Beverly Anne Walker
It is with sadness but gentle relief that we announce the passing of Beverly Anne Walker on October 26, 2012. Bev is survived and remembered by her mother, Evelyn; her brother Kevin(Bonnie); nephew Alan (Penny) children Boston and Hudson; niece Sandra(Tanner) children Kara and Tyson; Benson, who was so special to her, as well as other family members and many friends. She is predeceased by her father, Bill.
The family would like to thank everyone for their kindness and prayers, especially the staff at Grey Nuns Palliative Care Unit #43.
Memorial Service
3:00PM Sunday, November 4, 2012
St. James Catholic School
7814- 83 Street Edmonton, AB
Internment
Veteran, Alberta
Memorial Donations
Charity Of One's Choice
May Your Memories Bring you Comfort. I remember all the times we spent together playing canasta when Bev and I were young. We worked hard to help with the chores but then we got to stay up late and play cards with everyone. Great times!
Love from Joan Lloyd and Ted Lloyd
Our thoughts and sympathy are with you at this time.
Dear Evelyn and Family
I treasure the memories of the happy times I spent with Bev. She was a very special person to me and to many others whose lives she touched in so many ways – our lives are better for knowing her.
With love, Marion
Bev had a generous spirit that was treasured by all who knew her
I feel so much sadness for the loss of Bev. She touched so many lives in so many positive ways, including mine. Bev mentored me when I retired from teaching and started me on a whole new career. Bev made everyone feel special. When you had a conversation with Bev, she made you feel that you were the most important person, no matter how many other people were around.
Bev’s influence on the ESL community will ever be remembered with love and respect. How privileged I am to have known her. My heart aches for her family and friends.
bev’s influence
I was so fortunate to have met Bev and to have known her friendship and caring, her compassion and loyalty, her sense of fun and adventure, her amazing smile and joyous laughter. Bev, your amazing, wonderful, awesome spirit is alive and well in all of us who are so grateful to have spent time with you and connected with you in timeless and endless ways. Blessings upon you Bev and all of your family and friends.
Bev has been such an important part of my life, and of the lives of my immediate and extended family. All have experienced her wonderful humour, hospitality and have shared many joys and sorrows with Bev over the years. I regret that I am out of the country and unable to be with you today sharing our sorrow and our fond memories. Deepest condolences to her mother Evelyn, her beloved Benson, who was such a good son to her, and to all her family and countless friends. We hold you always in our hearts, Bev.
Lynne
I was truly saddened to hear of Bev’s death. I worked with her in PALS from 2001 to when she left in 2004. Much of that time we shared an office and it was wonderful having her around to give me advice, to help me out during some difficult times and just to talk with. She was a very generous, kind and optimistic person. She was more than a work colleague, she was a friend.
Dear Evelyn and family.
“Fair as a star, when only one is shining in the sky.”
When I heard of Bev’s passing, lines from Wordsworth’s Lucy Poem came to mind.
Out of context, but still somehow appropriate.
To paraphrase Wordsworth, Bev dwelt among untrodden ways. She did ordinary things in extraordinary ways.
Bev was a special presence on the planet, in our lives, and now in our hearts and memories. Bev’s presence in our lives, and now her passing, makes all the Difference to us!
Bev embodied a spirit of caring and compassion that enlivened everyone in her circle — friends, family, colleagues, students. Neighbours.
World as Neighborhood.
Bev lived her understanding of family and community with passion, compassion and empathy. She loved, was interested in, and she enjoyed being with people.
Her gentle, inquisitive attention to people’s unexpressed and expressed desires for love, connection and wholeness changed perspectives, and changed lives.
We frequently teased Bev that she was infused with the spirit of the archetypal Earth Mother: warm, nurturing, practical, mysterious. Creative. Sustaining and nourishing all life forms – plants, animals, people.
Bev intuitively sensed the potential beneath everyone’s circumstances and she engaged everyone’s glimmer of possibility. Nurturing seeds of aspiration into robust textures of verdant, surprising profusion and fecundity.
And didn’t we all just love those times spent in Bev’s luxuriant garden?
