Sue Popkin

For Maggi From Sue

Maggi was my big sister, older than me by more than a decade. I didn’t know my sister very well when I was growing up. Although by all accounts she thought I was a great addition when I was born, she left home when I was just five and after that I only saw her when she would come home for visits. But she was always my cool older sister—beautiful, with long hair and wearing fabulous clothes she made herself. She made pottery, baked bread, was a vegetarian, had cool boyfriends, lived in a funky apartment near Boston. I gave up eating red meat at the age of 16 so I could be like my sister (she always said our Mom’s fried chicken didn’t count as meat, so I could still safely eat that).

As we grew older, I became aware that she was always fighting for justice, starting by organizing a women’s clerical workers union at MIT. When she moved down to El Salvador to do human rights work, I was so proud of her. I would share the letters she sent us to my friends and marvel that I had a sister who was so brave and could do such amazing things. My mother visited her several times and was incredibly proud of what the work her daughter was doing.

When Maggi gave birth to Damian in 1988, my mother went down to be with her and help, as she has for all of her grandchildren. Because Maggi was a single mother, my mother forged a special bond with Damian, a bond that became even closer when Maggi had to have surgery for a pituitary tumor three times over 2 years, and Maggi and Damian spent months at a time living with my parents.

Maggi and Damian moved here in 1994, a year after my family had settled in Virginia. For the first time, we were able to really spend time together and get to know each other as adults. We raised our children together, watched our sons play with dinosaurs for hours—Maggi always was amused by the way Zach, two years younger and very scientific, would correct his older cousin about dinosaur names. We began taking Damian to the beach in Chincoteague with us when he was seven, which became a treasured family tradition.

When we adopted our daughter Rachel in 1997, Maggi and Damian came over immediately to admire her. Maggi and Rachel adored each other; Maggi used to help my husband, Norm, amuse baby Rachel while I taught Zach’s 2nd grade Sunday School class. Rachel loved to visit with Maggi, to make her pictures, and to snuggle in her lap.

Over the years, we held seders together, celebrated birthdays, Mother’s Day, and shared many family get togethers at my Aunt Mary and Uncle Roy’s home in Silver Spring, and pool parties at my Uncle Renny and Aunt Carolyn’s house in Brookeville. Maggi and I both worked downtown, and would meet for lunch to discuss our trials and successes at work, talk about our parents, and most of all, to talk about our three wonderful children. We traded earrings on birthdays, and occasionally, I would be brave enough to try shopping with her—always an ordeal as she would agonize over every decision (but she always looked fabulous!).

Maggi was a wonderful mother, devoted to Damian and the two of them had a beautiful relationship, loving and close. You can tell what a great mother she was by seeing the wonderful person her boy has become. Maggi was a loving daughter, especially close to our mother, but also to our father, Dick Popkin, who nurtured all of our intellectual curiousity and made us laugh at the absurdities of the world. After our father died last month, Maggi and I had hoped my mother would move here to be near us.

The last time I saw Maggi was on Mother’s Day, when our families shared brunch at a restaurant near her house. I feel so lucky to have had these 11 years with her, but they were much too short. She was Jerry’s and my beautiful sister, a devoted mother, a loving daughter, and a good friend. We will all miss her and will try to honor her legacy by carrying on her passion to bring justice and peace to the world.