We Say Good Bye To A Young Friend…

Lisa,  your class loved you.  You were always a bright smile, beautiful, an incredible talent both musically and academically, and always great friend to every one of us.  It is no surprise that you were such an enormous  success after we graduated.  We will miss you dearly and will embrace the wonderful memories you helped us create in our hearts forever.

oxoxoxoxo

From Cindy Flaxman

Cindy’s email which is an incredible testament of how much Lisa influenced her family and peers…Cindy, thank you for having the courage to write and share this with us

Dear Heidi,
I cannot thank you enough for what you have created for Lisa. I go to
the website every day multiple times, I sit in front of the videos and
look at her beautiful face and miss her, and cry, but I have not had
the heart to write to you until today. You might not even realize how
your own life embodies Lisa’s whole attitude,
” Life is short – don’t miss the good stuff. Open your eyes and let
it all in.
You won’t be sorry…”
That is exactly what Lisa did in the last 5 years of her life. What I
admire you (and her) for is grabbing those opportunities, expressing
yourself in every way possible through words and images and reaching
out to the world, living life in such a big way, with such carefree
energy and enthusiasm. I cannot believe how many things you do, how
many lives you must touch, as Lisa did. No wonder you were such good
friends growing up. Although I travelled with Lisa through the last
painful 8 months of her life I still cannot wrap my mind around the
outcome, the fact that she is no longer here. Lest anyone ever think
that siblings cannot affect your existence, mine is a testimony to the
power of a sister’s love. Lisa told me in October that she didn’t want
me to be without her. And I knew she understood how changed I would
be. Lisa shaped my whole life. Whether running toward her, away from
her or with her I defined myself in relation to my big sister. Today I
define myself as a bearer of her spirit. And Lisa’s spirit is so easy
to access. She threw her soul to the wind and let it fall where it
would. She made it her job, through writing poetry, singing songs,
connecting with people, not to leave any questions about how she felt.
I can never repay her for the security she gave to me as my protector,
my advocate, my biggest fan. I can only hope to give it back to her
family, those most deserving of her continued legacy, those at the
very center of her spirit, Jonathan, Benjamin, Sophie and Zachary.
Lisa, I have loved you with my soul every day of our lives, and for
that I am grateful.

These pictures are from 2005 and later, after her first recovery. Lisa
loved to hug. I miss her love.
Thank you, Heidi. XOXOXO Cindy

Cynthia Frank
cfrankdesign@mindspring.com
704-562-2616
www.cfrankdesign.com

‘Sister Soldiers,’ Bound by Cancer

This was sent to me by a friend of Lisa’s who asked if I would post it on this site. I have to be honest and say it is difficult to read, but profoundly real and a very close insight to Lisa’s last few years.

Message from sender: I received this beautiful article about Lisa today from a friend in D.C.She knew her from her “large circle of friends who adored her.”Please post it!
‘Sister Soldiers,’ Bound by Cancer
Upon Chevy Chase Woman’s Death, a Writer Remembers How Much She Saw in Life
By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, January 22, 2009; Page GZ05

NEW DELHI I still have the scratchy gray woolen cap Lisa Flaxman handed me that warm August day. I was just back from Kenya, where I was living at the time and working as a foreign correspondent for this newspaper. I had no car. But I did have breast cancer and needed to get to a wig shop in Wheaton. It was Lisa, herself a breast cancer survivor, who volunteered to drive me, even though she had three young children and even though she cried as she watched my long dark hair be chopped and fitted for a wig of dark brown Russian tresses. Outside the shop, Lisa pressed the fuzz-covered hat into my hands. “I know you,” she said, her blue eyes squinting at me for what felt like the longest time. “I know your type: You won’t wear that fake hair.” I’d met Lisa only a few days earlier. She lived in Chevy Chase with her husband and children. She had launched a string of music schools for toddlers called musiKids, including branches in Bethesda and the District. That’s how much I knew about her. But she somehow knew a whole lot more about me, because she was right — I rarely wore the wig. “You are edgy and dark, I can tell,” said Lisa, who was also an accomplished singer, a published poet and a “fully recovered Georgetown-educated lawyer.” She was busily engaged in several charity groups, including music programs for cancer patients. “You have moxie like me,” she said. “You will fight it till the end.”

