Tributo a nuestra querida Judy McInnis

Picture by Yanina Hinrichsen, Marta's daughter

In Memoriam
Judy Bredeson McInnis
The following memorial tribute to Judy Bredeson McInnis was presented by Gladys Ilarregui, assistant professor of foreign languages and literatures, at the General Faculty meeting on April 9, 2007:

Dear Judy,

The day you died, I dreamt that you had flown to my home in Latin America, and you had seen me as the child who used to attach a star to my hair, and you said to me: “ah!”, as if sighing, because you had met that girl who never expected to meet you in this far away land. I keep in my mind the many years of conferences, shared rooms, old roads in your car when I could hardly pay for my expenses, and many more years and hours of intense conversations we had when you became the translator of my poetry. I cannot count the postcards, the gestures; the small details that made the journey of our friendship so beautiful since we first met at a MACLAS meeting, so long ago that I do not recall when it really happened.

When you died, it was a really complex exercise to start thinking of you with tenses in the past: “she was/she did”, and it is just as painful right now to place you in that direction: the past, when you allowed me to share, not only thoughts on your voracious reading, but also your cooking, the cakes, the exotic recipes, the delight of a good, strong coffee in your kitchen. When (all of this happened) this present suddenly became past last November I had to write to Marta Zabaleta, our friend in Epping, England, and somehow compose the news of your departure. You showered Marta for years with gifts, books and financial support ever since you knew about her history as a scholar and defender of women’s rights who was once incarcerated and severely tortured in Chile. As soon as you knew her story, you became the champion of sensibility to her as she unwrapped music or words in this “green” area an hour away from London. You invited her to lectures, and made her feel that all her struggle had not been in vain. She once told me that you were the only person who treated her as a real intellectual; that you were so delicate in asking information about her body and her past. On another occasion, I saw you crying for the abuses in Latin America as you once read my poem on a trapped butterfly at a conference in the Dominican Republic, and you then gave me a Japanese book of butterflies saying to me: “I think they are your best symbolism”.

It is time to say: Judy Mc Innis was a professor of Spanish in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at the University of Delaware for more than 30 years. Her scholarship ranged from authors from early modern Spain to Latin America contemporary literature. She wrote reviews, articles, participated in conferences and studies abroad, as actively as one can imagine. It was never enough for her to do one thing; she would have another project in parallel or just there for when the previous one had been accomplished. Judy passed away at the age of 62, due to a pulmonary cancer. It was, as I remember, a sunny day when she departed. It is rather difficult to imagine that such a bright day took her from all of us. Dear colleagues: when we enter this profession, every one of us is welcome in the company of scholars. I was very fortunate that I also found the company of a great human being.

Judy Mc Innis, my friend, do not rest in peace, because resting in peace is dangerous and deceptive at a time in when much love and compassion is needed in the world. Be here at this University you loved, in the halls you knew so well, in the streets and the cafeterias. Just be here in the middle of this campus, in the middle of our imperfect lives, in the middle of the struggle for Latin America, in the pain, in the rage, in the compassion. Be always with us, Judy Mc Innis, my dear friend.

*****

Judy McInnis, 63, of Elkton, Md., died on Nov. 11.