Virginia by Audrey Logan [October 02, 2002, age 11]

My hero is my aunt Virginia. She helped me to learn about loss, overcoming problems, and many other lessons of life. She taught me many things unconsciously and I learned from her mistakes. We had lots of fun together and I loved her a lot. I would like to have many of the good qualities she possessed.

Virginia Baker Logan had sunshine blond hair and blue eyes. She loved art and was a fantastic painter. Her use of colors was amazing and I loved her abstract landscapes she created with the perfect combination of blues, reds, and yellows. Her smile made me feel warm inside like a cup of cocoa on a chilly winter evening. Her mood affected my mood. Ginge loved stickers and had a huge collection. She had every kind of sticker imaginable. When I think of her now she seems to glow with kindness and love.

One quality Ginge had was bravery and she tried a lot of different things. Some things she experimented with weren’t good for her. When she went to high school she got obsessed with her body weight and became anorexic. She was unhealthily thin and it was scary to see anyone that thin. Virginia finally realized what damage she was doing to her self and regained a normal weight. She was still skinny but she wasn’t hurting herself. Ginge had overcome one hurtle. She later experimented with drugs and cigarettes. After a while she decided to break both unhealthy addictions. Virginia worked hard and finally quit her habits. While she had these problems her heart and body suffered greatly. When these things were happening she and I retained a great relationship. It’s awful what Ginge did to her body but I remember her strong will to get rid of her problems. I don’t focus on her faults.

Ginge and I had a ton of fun together. Once, when she lived in California we made a puppet show. We created all the sets and made some sock puppets out of some stray forgotten socks from the laundry room. I was seven and she was seventeen. We performed for my grandparents and parents. The story was about a plastic horse that was being chased by a sock puppet vampire. In the end, the frightening vampire died and the horse was very glad to be rid of him. We had a great time making the puppets and shoebox settings. I miss doing fun crafts with her.

When Ginge died it was an upsetting shock. To realize that you’ll never get to see someone you love ever again is something I wish no one had to go through. I didn’t know how to let go of her. I was in the state Virginia visiting my grandparents when it happened. My grandmother got a call from Davidson College saying that Ginge had gone to sleep and when her boyfriend tried to wake her up she wouldn’t open her eyes. When my grandma Anne heard the news she started bawling and the only two words I heard her say were Virginia and dead. I went upstairs and sat on my guest bed while I waited for my dad to come up too. I knew what he would say but when he told me I felt like someone had hit me with a hard blow and I still have a bruise that sometimes throbs with realization that I’ll never see Virginia again and I can’t laugh with her or talk with her or make pipe cleaner caterpillars with her any more. It’s an awful feeling that makes you wonder if you could have done something that would’ve prevented her death.

The reason I chose Ginge to be my hero is that she had problems and she dealt with them and overcame them. I wanted to pick someone who has made a big impact on my life and someone who I was close to. When I remember Ginge I see a person who lived life to the fullest and never missed out on any thing.

For me, it all started a little over two decades ago, with a note taped to my dorm-room door. The scribbled message on a ripped page:”6:53, girl, 8lbs, 2oz. Virginia — call dad at office.”I guess I had a sister. Inauspicious start perhaps. But I saved the note. And sure enough, from so-many pounds and so many ounces came a person who touched my soul. A person who time on this earth added so much love and meaning in my life, and continues to now, even when away.

And not far away. One of the closest bonds Virginia and I shared was an absolute view of consciousness being fundamental to matter. In this way Virginia was a deeply spiritual person, who took as a matter-of-fact that the spirit lasts beyond the flesh, that our time here on earth is school, and that we share our school with people we have deep, if also sometimes hidden and unfathomable, connections with. People are much like the tips of icebergs in this sense- our interactions on the surface are tied to a much greater wisdom and interconnectedness beneath the surface. In many ways the unwritten goal of life is to always try to bring as much of that depth to the surface as we possibly can.

Physical life in this sense can be a somewhat crude instrument for such immense expression, and sometimes we get caught up in the confusion we see at the surface. There is no doubt in my mind that the depth of Virginia’s wisdom beneath the surface was as great as – or perhaps greater than – anyone I have ever known. I think being born with a soul that big can present an overwhelming challenge. She had from the start so much she would need to try to bring out of herself, in to a world that can make such subtlety an agonizing impossibility at times. She nevertheless achieved such expression marvelously – notably in her art. But that was really only the smallest part of her expression. In fact, in the largest sense her Art was in every act of kindness and beauty and humor in her young life.

I can’t really even begin to describe Virginia, her beauty and complexity defy my words. Her loyalty was legendary, and extended to those she encountered in her short life as naturally and indiscriminately as she breathed. Her humor was immense and powerful – even when she could be so shy that only a handful of people really got to know it. Her love of life – all life – was intense, and any creature (human or otherwise) that required care or nurturing she felt was her responsibility. Her ability to be unflinchingly true to her own character amazed me, inspired me. While so many will change their shape or hide behind facades, Virginia always was exactly who she was, uncovered, unqualified, with no excuses.