On Jan. 14, eight months after her cancer recurred, she died. She was 43. She took her last breath with her family around her. They slept cuddled together in her bedroom, helping her through the night, her husband told me. They made a video together. Her son Benjamin, 11, played the clarinet for her as she drifted to sleep, not long before she died.

Her husband, Jonathan Martel, told me later that adults who have lost their parents at a young age often say their biggest regret is that they can’t remember them. “I want to preserve her memory,” he told me in a phone call to New Delhi, where I live now. “I want them to remember the Lisa you knew. The person she became and showed the world after she was diagnosed the first time.” Over the scratchy Skype phone connection, we shared all of the chilling moments that occur after someone’s death. “Now I was just going to say, ‘Let me give the phone to Lisa,’ ” her husband told me, and we both went silent. Soon after, in front of my computer, I thought of one of her poems from a book she’d written during her treatment. Chemotherapy was physically painful, psychologically harrowing and — worst of all, as she would have said — time-consuming.
“New day, no breasts. No shirt, no rest. Life as a unibreast woman,” she wrote in her self-published collection of poetry, “Glances at Time: A Young Mother’s Journey with Breast Cancer.” “My writings are the spider’s thread attaching me to my family and friends forever; they will never have to wonder how I felt, they will know and for that, I am thankful,” she wrote in the introduction.

So to her children, Benjamin, Sophie and Zachary, I will write simply: Your mom was so cool. She was a friend who always made herself available. During my chemotherapy, she hosted me and my husband for Thanksgiving. We sat in her living room, singing and playing guitars. She had a powerful, operatic singing voice, surprising for such a tiny woman, a lifelong vegetarian who was wafer thin and slightly taller than 5 feet.
She often performed live at public events and social functions. She had, after all, created musiKids, which serves more than 500 infants and children to age 5, simply because she couldn’t find a decent music class for her infant son. Later she started musiKares, a nonprofit organization to bring music to adult and pediatric patients at Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, where she was active in the arts and humanities program and initiated a campaign to recycle CDs and donate them to hospitals to help patients relieve anxiety. She had plenty of other talents as well. She co-wrote a cookbook. She launched mompreneurCoach.com, an Internet site devoted to helping women start businesses. Her achievements were recognized; the Daily Record named her one of Maryland’s Top 100 Women for 2007. Recently, she casually mentioned she was holding a food drive after she read an article in the paper about bare shelves in local food banks. Poet Ezra Pound once wrote that “What thou lovest well remains, the rest is dross.” To me, this was Lisa’s life in the last few years, as if cancer were able to burn off impurities, the dross, leaving only the gold. Through month after month of my chemotherapy at the Lombardi center at Georgetown University Hospital, Lisa would call me with the same tone: “Do you have bone pain? How is the nausea? Do you still have eyebrows?” When I was too depressed or weak to answer the phone, she would leave a message: “I know you are there, Em. Pick up.”

