Eulogy

She was shorter than I expected but larger than life, lit from within. Politely but directly ANNE MORROW LINDBERGH queried, "Why do you want to write about my husband? He's very much out of fashion, you know"--even before we sat down. "I'm an ordinary person who was thrust into extraordinary circumstances," she told me, describing her role in the epochal events in her life--her marriage to the most famous man on earth, the "Crime of the Century," blazing air routes, the debate over America's isolationism. Because she considered no experience complete until she had written about it, she left us with volumes of poignant diaries and the landmark Gift from the Sea (1955), which speaks to one generation of women after another. Alas, within a few years of my meeting her, she began declining physically and mentally. In 1995, at a Lindbergh Foundation reception, Anne Lindbergh made a rare public appearance. Cameras and people swirled around her. Later I found her sitting alone, seeming somewhat dazed. "Is all this too overwhelming?" I asked. "Or is it fun?" For several seconds, she pondered. Then, in a way that made me think she might just be summing up her entire life, she said, "Both."

--A. Scott Berg