About me

TheEndOfAnEraLaurieMengel is a platform dedicated to sharing personal reflections and musings on the passage of time and the evolution of eras. I say eras, as my life has certainly consisted of many different parts. While the majority of this blog will reflect on the life my daughter and I carved out for ourselves, by ourselves, moving from nothing and into the world of the Ivy Leagues, the pre-academic/single mom part of my life saw me modeling through New Yorik City, socializing and touring with the likes of the Rolling Stones, the Jim Carroll Band, Patti Smith, and Iggy Pop, and enjoying and being witness to all the decadence that the melding of high school and the glories of the new San Francisco scene of punk rock had to offer, Through the lens of Laurie Mengel, I aim to spark introspection and dialogue on the theme of the transition or transitions of movement and thought between living and dying.

This is an off shoot of a Linkedin thread that I began three weeks ago to touch bases with students, colleagues, and friends, and let them know what was happening to me, and to try to say goodbye and let them know the ways I have appreciated having them in my life. Hopefully, they, and I mean YOU have something to share, as well. Maybe my time on this planet impacted you in some way. As I began sharing and reaching out to those to whom I could contact on Linkedin I became deeply moved by the comments and messages people began to share with me. Students, friends, and colleagues began to drop me comments and send me things via postal mail to tell me that I had touched their lives in some way. Some of these moments were from over 30 years ago. My life began to take on more meaning

Not unlike my refrigerator door which flutters with end-of-course notes from students, or the way that I can actually watch the gears in my students' brains churn as they work through a new concept that I have presented to them, I, (but of course not I alone,) was able to give them the kind of deeply, critical thinking, especially on matters of race, that they were so hungry for. ("Now THIS is what a university education is supposed to be!" "You have reaffirmed my plans to attend law school and practice Civil Rights," "You have opened my mind and allowed me to see things in an entirely new perspective than any other professor or politician in the last 30 years," "The depth through which I now see everything through a Critical Race Theory perspective has given more meaning to all other aspects of my life and deepened my actions and relationships with all people.")

I heard from students, colleagues, publishers, professors, dissertation writers an ocean away helping them to work out lumps in their chapters, was appreciated for the ideas I had contributed to the authors in their acknowledgement sections of their books, but this told less than half the story. Once, while lying on the floor with a friend who was passing time waiting to give birth, I confided, "I always thought I'd had a lot of children," (I am the single mother of a daughter,) she exclaimed, "But Laurie! You have so many!" Surely, my home was continuously filled with the sound of children's laughter. These children, their parents, the deep and meaningful friendships I had made and solidified throughout my life, the dear women who never let me fall far, with whom I could have never taken this journey alone, who made up the very pieces of my life as my family, the ones who magically appear just when you need them most, all materialized as they always had, providing everything and anything my daughter and I could possibly need as they always had for over fifty years. Most of all, the reassurance that whether I was here or not, my daughter and I had always been embraced by love, family, trust, and that she would always have many dedicated families to support her, have her back no matter the circumstances. We had built a community of love and dedication, the likes of which I had never seen before. 

It is to the love of these people that I am eternally grateful.  We were deeply loved when we didn't even realize it. We could not have built the family that we did without them. 

In the weeks leading up to my death, I find myself not helplessly ravaged while the cancer stabs its way into my bones, but more fulfilled and empowered than I have ever been. 

These are the final writings of my life. I slip between the posts I put up on Linkedin if I think they are important, and vacillate between what it means to die, knowing that you have made a profound and meaningful difference in people's lives, and realizing, for the first time, that you, too, have been loved. 

I hope you will join me.