In 2003, when her cancer was diagnosed, she had three children 6 or younger. After a double mastectomy with reconstruction, she endured four rounds of AC, better known to cancer patients as the “Red Devil” of chemotherapies, because of its fire-engine-red color. But just as the fuzz of her light brown hair was starting to return, two more tumors were found. She endured another four rounds of chemotherapy and eight more surgeries. She later showed me what she called “The Chair.” “And here I am, having banished myself to the basement, where I sleep in the reclining chair like a punished dog,” she wrote in a poem called “Nadir.” Lisa had a drive to see people clearly without the saccharine comforts that sentimentality might offer. “I find myself in front of the mirror 50 times a day/My nose pressed up against the glass,” she wrote in “Searching.” Throughout her treatment there was often a tension over lost time — hours or days away from her children “To change back from radioactive spiderwoman to mommy,” she wrote to older son Benjamin in a poem called “Superhero.” “A whole day I missed/A whole precious irreplaceable day.” She also had a heightened awareness of her inner life and the lives of others, the pain and the joy. She saw precious moments within the daily details of her life, her family’s lives. In her poem “Breathing,” dedicated to her daughter, Sophie, Lisa is tucking her into bed and notices “Her one perfect cheek,” which she kisses. “I would gaze at you forever, if you’d let me,” she writes in “Baby Z,” a poem to Zachary on his second birthday, where she is mesmerized by a son she knew was getting older.

After my treatment was over, my husband and I moved to New Delhi, where we continue our work as journalists, trying to present one part of the world to another. But my friendship with Lisa grew, even over such a vast distance. If my byline didn’t appear for a few days, she would e-mail and demand to know why. It was as if my features on flooding in Bangladesh or young women in India were letters home to her.
“Your words will outlast this disease, Em,” she said. “Keep your brain on a leash. Keep going. Keep living.” She always offered us a guest bedroom when we came to town. I never took her up on it, fearing she was just being polite and we would become troublesome houseguests in her busy home. But here was the thing: Lisa meant it. It was Lisa, who no matter how busy she was, always made sure we met face-to-face during my trips home. In a world that is growing increasingly cold with technology, increasingly busy, Lisa was always making genuine connections. In a poem dedicated to Sophie, she writes about a mother-daughter day of a pedicure, barrette shopping and Thai food, “without the fussy food boys around.” She spotted a woman wearing a turban and knitting something “spectacular and golden.” She wanted to reach out and let her know she also had worn a turban not so long ago. “How can I show her that although I look normal, I am not,” Lisa writes so beautifully. But she also wanted to have a playful lunch. Lisa, being Lisa, ended up reaching out. The woman she approached “smiled and as we talked her face grew lighter. I said goodbye. I cried all the way home. I won’t hesitate next time. I’ll remember that being connected by the thinnest string is a thousand times better than being alone.”

In October 2007, we both went to Georgetown for our checkups, and we shared a victory tiramisu at her favorite Italian restaurant in Chevy Chase. We sat at the bar and toasted with our forks. Our hair was long again. Our hopes were high. She handed me a copy of her book with the inscription: “Dearest Em: I miss you and wish we weren’t members of this club. But at least we have each other.” In May, just before my latest checkup, she said she was having terrible migraines. She said she felt weak and old, as if she’d suddenly aged 30 years. The doctors found a brain tumor. We huddled in her hospital room. She put on the bright blue pajamas I brought her from India, and we talked for hours as the chemotherapy slowly entered her veins. But to Benjamin, Sophie and Zachary, I want you to know that even with her head bandaged from brain surgery and her body filling with chemo, her generous friendship was there, as was her determination to prolong her life and be full of life and hope for as long as she could. I know that is what she wanted for me, for so many who were lucky to know her and, most of all, for her children.

“Have you written a book proposal yet on Africa?” she demanded to know, as a nurse came in to make sure the chemo was dripping fast enough. “Why not?” she scolded. “We don’t have forever.” Thinking about it now, it reminds me of her poem dedicated to a fellow breast cancer patient, Elizabeth Edwards. The poem is more about the resolve of powerful women than the specific scourge of cancer. She wrote, “We sister soldiers move forward/because to do otherwise is to die prematurely.”

Emily Wax is The Washington Post’s correspondent in India. She wrote this remembrance upon learning of Lisa Flaxman’s death last week in Montgomery County. Message from sender: I received this beautiful article about Lisa today from a friend in D.C.She knew her from her “large circle of friends who adored her.”Please post it!

