children Aliya Gard and her husband Lance of Cary, N.C., Hannah Wijeratna and her husband Robert of London, UK and Jesse Levine of Ft. Collins, Colo.; her grandchildren Ava, Grace, Pierson and Simon; her nephew Jay Nelson and his wife Barbara of Penfield, N.Y., their children Connor, Trevor, Harper and Audrey; her cousins Geoffrey Templeton, his wife Loraine and their children Jamie and Michael of Mill Spring, N.C.; Gary Templeton and his children Traci and Kristi of Cloverdale, Ore.; Jane Hine her husband Al Hine and their children Tristan, Mathew and Christopher of Seminole, Fla., and her cats Oscar and Motor. She was preceded in death by her parents, Ruth and Jim Nelson, and her beloved cats, Sidney, Clyde and Thomas. A celebration of her life will take place at her home in the coming summer. If you would like to be notified of date and location, please send an email to jnmemorial2012@gmail.com. Contributions in her name may be made to Hospice Care in the Berkshires, Inc. http:// www.hcib.org 413-443-2994.

Published in The Berkshire Eagle on February 26, 2012

Sorry! It's been so long and I've been embarrassed to post an update; there's so much to catch up on that I couldn't possibly remember it all... So I'll do a quick photo update and then take it from there. I've been thinking of some very special people, who I really wanted to keep this going for. You know who you are! xoxo



Ok, so in the spring, some of the highlights were-

Ava's spring performance of "The Lion Who Wanted to Love" She's in the middle with antelope antlers on :)




Auntie Erin came to visit!




Ava and Grace both got strep throat and then Ava developed scarlet fever. Here they are snuggling through it.



Grace learned that she will be "strong" if she eats her veggies :)




Ava lost her first tooth and had her first visit from the tooth fairy, who left her a pound coin!





We took lots of trips to our favorite places, including Kew!




And last, but not least, Uncle Jesse and Auntie Andi came to visit!






Next up... summer roundup!

Happy Easter! We've had a rough couple of weeks with Strep Throat and Scarlet Fever making the rounds in our household. The girls are both on Antibiotics, which make them feel pretty horrible. Luckily the weather has in the 70s-80s and sunny for the whole of Ava's Spring school break. Even though we haven't been able to be out enjoying it as much as we might like, we've still got the paddling pool and our new trampoline in the garden! We have managed a few outings in between tough days too. I'll get some pictures of it all soon, as well as Ava's Spring performance at school and her missing tooth :)

Grace getting down

Lanka's Flowers

Lanka's Flowers, a photo by hklevine on Flickr.

I made a terrarium arrangement and a larger floral arrangement of flowers in a vase for Lanka's Wake. Thought I would share the pictures. The flowers in the terrarium were all from our garden. They lasted much longer inside the glass than they would have in water. I chose flowers and colours I knew Lanka would have liked. I think he would have been pleased...

Lanka's funeral was yesterday. The beautiful service was a testament to his life and about one hundred people came. Rob read the eulogy perfectly. Lanka would have been very proud- lots of people said it was the nicest they had heard. The reception afterwards was at a cafe on Portobello Road, around the corner from Lanka's flat. The owner knew him for years and insisted that we have it there at no cost. Like many people, he said Lanka was a kind and gentle and generous man and that he was happy to have known him. Here is the eulogy for those of you who were unable to be here.

Lanka Wijeratna

17th October 1939 – 1st March 2011

Lanka was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on the 17th of October 1939, the son of Felix Wijeratne and Agnes Gunawardena.

He was the second of three children, four years younger than his brother Manthrie and 8 years older than his sister, Lilamini.

His parents were scions of two of the most eminent families in Sri Lanka. He had 19 uncles and aunts and more than fifty first cousins.

He was educated at two of the finest schools in Sri Lanka, Royal College and Thurstan. I think it’s fair to say Lanka always struggled with authority figures and it would be diplomatic on this occasion to say he was not a model student.

He was greatly upset by the death of his mother from cancer, when he was just 12 years old, and lived with a variety of caring relatives in grand houses in Colombo.

He developed his interest in cars at this time, while living with his cousins in Gower Street, Colombo. He and his cousin Ranjit both had MG sports cars from the age of 16, which they repaired and raced both round town, but also in rallies in the Sri Lankan hill country.

On both his mother and father’s side he had relatives involved in Sri Lankan politics. Despite being very large landowners, his mother’s brother, Philip Gunawardena, introduced Marxist socialism into Sri Lanka in the 1940s, after having fought for Indian independence and in the Spanish Civil War. Lanka worked on his uncle Philip and his uncle Robert’s election campaigns as a teenager. And during his whole life he never strayed from the principles of social justice and protection of the underprivileged which he had absorbed from a very young age.

At one point in his teens, six of Lanka’s uncles or first cousins were cabinet ministers, including a formidable female cousin, Vivian Gunawardena. Even today one of Lanka’s first cousins is the Deputy Minister of Finance, one is the Minister of Water Supply and Drainage and Chief Government Whip and another was, until last year, the Mayor of Colombo.

Lanka pursued his passion for cars and politics by taking up and completing a two year apprenticeship at Tuckers, the automobile engineers. During that time he became the shop steward of the union there.

He saw at first hand the inter-racial violence in Sri Lanka and after seeing some terrible things he decided, at the age of 19, that he did not want to live in such an environment. He therefore made the decision to give up a comfortable life in Colombo and move abroad.

