Elizabeth walsh peavoy an appreciation

Elizabeth Walsh Peavoy (1945-2014)

Elizabeth had many careers, but I prefer to speak to you about her extraordinary character and personality, which is what made her so loved and so valued by so many. Wherever she lived, wherever she worked, wherever she went, Elizabeth was widely loved and – without ever seeking it - invariably drew to herself devoted new friends.

All who loved Lizzie knew that she was like no other. She was unique, and very special.

Mitzi Angel (her friend from Brussels schooldays), wrote to my son Adam to say: 'Your mother always loomed large my universe. She taught me you didn’t have to be like everyone else. I remember her writing me a wonderful letter that I’ve kept all these years, and still have with me here in New York'.

In our family we loved that Lizzie never seemed to care what clothes she would throw on, including her assortment of crazy hats, worn out shoes, or any crooked old walking stick she might pick up on her way. She was far removed from spending on the styles promoted in fashion mags.

However, if she had a beautiful item, she could put it into hibernation for ages.

I always knew that an occasion was special for Lizzie if she took out the yellow Thierry Mugler coat that I gave her over 20 years ago in Brussels. She asked for very little in material things.

Her friend Cormac O’Malley wrote from New York to say to Lizzie: 'Your effervescence was irresistible. You changed the environment wherever you entered. You had inner strengths when you met with adversity. Even recently [when terminally ill in the hospice], when you smiled you lit up the world for all to behold. We shall remember you, and we shall meet up again and hear those shrieks of joy once more.’

Apart from her ovarian cancer and the death of our daughter Eliza, the greatest sadnesses of Elizabeth’s life were the deaths in recent years of her sisters Valdi (2010) and Caroline (2012). It is astonishing at all three sisters died relatively young within the space of four years. This followed the death of their mother, the writer Mary Lavin, who passed away eighteen years ago, in 1996. These too, she accepted.

It was a consolation for Elizabeth to know that she will be laid to rest in the family grave in St Mary’s cemetery in Navan, County Meath, alongside her sister Valdi in the company of her mother Mary, her father, stepfather and grandparents.

What kept Lizzie going was her love for people, her family and friends, as well as her inner conviction that it’s the small things that make life worth living.

Last March, when truly unwell, Lizzie struggled to drag herself 300 meters to see the last of the snowdrops on a lovely sunny spring afternoon in St Patrick’s College. The next day she was admitted to the Mater through A&E. For Lizzie, no effort was too great for the reward of seeing the clusters of tiny flowers under the trees.

She loved making people feel happy. In my case, it could be by bringing me a bunch of half-brown bananas bought in Tesco’s at a reduced price, or offering me a snack or cup of tea when I’d call, or offering me a financial incentive to buy the car or coat she thought would be good for me.

A neighbour told me that every time she met Elizabeth she felt uplifted. I and all her family and friends know that she had an extraordinary capacity to dissolve your hurt and pain and to replace it with affirmation.

Her friend Scarlet wrote from Italy to say: 'Elizabeth gave us all hope and delight, even when for herself it must have been very difficult to keep going. She was able to lift the pall from the most dreadful situations and to bring back the light’.

She told me that as a child she sometimes pinched her sister Caroline to make her cry, just so as she could console her! In adult life, making others feel better came naturally to Elizabeth. It was an integral part her character. So many friends and neighbours have remarked that they always came away from an encounter with Elizabeth feeling happier.

I believe that Lizzie had the gift of happiness, as if her mother had opened up Elizabeth’s heart to pour all the world’s love into it. She possessed the happiness sought so assiduously in her mother’s great story of that title – Happiness.

Of course Elizabeth would also get cross about things, but like lightning her anger would be gone in a flash. And she never held a grudge or nursed a bad mood. And she was immensely forgiving.

Katherine Angel wrote from London to her old school friend, my son Adam, to say: ‘Even though my contact with Lizzie was intermittent, it’s been so rich and meaningful to me. She wrote me some letters when I was in my twenties that I will always cherish. I felt she was one of those people who can see right into you – her gaze so piercing, and able to get at something really true very fast’.

Katherine is right. Elizabeth worked with emotion and instinct rather than by lengthy thinking. She was quick and sure in knowing herself and in understanding what others were really about. It gave her an extraordinary self-confidence in what she felt about any person or situation. Her sharp and quick insight has helped many to take the right course, me included.

I have a friend from India, who practices the Hindu faith; I believe that he would see Elizabeth as an old soul, one who has been here many times before.

Lizzie’s life was also a drama. She was always on stage and always in orbit. When she was working for the refugee applications office, she entertained us daily with stories of office shenanigans peopled with a cast of real characters. It was only on meeting these real-life characters at the hospice in recent weeks that I realized that we, her family, were also real-life characters in the stories she told about us when at the office.

When a child she wanted to be an actress or a nurse, but her mother dissuaded her from both careers and steered her towards literature at UCD. But it didn’t stop Lizzie from trying. As well as doing some acting as a student and in the Focus Theatre, she loved telling us that as a child she won first prize at the Feis Cheoil for reciting ‘The Snare’ by James Stephens, about a rabbit caught in a trap.

When she performed that poem recently for her two stepchildren, she told it as a child would – full of horror – still able to make us FEEL the pain and terror of the poor rabbit.

The girl who took second place to Lizzie in the competition was none other than the Oscar-winning actress, Brenda Fricker. Lizzie really loved that part of the story.

I don’t think I shall ever forget Elizabeth speaking a poem she wrote for our daughter Eliza, who died in Mauritius in 1979. The occasion was the launch of the last issue of Nightlines, in which the poem appeared at the suggestion of her sister Caroline.

When Lizzie took to the stage in the crowded hall in the Royal College of Surgeons and spoke her first words in her clear, strong voice, the room stopped. You could have heard a pin drop. The emotion was palpable as she described her dead and dying daughter with a mother’s intense love.

Elizabeth had a beautiful clear singing voice, which she rarely used. But in her early days her party piece was the Connemara Cradle Song. It reflects a parent’s love and protection for a young child in a fishing community. As we carry Lizzie from the Church, Mary Flynn will bring us this song accompanied by Denise Kelly on harp and Feilidhme Noonan on violin. As you listen, please remember Lizzie.