Flowers

Although he did not know Lisa, my husband David came home with these the day I received the news (the 15th). Today it is the 29th and they are still as vibrant and beautiful as ever.

An email from David Flaxman…

I received this from David last night and asked if I could share these very powerful and loving words about his sister:

Dear Heidi,

What you have created for Lisa is so incredible – your words have given me so much comfort and the website is such an incredible testament to Lisa. It’s so moving to read the comments from old friends and classmates – names I haven’t seen in so many years. We are all so devastated by the loss of Lisa and nothing will ever take away the intense sadness I feel. But the many people who have reached out to us as made a profound difference.

The funeral was overflowing with 600 people. I heard so many incredible stories about my sister, things I had never known about. She did so much for so many people – it’s humbling. Here’s what I said at the funeral:

Over the last few days I’ve had an intense recurring vision from the past. It’s not a specific moment but rather a collection of thousands of moments that blend together. I keep picturing the long, rectangular kitchen table from our house in Seekonk when I was a kid. Like most families, a permanent seating order somehow established itself and never varied. I sat to the left, my sister Jess directly across from me. My mom sat to my right and faced dad. At the end of the table, Cindy sat to the right of mom and Lisa sat across from her. There we were, endless meals spent talking at an extremely loud volume, interrupting each other mercilessly, often arguing – definitely arguing, but always laughing. I can see a young, beautiful Lisa holding court, poking fun at mom or dad or using silly voices to crack us up. She used to like to imitate a toothless old lady, wrapping her lips over her teeth and emitting a cracked voice: “Sonny get back here you little whippersnapper”. She made up goofy names for each of us. She came up with Bee Fong Wee for Jess. I still have no idea where that came from. How many times did she harmonize with Cindy at that table? So much music in our lives and Lisa brought much of it. I remember sneaking into her room to go through her record collection. I yearned to discover what mysterious sounds would come forth from names like “Billy Joel”, “James Taylor”, “The Doobie Brothers”, “The Police”, “Genesis”. I remember watching her in awe and with such a profound sense of pride when she performed in school musicals – a shining angel onstage. Lisa’s spirit was so huge and she refused to contain it.

But I keep coming back to our kitchen table. I see 6 people, each in a perfect place, a place of peace, security and, yes, innocence. We lived in this sort of protective bubble in the countryside, one complete set of grandparents just over the hill, the other complete set just a few miles away. We even had our great grandmother, Fanny. And this did not change for an absurd amount of time – when I was married, at age 26, everyone was still here – I had literally never experienced a death in the family. Lisa’s passing does not make those days around the kitchen table any further away. We are all grown up now, with beautiful husbands, wives and children of our own. I understand that we can never go back to that simpler time, no matter how much I might wish to see my sister young again, healthy, filled with endless possibilities and the world outside beckoning with promise. The fact is, though Lisa’s time was cut short, so much of that promise was achieved: the work Lisa did in the community, her poetry, the family she created with her amazing husband Jonathan and her beautiful kids. But I have a huge hole in my heart now that can never be filled – an aching loss, that table in my mind missing an irreplaceable member, my oldest sister.

Shortly before Lisa knew for sure that her cancer had returned, I took my family to visit here last March. It was an incredible trip and the bond I had with my sister was at last renewed and strengthened. After I left, Lisa sent me a poem that she wrote for me entitled “My Brother”. I would like to read just the last few lines:

“”And here we are today, older, wiser

So many beautiful faces to love

Extensions of ourselves that go way beyond us

How lucky to reach out my arms

And hug your children

As if they were my own

As we can embrace each other

And cry as we go back to our worlds

Separated only by physical distance now

Finally, a day I have waited for my whole life

I love you””

