My daughter died yesterday. I wrote this piece to be included in her celebration of life:

My daughter, Rebekka Esther Mickler, arrive in this country with her mother at he Orlando airport on the Friday before Christmas in 1963 wearing a light blue oat. The trip from West Berlin had been a long, tiring one. When we arrived at her first home in this country she saw wrapped Christmas presents and a small cornucopia of chocolates,she put her hands on her face and uttered Oma Schwarz's favorite expression, "Ach, du lieber Gott!" She spoke no English and her mother and I spoke only German at home.

A few months later we moved to a rental house on a farm - ranch 5 miles out of St. Cloud, Florida The house stood next to Mrs. Simmons's (our landlady), largely isolated from other children by with cattle and sheep, with Alligator Lake some 100 yards away. Already largely isolated from other children by language and distance, she developed a deep love of animals. She had so many animal friends: Jake the big hound, Girlie the Dachshund, Hujo th cat, Hoppy the rabbit,, Suzie the loving lamb, Friendy affectionate calf, and three horses. recky also spend a lot of time with Cindy, , Mrs. Simmon;s sister and her husband who lived just across the lane. They were like grandparents to her. .

When Becky entered kindergarten she still spoke little English other children, meaning that she had difficulty communicating with other children This led other children to see and treat Becky as an outsider. This hurt Becky and had two lasting effects:

1. Once Becky learned to speak English, she refused to speak German, as the language had isolated her from her peers.

2. For the rest of her life, she saw herself as an outsider. She always rejected the "in" crowd, aspects of conventional behavior. She was always drawn to the outsiders, the unconventional and those in need. For the rest of her life, she reached to help others who were in need.

As a consequence, when Becky reached junior high - high school she became somewhat rebellious, not trying to do well in school, reusing to play team sports (even though she was a good athlete. and hanging out with the crowd d dabbling in behaviors which could hurt them. Her relationship with her mother and me was often trained and contentious.

After high school, Becky went out on her own working at minimum wage jobs or as a secretary. She found life difficult and unsatisfying, and came back, saying the she wanted to go to college. Her mother and I agreed to help under the condition that she . give it a full effort. I helped her to acquire some the needed academic skills she and I began to communicate in an open and honest way. She went into teaching and, as a staff development and school improvement specialist, I fed her all of he information and materials that I could. Afterward she often that she learned more about teaching from me than she did from the university.

Seeing herself as an outsider, she understood kids having a difficult time relating to school and was highly effective in reaching them. She always wanted to help he kids in any way that she could.

At age 18, and developed Crohn''s disease and it dominated the rest of her life. She suffered so much pain and underwent so many surgeries. It eventually took away her teaching career and left her dependent But, she fought valiantly all the way. The entire time time she was reaching out to those in need, the outsiders, including immigrant families and children.

Becky was a loving, kind and giving person. She deserved better than life gave her.