Merrily Smith, 1930-2012
On Thanksgiving Day one of our dearest earthbound angels was called home. I knew Merrily for over 20 years. She worked tirelessly to make the world a better place.
Merrily, had a blind spot for the word, “impossible”—it simply was not in her vocabulary. Marvelous, fabulous, and miraculous, of course, were at the tip of her tongue. Merrily could tell you about the amazing things that talented and clever practitioners and inventors were doing to make the world a better place.
She was so full of positivity that there simply was no time for anything negative. Merrily was, of course, a renegade. She didn’t expect her government to make the world a better place. She made it her responsibility to be sure that anything positive was getting promoted. Her holistic newsletter and online radio show radiated the positivity that you saw in her eyes and convinced you in short order that not only was the world a great place today, by golly, it was going to be an even better one tomorrow.
The last few years were tough on Merrily’s Body, but not her Mind or her Spirit. She rallied through several afflictions and pushed her way forward with her irrepressible zest for life. When you saw Merrily headed your way, you just knew that she was going to tell you a wonderful story about someone “marvelous”.
Ask Merrily how she was doing and she would tell you that she was “rolling along”. She embodied a zest for life that was almost exclusively focused on helping others to achieve their goals. Her Holistic Helper business was a ray of sunshine for holistic practitioners who needed to promote their business.
How best can we remember Merrily? If every day you wake up and say, “today I will make this world just a little better,” then you will be carrying on her mission.
—Tony Cecala
Merrily Smith, aka “The Holistic Helper”, passed at the age of 82 on November 22, 2012. Somehow it seems fitting to me that she would depart on Thanksgiving Day as she was one of the most grateful and giving people I have ever known. No matter what was going on in her life, she always radiated cheerfulness and was excited to tell you about an author, who had written a great new book she was helping to promote, or some other person, who had made an amazing discovery.
Merrily worked tirelessly assisting others and although her health declined these past few years, she never complained or felt sorry for herself. In fact, when I saw her in September at her 82nd birthday party, she gave me a surprisingly strong hug and whispered in my ear, “It is all in divine order”. This was in spite of the fact that she was extremely thin, her health was clearly failing, she didn’t appear to be able to get out of bed, and she slept through a good part of her party.
I recently attended the Memorial Service at the Center for Spiritual Living to celebrate Merrily’s amazing life. Although Tony and I have known Merrily for about 20 years, I was struck by just how much I did not know about her. At the event a video was played that her friend and business partner, Colin Ryans had created for her 80th birthday. It showed pictures of Merrily as a young child, a teenager, a young adult and through her 79th year. As we viewed these images, Colin narrated many stories of the events that occurred at different times in her life.
I was struck by how young and beautiful Merrily had been. I had no idea that she had had such a difficult childhood, with an abusive father, who attempted to kill her three times before she was 5-years-old. This was not the kind of thing that Merrily dwelled on nor did it define her in any way. I also discovered that she had been a stewardess on North American Airlines and that she had started the first spiritual travel agency, where she took groups of people on many special journeys.
I knew she had been married to a man named Floyd, who was also a Unity Minister, and that he had passed away many years ago at a fairly young age. I thought he had had children from a previous marriage, but had no idea that he had had 8 children and that Merrily had helped to raise them (especially his four youngest sons).
Up until the end Merrily retained her cognitive faculties and while her body declined physically, she held on to her positive attitude. Her spiritual being kept on shining and she continued to be an example of a person of great faith and trust. She truly walked her talk and I am honored to have known her. Although I will miss Merrily’s physical presence in our community, I know her spirit will always be a part of us and that she will be cheering us on as we continue on our journey.
—Felicia Weiss