Washington Post: She Gave Children the Gift of Music

Monday, January 19, 2009; Lisa Flaxman, 43, the founder of a Washington area music program for infants and young children called musiKids, died Jan. 14 of breast cancer at her home in Chevy Chase. Ms. Flaxman created musiKids in 1998 when she couldn’t find a music class for her infant son that combined early childhood music education with a dynamic teaching approach. At musiKids, she relied on professional musicians and experienced early childhood educators who encouraged children to sing, play, listen and move. The organization originally was based at Chevy Chase Baptist Church and now has studio locations in Bethesda, Rockville and the District, along with several area satellites. MusiKids teaches more than 500 children a week. Families Magazine and the lilaguide, among other publications, rated musiKids the best children’s music education provider in the Washington area. ad_icon Ms. Flaxman also helped schools and day-care centers evaluate their early childhood music programs and provided teacher training and guidance to integrate music into the curriculum. Lisa Judith Flaxman was born in Providence, R.I., and received her undergraduate degree in history and international relations from Brown University in 1987. She worked for a publisher in Princeton, N.J., before taking a position in 1988 as a paralegal at Arnold & Porter, a D.C. law firm. She later worked as a consultant on linguistic programs at Booz Allen Hamilton. After receiving her law degree in 1994 from Georgetown University, she worked as a tax and estate associate at Dow Lohnes until the birth of her first child in 1997. Ms. Flaxman studied classical piano and had sung in professional theater companies since age 5. Her repertoire included opera, art song, musical theater, folk, and children’s world music. In the Washington area, she performed with the Washington Savoyards, the Washington Chorus and the Bethesda Community Theatre. She was a member of Temple Sinai, where she sang in the chorus and served on the music committee. She was named one of Maryland’s Top 100 Women in 2007 and in 2006 received the first Women Business Owners of Montgomery County Sapphire Award, acknowledging a woman in business for at least five years who gives back to the community. She also received a 2007 Maryland Top Innovator Award for founding musiKares, a nonprofit program dedicated to building music libraries and providing musical programs for Georgetown Hospital patients to help relieve their anxiety. She was the author of a collection of poetry, “Glances at Time: A Young Mother’s Journey with Breast Cancer,” in 2008 and created an anthology of Georgetown Hospital patients’ writing titled “Lombardi Voice.” She wrote many articles on early childhood music and development. Survivors include her husband of 16 years, Jonathan Martel of Chevy Chase; and three children, Benjamin Martel, Sophie Martel and Zachary Martel, all of Chevy Chase. — Joe Holley

Sound of Music

Who ever would have thought we’d be able to actually see a memory… Charlie Reilly (Chris’s father – Chris played Rolfe) taped the show and we never would have known of it’s existence.  Chris and I had reconnected through my husband, and he let me know they had this.   The unfortunate, and very sad, irony is that Josh Lovett (in the hat) tragically died 5 years ago.  Charlie Reilly passed away a couple of years ago…  May this wonderful video serve as a memorial for Lisa, Josh and Charlie.

Lisa and Music

I loved this article – The above video shows what a talent she indeed was.
6/21/2007 6:00:00 AM Email this article • Print this article
Lisa Flaxman
Kids just love music,” Lisa Flaxman gushed. It seems, however, that kids aren’t the only ones who do. Flaxman’s own love for music started at the age of 4 when she began playing piano and singing. Her entire family got into the act and began performing at various music festivals.

“We were like our very own von Trapp family singers,” Flaxman said, referring to the legendary family of Sound of Music fame.

Despite that, she didn’t set out solely for a musical careeer. After graduating from Brown University, she went on to the Georgetown Law Center, where she received her juris doctor in 1994. She also began to study the art of voice more intensely and began to perform professionally.

With the birth of her first son, she put aside her law career.

“I still needed a project, though, so I decided to bring together two of my interests: music along with teaching and interacting with kids,” Flaxman, 42, said. And that is how MusiKids was born. Founded in 1998, MusiKids is a music education program for infants through 5-year-olds that is designed to teach children musical elements such as steady beat, tone, rhythm and dynamics with an emphasis on the social and emotional bonding that takes place between a child and an adult.