Bev’s gift was to lift us out of the mundane into spaciousness and refreshing repose.
She accepted us so we could accept, understand and reconfigure ourselves.
And then there was Bev’s laugh!
I met Bev when she was Coordinating the English Language Professionals’ English in the Workplace Program at the Levi Strauss Factory.
Bev understood that language is alive; a lively exchange best learned though lively shared experiences. Conversations. Celebrations. Chicken dances. Line dances,. Grammar in motion. Emotion. Communication as communion.
Bev wove all of us into a community of spirited, en-spirited co-learners. We all enjoy being speakers; Bev supported us to become ardent Listeners. Bev understood that the heart speaks a common Language and Bev’s heart, overflowing with love and empathy for others pulsed with an uncommon wisdom.
Bev encouraged us to listen to ourselves, to each other, to our own and each other’s laughter and to the Mystery.
Bev orchestrating gatherings at work and at home, at each other’s homes where we could share our intimate thoughts and experiences with each other. Staff meetings were opportunities to venture into self-and-other exploration, sustained by Bev’s gracious good judgment.
Great food. Savory conversations. The greatness of Bev’s spirit was revealed in even the smallest detail. Her gift to us, time and time again: the invitation to reflect on and embrace each other’s uniqueness and wholeness.
To me, Bev embodied the very best of practical wisdom and unpretentious spiritual presence. Moments with Bev always gave rise to a new appreciation of how thoroughly the intricate is infused with the pulse of simplicity, and all my memories of Bev are sterling moments of gratitude and clear-mindedness.
And there are many rich memories to sustain us.
One potluck Bev invited us to bring items and photos and share stories about important women in our lives – Bev shared about her grandmother. As everyone shared, I understood in a fresh way how the wisdom of the generations is embodied, emboldened and passed along.
In winter of 1993 I spent a luminous weekend driving Bev to her family home.
There were activities of course: a curling bonspiel, an impressively wild spin on the tractor with Bev’s nephew
And for me it was a resonant departure from urban hyperactivity. Being there with Bev was a gift. In the deepening silence and expansive prairie landscape, I sensed how the soil, wind, sky, family and community came together in Bev’s soul, nurturing and sustaining her and how she passed this along.
Ah, Bev. When I was with you at your family home, underneath a luminous prairie night sky, I began to understand the rootedness and the loft that gave rise to your inner brilliant light.
And, (and borrowing freely from Wordworth again) beneath that luminous prairie night sky, you were the fairest star.
Breathing in the luminous Familial.
Remembering now attending a lively, spontaneous, spirited viola performance by Benson at Sacred Heart Church. Bev over-flowing with palpable pride.
Bev loved Benson with the height, depth, breadth and expansiveness of the whole of her Being. Benson, like all of us, has flourished and grown in the Circle of Bev’s love, care and concern.
Bev’s love was always positive. Balanced. Patient. Kind.
Patience. A virtue Bev held in abundance.
Nothing about the prolonged illness that Bev endured could have made Bev a better person. Bev was already the embodiment of Grace and Goodness.
If there is a meaning to Bev’s illness and premature death it is ours to make and learn from. And we make it anew every time we think of Bev’s dignity, courage, hopefulness. Equanimity.
The myriad positive qualities that Bev displayed now quietly passed on to each of us to integrate in our own lives.
Wordsworth’s phrases affirm and help give shape to some of what we feel with Bev’s passing.
Unlike Wordworth’s Lucy, however, Bev has many to praise her. She was known, loved, admired, respected and cherished by many. Deeply and enduringly.
Her passing keenly felt and sharply marked.
Bev quietly infused our lives with her graciousness, her compassion, gratitude and humility.
And as we celebrate Bev’s life, and feel keenly the loss and emptiness her passing brings, we find our hearts echoing a paraphrase of Wordsworth’s words:
“And Oh, the Difference to us!”
Evelyn and family-
My very best wishes to you in this time. Bev was a wonderful person. Heaven is a better place today.
My deepest condolances. Bev has touched many hearts in her life. Her life’s work was well done. May God hold her now in the palm of his hand. My thoughts and prayers are with you.