My heart goes out to you Sam and David, to Martha's whole family, and all of the many people who knew and undoubtedly loved her. She was exceptional in so many wonderful ways: scholarship, integrity, courage, kindness, and friendship...always with an acerbic wit and clarity of thought that shone through each conversation (and disagreement). She is irreplaceable and I, for one, will never stop thinking about her and replaying our talks, personal and professional, over the years. I met Martha as an undergrad in Professor Liu's Elementary Chinese class at Washington University in St. Louis (1982) at a time when Martha's style was a waifish take on Deborah Harry (lead singer of the punk rock band, Blondie). Her attitude, then, was as pointy as the studs on her leather jacket and her retorts to naive comments just as sharp. Though her style evolved over the years, happily her edge simply 'matured.' That year we shared music and interests in East Asian. Not much else. She had already been around the block once in Japan once, by then, and her thoughts were clearly still living there. I left for China. Martha went to the University of Michigan and some time later we reconnected, impractically, with the generous help from Mrs. Chaiklin (Martha's mother) to whom I had directly mailed a confusing letter from overseas somewhere in Asia. There began our 40-year correspondence with some multi-year gaps. Incredibly, those didn't matter. The ideas, our jobs and projects, families, divergent language studies only deepened our connection. As another contributor mentioned in a memorial posting, the length of time between calls/letters/conversations with Martha were immaterial to the depth and durability of her friendship with me (with you, too). I read her articles and books as manuscripts and the editors in us feuded joyfully at times. I loved Martha's research breadth, academic humility and voracious curiosity about art, artifacts, and the mingling of cultures East-and-West. Over the years, thousands(?) of emails and saddeningly few field trips together, Martha was always...present, I think, is the right word. When I'd shoot a message through the ether (her physical addresses changed frequently), she'd invariably catch it, answer, and we'd pick up right where we'd left off as if we'd had coffee just yesterday. Except for those I met at a Seder she hosted in Pittsburg when Sam recounted the Exodus story for the first time (?), I knew Martha's friends and colleagues only by name - and such true friends she had! The Martha I knew was always generous and critical (both), timid and opinionated (both), always a bit harried and beautiful in her plain-spoken, plain-truth, plain clothes way of being fully herself wherever she went. Constancy of purpose. I envied hers. How the undeserved varieties of BS she endured for years (physical, financial, professional) never deterred her; only seemed to heighten her awareness of the few things which actually DID matter and her impatience with all the other stupid details and sentimentality. I could go on. There is so much. Martha had a deep, wide, and healing impact on my life marked by sympathy and trust. She taught me about excellence, (in)justice, forgiveness and most of all how to love. Martha - if I'd known
that call was going to be our last.... What I would've told you. (How you would've chastised me.) What I would've explained. (How you would've chastised me.) What I would've asked you. How none of this mattered (to you). How, wondrously, none of that ever did matter at all.
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