Originally, when he set off in 1961, Lanka was headed for a job in Detroit’s motor industry, but fortunately for many people he stopped en route in London and never left.

He had several cousins working and studying in London and it was through one of them, Kuru, a boat builder, who had sailed his own boat from Sri Lanka to the UK, that Lanka met Edna, who was just starting her teaching career.

Lanka took a job at Lucas Engineering in Acton and in the early sixties he started a Wijeratna tradition in west London, by going to Loftus Road, to support Queen’s Park Rangers, the local football club.

In 1964, Lanka and Edna got married at Hinde St Methodist Church, and over the next five years they had three sons – myself, Charles and Alexander – of whom he was immensely proud.

Although he was a Buddhist, having seen inter-religious conflict at first hand Lanka spent much of his life on a one-man mission to prove that it was possible to be spiritual in all the world’s great religions. During his time in London Lanka attended the Methodist, Anglican and Catholic churches, Hindu kovils and Sikh and Buddhist temples. And those are the religious sites we know about! And of course he was such a fan of the Jewish faith, that he invented the story that Edna came from a Jewish family!

In 1966 Lanka set up his own car repair firm, Lanka Auto Repairs, first in Ruston Mews and later in Powis Terrace in Notting Hill. Lanka greatly enjoyed meeting and spending time with the cosmopolitan mix of people coming in with their cars for repairs. The artist David Hockney had his first studio across the road and unfortunately, Lanka never took Hockney up on his repeated request to paint a portrait of Lanka and us boys.

By 1970 his bipolar condition had become severe and it was with great difficulty that he got some medical help. Hospital admissions and the difficulties of living with his illness led to divorce from Edna in 1973. Although they divorced nearly 40 years ago, it is a testament both to his lovability and to her dedication that until this very day Edna has never stopped caring for and supporting him.

Lanka stayed in the flat in Kensington Church Street and kept in close and regular contact with me and my brothers. This was a very difficult time for him and he was in and out of hospital regularly. But gradually his condition mellowed and we were able to help him manage it effectively. From that time in the mid-eighties, until last year, he was not admitted to hospital again.

He had a series of jobs after giving up his garage. His favourite was working for David Ascherl, doing the deliveries for Ascherl Ceramics, which he did for nine years in total. In this role he was able to combine his natural sociability – getting to know all the people on his rounds – with his love of driving fast. The Ascherls can attest to the quality of the rally driving skills he learned in Sri Lanka. It is interesting that his first job was driving one of his uncles around Sri Lanka and his last job was driving around west London.

In 1986 he moved to his flat in Portobello, where he lived until he recently went into hospital. It was there that he finally found contentment; he created a haven of peace, calmness and good music in a busy world. He dispensed wise words, tea and excellent curries to many people over the years. He got to know lots of the local characters in and around the market and spent much of his time trying to help those who were less fortunate than himself. We all very much enjoyed this environment of peace and calm.

He maintained the concern for social justice he had developed in Sri Lanka in the 1950s to the end of his life. As well as being a generous and calm host, he has always done what he could to help the disadvantaged.

Even though he had limited financial resources, he often sent money back to Sri Lanka to support projects for the poor. When in possession of just one pound in his pocket he has been known to give it to one of his friends.

In many ways Lanka had a difficult life, but he was also blessed. He was very fortunate in that he had charm and people liked him. Sensitive people were drawn to his kind and gentle spiritual nature and he was an excellent judge of character. We would often ask his opinion about what he felt about something or someone. He had a great sense of humour and loved Ronnie Barker, Peter Sellers and Steptoe & Son. He had a twinkle in his eye, something he never lost. Even towards the end in hospital, he always perked up when a pretty nurse came to attend to him.

And despite everything he lived through, he had a sense of style. He had great taste in music, books, food, eau de Cologne, clothes, cameras and cars. He had owned, driven and lost interest in Aston Martins and E-Type Jags long before we had even dreamt of driving a Volkswagen Polo.

He was not scared of standing up to authority figures. Once he was sent down to the court cells in Colombo for flicking his cigarette butt at a High Court judge from the public gallery.

He was concerned about the important things in the world – peace between warring nations, global warming, lives destroyed by drugs or the lack of clean drinking water. These were the themes he was interested in, long before many of them became mainstream issues.

He was an unconventional man in London. He introduced some Sri Lankan habits which we found perplexing – he put salt on his mangoes, sugar and lemon juice on his avocado and ginger in his tea. He sliced banana on his marmalade on toast and he loved ginger beer.

He was a very loving, caring and gentle father. He was not conventional in the terms of providing in a material sense for us. But he provided something much more valuable – he was always present and his love was unconditional. He felt the pull of Sri Lanka, his amazing loved ones there and his roots, but he decided to stay here, in difficult circumstances for his family.

He provided us with a sense of perspective about what was truly valuable in life – relationships and love, rather than money and possessions. When Charles, Alex and I were organising his affairs last weekend we found he had kept every letter and postcard we had ever sent him, and small but important documents, like an entry ticket to one of our degree ceremonies. Things like that were important to Lanka.

He was a very lovable man and it is fitting that he ended his days in the Thistlethwaite ward of St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington. A ward where the nurses and doctors have created an environment and culture of affection and care that goes well beyond their job descriptions. They truly cared for him on that ward. Like many other things in his life, in that, Lanka was fortunate.