“It teaches parents new ways to interact with their kids,” Flaxman said.

MusiKids also serves as a bridge program for children before they enter preschool, allowing both parents and children to ease the separation anxiety that is often experienced with drop-off programs.

Sinces its founding, MusiKids has expanded to three area locations, with an enrollment exceeding 500 children.

A breast cancer survivor, Flaxman is also deeply involved in charity work. Based on her own hospital experiences, she understands that it’s important to provide hospitalized children with some kind of entertainment, and founded the MusiKares program. MusiKares has collected and donated more than 2,000 CDs to the Georgetown Cancer Center.

“Music is a context for children to be children. They were so happy to have the music, it helps relieve anxiety and provides a great distraction,” Flaxman said.

Outside of her own business ‹ plus the business of being a wife and mother of three ‹ Flaxman finds time to perform in area vocal events, recently having participated at a concert at Georgetown University. She enjoys that she is still able to contribute to these special events and incorporate music into her life on another level.

“Music has always been a part of my life, and that’s how it should be for children,” Flaxman said. ‹ Tali Korrub

Suggestions for profiles may be sent to InFocus@washingtonjewishweek.com.

Name: Lisa Flaxman

Hebrew name: Yehudit

Lives in: Chevy Chase

Birthday: June 21, 1965

Synagogue: Temple Sinai, D.C.

Favorite Jewish holiday: Rosh Hashanah

Favorite Jewish food: noodle kugel

Favorite Jewish celebrity: Jerry Seinfeld

Pictures of Lisa and classmates

If  anyone has pictures of Lisa that we can put up on this site,  you can email them to me at piccerelli@msn.com and I will get them up on the photo page right away.   Also, if you would like to be a contributor I can add you on – she had many special relationships with you all, and I want to be sure page this allows everyone to have a voice… I know  Eleanor was trying to contact everyone to do a class gift in memory of Lisa,  so we’ll work on that as well. Our thoughts,  prayers & spirit will be with the Flaxmans through this very difficult time,  and on Sunday.

Love,

Heidi

Announcement

Dear Members of the Class of 1983,

I am saddened to share the news that your classmate Lisa Flaxman
passed away yesterday after a courageous battle with cancer.
Her brother David shared the following last evening:

"It's with a heavy heart that I am writing to tell you that
my sister Lisa passed awaythis morning.
She had been battling widespread cancer since last March and,
though heartbroken, we are grateful that she is finally at peace.
Lisa is survived by her three children - Ben (12), Sophie (9) and Zachary (6)
as well as her husband, Jonathan. Lisa was an inspirational person
and we will be celebrating a life that burned so bright but ended far too soon."

Funeral service for Lisa will be held Sunday January 18, 10:00 a.m.,
at Temple Sinai of Washington, DC, 3100 Military Road, NW, Washington, DC 20015.
Condolences may be sent to her family at: 

Dr. and Mrs. B. Allen Flaxman
2 Pratt Street
Providence, RI 02906-1425
or
Mr. Jonathan Martel
3213 Farmington Drive
Chevy Chase, MD 20815-4826 

Warmly,
Tina Gorski-Strong
Director of Alumni Relations
The Wheeler School

Lisa’s Book “Glances at Time”

In 2003, when Lisa Flaxman was 38 years old, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. At that time, her children were six, four and one. Following the diagnosis, Ms. Flaxman, CEO of musiKids, went through two years of surgeries, chemo and radiation.

“Glances at Time” is a collection of poetry that chronicles her cyclical journey as a young mother with serious illness. Through her poetry, Ms. Flaxman connects with people who are battling cancer and demonstrates how writing can help in a difficult time. This book is for the patient, the friend, the family, the health care provider, the doctor, the psychologist – anyone who is or has been been close to illness. Click here to see a profile of Glances on NBC (March 12, 2008).