I learned this dreadful news at a FSSGB showing of the BBC memorial for Bob Copper. Margaret, I am not ready for this. None of us are. I am not ready to speak of you in the third person or the past tense, and can only hope that some of these thanks and prayers for your life work may make their way from Mudcat to you and your family.

Such a family as the MacArthurs enriches us every bit as much as the Coppers. To have singing families living the tradition right here in New England is a great gift, close to home and in our own community. Margaret has been a personal inspiration to me on so many levels--as a collector, as a ballad singer, a songmaker, an educator and a Vermont woman, all of which I've striven to be myself over the years. I can't imagine I'll ever come close to the nature of Margaret's gentle grace, but it speaks to me more with each passing year.

It is the irony of the living tradition that a strand of it dies with each life. We must weep anew when any tradition bearer passes, and pause before we reweave the hole they leave. Margaret chose to take up and carry the Vermont tradition with a depth and integrity that few can match, making of her life an instrument and a song. I'm grateful to have heard this news while you are still with us, for however short a time, and feel immensely fortunate to have lived and made music in Vermont with Margaret MacArthur.

Margaret, you're one of my heroes. I didn't get a chance to tell Jack Langstaff that. I hope someone in your family may be able to pass it on from me to you, with the understanding that it may already be too late and your focus is and must be on the passage ahead. But some things need to be said, when we won't get a chance to leave them unsaid at a next happy meeting. It's important to honor our own.