Rest in Peace, Melissa "Stanley" Cohen

The person we all know and love, and the orginal author of this blog, Melissa "Stanley" Cohen, passed away on Wednesday, August 29th, 2007.

You can view the obituary http://www.legacy.com/BaltimoreSun/DeathNotices.asp?Page=Lifestory&PersonId=93563006 and also post to a virtual guestbook there. The "guestbook" stays up for a year, after which time, we will transfer it here.

The funeral was Friday, August 31st and was attended by many, many, family members, friends and work colleagues of Melissa's.

A few of her friends and I spoke about some initiatives we were going to take to keep the spirit of Melissa alive: we'll be putting together a team for the Komen Race for the Cure again this year, her mycancersupport web page will continue to stay up and offer resources for other Stage IV patients, and I will be setting up a flickr photo page account with a user name and password that will be emailed out to anyone on Melissa's original mailing list, and those of the "email tree" that branches out from that- so that all groups of Melissa's friends and family from all over can post their own photos without the aid of an administrator (so anyone can upload pictures to it).

Information is taken care of above, so I would like to post a eulogy tribute to Melissa that I wrote from bottom of my heart. She was loved by many, near and far, and will be missed without measure.

Tribute to Melissa “Stanley” Cohen

I met Melissa on a 2 day location shoot for the movie “Quiz Show”, something like 15 years ago. It was only a 2 day shoot, but we became fast friends. We worked together numerous times, but our friendship grew into a “we’d be friends no matter what we did for a living” friends.

Everyone reading this knew her and loved her and had their lives touched by her in some, or many, ways. Even people she may never have met in person were helped by her, or inspired by her, or impressed by her. From the production work she did for so many years, to the people who she took out on rafting expeditions, to the people she helped get home loans (that would include my husband and me), to the people she helped through her holistic business, to the money she has raised for worthy causes, to the people she knew from school, from Federal Hill, when she lived there, to California, from the internet through her blog and websites- the long arms of her influence stretch wide and far.

She packed more in her short lifetime then most people do who live to be 85. She bought and sold a number of houses, had numerous occupations- that she excelled at, of course, she jumped out of airplanes, fell in love, was the beloved owner to a number of pets, and not only made countless friends, but also connected friends.

If you looked up the word “moxie” in the dictionary, they’d have a picture of Melissa. Sometimes known as Stanley. I asked her one time why the nickname? Yes, it was a tribute to her dad, but she told me that reason she picked a guy’s name for a nickname goes back to when she was living in LA, before moving into the production end of things and she would try to get on the overhire list as a grip or an electrician. They would conveniently miss the name “Melissa” on the list, but they’d call a Stanley. She’d answer the phone and they would have no choice but call her in for the work. And she kept up with the burlyist of them, too. See? Moxie.

Dictionary.com says for “moxie”:
1. The ability to face difficulty with spirit and courage.
2. Aggressive energy; initiative
3. Skill; know-how.
That’s Melissa to me. Anytime any of you faces something that makes you wonder how it can be done, you should remember Melissa, and use her as your inspiration.

If what anyone can hope for in this life is to leave some kind if legacy, rest assured, Melissa’s legacy is enormous. I feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to be her friend- to have memories and stories from her time here with us to remember and cherish.

At a time like this, we all seek words and tears and actions that will offer us some kind of comfort for the sadness we feel about losing someone so special, so unique and so remarkable. She faced her illness like she faced anything else in her life- head on. It did not define her- and she fought it with everything she had. The sum of her life is much more than her fight with that terrible disease in her latter years. It is all the years and all the stories and all the other battles won and challenges and accomplishments in her life. The comfort I take with me is having known her and loved her and to continue to keep her presence here with me long after her physical body has expired.

Quite a task, yes? But we all know that she is up to the task, don’t we?

~ Beth Bell, Baltimore, MD~