I strongly sense her spirit around me in these past days. From time to time, when I start to mire in sadness or huddle too deeply in my sense of loss, I have suddenly heard in my mind her exclamatory “Bret!”, intoned with a wry, ironic and above all irreverent humor absolutely unique to Virginia’s character. I can only feel that is Virginia, unimpressed with my need for gloom, wanting to remind me of what our Grandpa Logan taught me – that only a sense of humor can keep all that happens in life in perspective.

Indeed, of the many amazing things about Virginia, somehow what comes back to my mind over and over and over is her sense of humor. One way she used to show it to me was with her remarkably sharp fist- one meticulously timed and surgically delivered sucker-punch at the least-expected moment always broke any inclination I might have toward pompous seriousness. Impossible to describe to anyone not on the receiving end, I can only say that a sucker-punch from Virginia was as good as the best hug from anyone else. The joy and creativity and comic timing of Virginia simply had to be experienced to be understood. I always felt privileged to have the opportunity to understand.

Virginia’s timing was amazing, in so many ways kept me sharp and alive and creative, looking beyond just being satisfied. She lived on a razor sharp creative edge, and she did not approach life meekly. She lived as fully as any person I’ve ever known.

I can’t even begin to suggest the power this person had in my life, much less the effect on others. So I won’t. What I will do is describe some of the things that will make me happy forever.

I remember Blue Rocks.

I remember trips to Thule.

I will never forget the Humming Pole.

I remember when Virginia, having succumbed to a severe sore throat, found that consuming about a half-pound of pixie-sticks was “taking the edge off it.” She elected to pursue the matter with further research into Jolly Ranchers.

I remember riding hundreds of miles on a dinky moped with a near-adult Virginia that had come to visit me, car-less, in New Haven. And I can never forget how sad we both were when it came time to say good-bye, as she continued to wave as she boarded the airplane.

I remember the Honey Deer, the Licorice Lake, corncobs covered in jewels, and the Ruby Newt.

I remember a person that could find meaning in a blue stone found in a red clay field.

All my life I have felt a bit like a stranger in this world. Perhaps we all do. But as much as I felt foreign, Virginia felt to me familiar. Like a fellow species of traveler, there was a commonality in spirit. And a view of a sometimes-savage world that both repelled and attracted us. I can’t really explain how or why this connection existed, but in a way I feel a bit like a fellow lone traveler has now left, and I feel lonely.

But I do not believe in accidents. I believe we can’t always see the larger picture from where we stand, and that includes not always knowing what a person came here to earth to do, and why some may have to leave too early. Virginia lived a short life, but it was a full life in many ways, because she lived more intensely than anybody I have ever known. And while it is hard to put in to words here, somehow what had seemed from my vantage to be a surprising, wonderful series of affirming, loving events of late between her and me now feels like a series of sublime and perfect good-byes. Of course, neither she nor I realized we’d be saying goodbye, at least anytime in the next 80 years. But no passing over from the body to the spirit happens without a larger context, a plan, and I can only thank God for unusual connections we were blessed to have in the past months. Like the uncharacteristic 2.5 hour phone call I made to her, in which I came to tears several times because I’d gotten to express how much respected her goals and directions – and how much I cared. She didn’t know I’d wept; I can hide that well. But I know she could feel in my tone how special she is to me. I thank the heavens for the surprise envelope that arrived in my mailbox a week ago, with a hand-made bracelet that must have taken her hours to construct. I thank God that my daughter got to know Virginia, in ways that even I never got to.

Audrey learned some things quite prodigiously- her sucker punches to the stomach are getting quite good!

The spiritual nature of the beliefs I shared with Virginia inform me that she is in no way truly absent- her spirit is surely soaring now, free of many of the limitations that so often drove her to distraction here. And she is also as close as I need her, when I need her to remind me of what is important, speaking to me in the language of my memories and images. But I dearly miss her, because I can’t put an arm around her, because I can’t go looking for stuff in a stream with her, because I can’t talk about the nature of reality, or art, or of a million other things- at least for a while. That is my sense of loss, which I share with a whole family and all of her friends.

Songs written about Virginia

“Virginia” by Jellyshirts

“Ginge” by BLB

[obituary from Charlottesville, VA newspaper The Daily Progress:]

Virginia Baker Logan, 20, of Charlottesville, died Saturday, Oct. 6, 2001, in North Carolina.

She was born March 27th, 1981, in Ridgewood, N.J., daughter of Mark Byron Logan and Anne Jones Logan. She was preceded in death by her grandparents Frances Baker and Leo Joseph Logan of Lancaster, PA; And her grandfather, Dr. James A. Jones of Richmond.

Virginia attended Grymes Memorial School in Orange, VA; Chatham Hall in Chatham, VA; Sacred Heart Preparatory in Atherton, CA; and Davidson College in Davidson, NC.

In addition to her parents, she is survived by her sister, Catherine McAfee Logan; her brother Bret Byron Logan, and his wife Brette; niece Audrey Lynn Logan; and grandmother, Mary Boyd Jones of Richmond. A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday at St. Paul’s Church in Ivy, with the Rev. Miller Hunter officiating. Interment will follow in the churchyard.

Those who wish may make contributions to the Davidson College Art Department, P.O. Box 7117, Davidson, NC. Hill & Wood Funeral Home (Charlottesville, VA) is in charge of arrangements.

The Grieving Garden