Our beautiful and ferocious mom Marilyn Pratt has left us after a long and gentle decline. She goes with grace to join lifelong soulmate David, who left us in April. She would have been happy to join him sooner, but her hardy Norwegian genes just wouldn't let her body go. She finally passed with her daughter at her side speaking words of love and release - we should all be so lucky to go forth in peace and beauty.

To understand and appreciate our mom you have to know that she was born the youngest of three children during the Great Depression, and that she lost her father to cancer when she was only three. Imagine the fortitude required of her widowed mother Hannah in those hard times and you may have some sense of what Marilyn learned about taking life as it comes, about thriving with grit and determination. As such she had little time for the idea of feeling sorry for oneself, and while her grandchildren loved her, they also received enough tough love to deem her the Graminator or sometimes the Marilynator.

Mom grew up in Port Orchard imagining that she would become a nurse and a missionary. When she met David in their Senior year at UW the missionary plan kind of fell apart, but not the nursing. The first year of their marriage was spent with Dad assigned to Marine officer training on the east coast while Mom finished up her RN degree in Seattle. No way was she going to be without the skills to make her own way in life should the wheels come off.

The wheels, happily, stayed firmly on and indeed they had a pretty good ride over their more than 70 years together. After their stint in the Marine Corps, Dad went back to school and together they climbed the academic ladder, with Dad eventually working his way back to a professorship at UW while Mom worked as a public health nurse. Even in those early years of short rations with three kids and Dad in grad school and early teaching positions, Mom made life special for us kids with handmade Halloween costumes, birthday cakes as weird as we could think of, and mixed leftovers spun as a special meal event. Later on, money wasn't so tight, but they spent it on putting three kids through UW - we were never in any doubt of their love and support. Eventually they retired to a happy second childhood in Anacortes where they made many friends boating and hiking and camping.

As capable and resolute as she was, Mom also had a wonderful and often goofy sense of humor. From her own Granny Thackston she learned the art of throwing a party with endlessly creative games, and she decorated the house with an eclectic mix of art and antiques and garage sale taxidermy deer heads. We'd put sunglasses on them, decorate them for Christmas, put cigars in their mouths, and she just found this amusing and joyful.

Marilyn was deeply spiritual, a lifelong Christian and a seeker. Never dogmatic, she found God sometimes in a church, sometimes in the mountains, sometimes in Puccini. She lived by Luke 17:21 - "The kingdom of God is within you." She read extensively and enjoyed nothing more than pondering the mysteries. Now the mystery is revealed to her, and we rejoice for her. Her children Douglas, Betsy, and Brian, along with her seven grandkids and seven great-grandkids are grateful for the kindness of the people at Hospice of the Northwest. If you'd like to remember Marilyn, a donation to support their work would be welcome.

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