Brenda’s Story

Site created on April 22, 2019

Welcome to The Lydecker Family tribute to Brenda via CaringBridge.  We are using it to keep family and friends updated.  We appreciate your support and words of hope and love.  With Gratitude and Love, Gerrit, Ann & Hamilton, Margaret, Ginny & the Stephan Family,  Eleanor, Gerrit Jr., Libby, Thira and Zander and Derby & James her dogs.   Join us to Celebrate Brenda's Life on June 1st at 11:00 am at St. Francis Episcopal Church, 2810 Long Ridge Road, Stamford, CT 06903 ❤️

Newest Update

Journal entry by Ginny Stephan

The Homily given at the memorial service by Reverend Mark Lingle
Brenda Lydecker Memorial Saturday, June 1, 2019
Brenda A. O'Brien Lydecker, 80, a longtime resident of Stamford, passed away peacefully in her home surrounded by family on Tuesday, May 7, 2019.
Brenda was born and raised in San Francisco, California. Her formative studies included the Sacred Heart school, a B.A. in Music from Dominican College, and a Masters in Library Science from University of California, Berkeley.
As a young adult, Brenda moved to Manhattan where she found work as a librarian at the NYPL and the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was also in Manhattan where she found her soulmate, Gerrit, and the two were married shortly thereafter at Old St Mary's Church in San Francisco.
Brenda's passion for music and art was a dominant theme throughout her life with decades of performances with the Greenwich Choral Society, the Connecticut Grand Opera, and the Yale Alumni Chorus. Brenda had a sporty side with years as a tennis coach to the youth of Stamford and beyond. Brenda also dedicated much of her time to many community organizations including the Junior League, Casey Family Services, and Guiding Eyes for the Blind among others. Most essential, Brenda kept spiritual faith as core to her daily life, practicing her faith as a founding member of Emmaus Community.
Brenda is survived by her husband Gerrit, her children Ann Lydecker Bunge (Hamilton), Margaret Lydecker, Ginny Stephan (Scott), Eleanor Lydecker, Gerrit Lydecker (Libby), six grandchildren, one great-grandchild and two cherished dogs.
Blessed be Brenda’s memory among us.
A few years ago Brenda and Gerrit opened their home to host a pickleball tutorial. The activity was offered as a silent auction item that was part of a fundraiser at St. Francis. The event was quintessential Brenda. Curious about this new game of pickleball, she wanted to learn all the angles. Loving the opportunity to bring people together for a party, she was the classic host. And competitive as ever, she would show no mercy in the various shot selections that she took to win each point. Thus, a small, ordinary and simple event offered a window into a life that was anything but small, ordinary, and simple.
Yet, perhaps, part of what made Brenda’s life so significant, extraordinary, and incredible was the attention that she paid to the little things, the everyday, the oh-so-ordinary. Whether it was singing with the Greenwich Chorale, or involvement with Connecticut Grand Opera, or her work for social justice and championing progressive ideals, or worshipping with the Emmaus community, or quieter times with family and friends, Brenda paid attention. Thus, her passion, faith, beauty, courage, and grace emerged from a place of deep knowing of what Frederick
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 Buechner referred to as, “all moments are key moments and life itself is grace.” The importance of paying attention, being attuned to the gift of living, and then using that awareness to recognize the sacred who is present in another, in the moment, and in one’s life is a practice that Brenda reflected. One of the Church fathers, Irenaeus, opined centuries ago, “The glory of God is the human being fully alive.” And to know Brenda was to know God’s glory. She lived!
While we gather to celebrate and give thanks for Brenda’s life, aware of all that she was and meant to so many--wife, mother, friend, a companion on the way-- we also gather with deep sadness for we are confronted with the limits of our humanity, Brenda’s own life, and the tenuous hold we have on life and the relationships that are fundamental to our journey. Brenda’s battle with the cancer that she has succumbed to pierces our souls. And, yet, her battle was a reminder of the spirit of the woman we loved. Indeed, it was a miracle that she survived and thrived for as long as she did. A testament to her will, faith, and determination, as well as the support that she received from family and friends. From you.
The community of faith that Brenda loved was the Emmaus community, and I know that the feeling was reciprocated among the Emmaus group. The beauty of the Emmaus name is that it captures well the understanding of faith that Brenda was so deeply rooted in. An icon, if you will, of the awareness of each moment that was central to Brenda’s faith. As you heard, the Emmaus story is that of the journey of the recently risen Christ with two unsuspecting disciples to the town of the same name. At the end of the journey, the disciples finally recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread. And, certainly, the Eucharist was a sacrament in which Brenda also came face to face with the reality of the risen Christ. She recognized his presence in her journey. He was and continues to be present in the elements of bread and wine to her and to us all. And the promised presence of Christ at this feast sustained Brenda in life, and we can imagine that she now takes her place at the table of the feast to come.
However, the journey to Emmaus is, perhaps, the more telling part of the story. It is not just that Christ journeys with those early disciples. Christ journeys with what is the beginnings of the early community. And for Brenda the understanding of the community that gathered in Christ was essential to life. We walk with Christ, AND we walk with each other. In fact, to walk with Christ ​means ​to walk also with each other. We cannot not be with each other and be with Christ. Brenda understood well this communal aspect of the tradition. For all its foibles, the incarnational reality, the embodied nature of this faith is, perhaps, its greatest virtue. We live ​in the world. We live ​with e​ ach other. And God is present in the small, ordinary, and simple, which allows us to see this life as nothing less than significant, extraordinary, and incredible. Brenda would love this quote Theresa of Avila:
“​Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours, Yours are the eyes through which is to look out Christ’s compassion to the world;
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Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good; Yours are the hands with which he is to bless us now.”
We have all been walking to Emmaus in our own ways. The desire, in part, is to glimpse, however little and for however fleeting, a bit of the holy hidden in this world, hidden in our lives. Certainly, Brenda’s life was a journey to discovering that presence in the very midst of being. Lord knows that she glimpsed a bit of the divine in the myriad activities in which she was involved. Particularly, though, she encountered the grace of God in the travelling companions with whom she journeyed. You all have your memories. Those moments where you were aware of the gift of that time together, the grace of being, and the awareness of the significant present in the small, the extraordinary occupying the ordinary, the incredible amidst the simple. And the Christ that journeyed with Brenda in life continues to abide with her in death. That same Christ enters into our gathering, our sorrow, our memories, our tributes, and invites us to continue the journey. And as we do, Christ travels with us and Brenda does as well. Look for them. May you have moments where you glimpse their presence and remember that you are loved.
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