I attended her memorial service at the Cathedral. Looking around at the remarkable collection of people attending, I started to wonder about them. About who they were. Where they came from, and why they came.

I actually did ask a few people — in line, waiting to exit, and in the ‘fellowship’ room where we met and mingled a bit. The first people I spoke with — a minister, his wife and children — gathered together before bed and read from her books. Individuals I met in the gathering room knew Madeleine as neighbors, as friends, as writers. I wished that I had all the time in the world to hear everyone’s story — to share in everyone’s memory of this woman who meant so much to so many.

I first read A Wrinkle in Time in 1962-63 after a book talk by our town’s Children’s Librarian. Ten years later I was teaching 6th grade and one of my students was reading it and shared it with me. The one scene that had remained vividly in my memory was the kids bouncing the balls in unison on Camazotz, but I really didn’t remember the rest too clearly. I reread the book so I could discuss it with her; I was completely mesmerized and found myself on a mission to read all of her books. One was A Severed Wasp — where I was introduced to Madeleine’s Cathedral. Her settings are like her characters — they are very real for me; they live in my soul; they inform my life.

Thank you for this article, these videos. I couldn’t be there, but these allow me to share a little in the event.