Some people cast a brilliant light into the world around them, and into the lives of the people they touch. Of no one can this be more truly said than my aunt, Marie Fouquet.

In a world where extended families are often separated by great distance, I consider myself very lucky to have grown up just a few Los Angeles blocks from Aunt Marie and Uncle Raymond. A visit with Marie was well worth the slight detour on my walk home from grade school, and there was nothing more fun growing up than a weekend sleepover at her house. Marie gave generously of her attention and love, to family, friends, and especially the children in her life. Every visitor who had the good fortune to walk through her door was greeted with unforgettable warmth, hospitality, cheer, and humor. A great many of our holiday meals were spent at Marie and Raymond's long table, around which another few chairs could always somehow be made to fit. Marie was a very capable and all too modest gourmet cook, and her guests were treated to magnificent multi-course meals, paired with unfailingly lively and hilarious conversation. I appreciate now more than ever the labor of love she made of bringing us all together, and the memories I have of those truly precious days.

Born Magenka Stransky in the Rakovník, Czechoslovakia of 1926, Marie had emigrated to France with her family before her first birthday. She, her brother, and two sisters grew up among the pastoral hills and valleys of Auvergne, where her father and brother worked as coal miners and her mother as a midwife. There the family lived through difficult times that included the war and Nazi occupation, and their mother's death due to heart failure at age 47.

Marie and Raymond met following the war's end at a resort where the two worked, and were soon married. In 1950, they left France for the United States in search of new opportunities, settling first in Chicago and eventually Los Angeles. (My mother joined them in the U.S. shortly thereafter.) After many years working as household servants and in the restaurant business, Marie and Raymond opened La Grange Restaurant in Westwood in 1968. The venture was a long-lived success, thanks in no small part to Marie's adept handling of the necessary accounting and Raymond's charming way with their customers. Marie was also instrumental in managing the Velo Club that Raymond's love of cycling birthed. The couple have two wonderful daughters, my cousins Raphaele and Michele, both of whom have a great deal of Marie in them, and who have brought precious additions into our extended family.

Somewhere recently I heard expressed the idea of "living that life that's in you." Without a doubt, Marie Fouquet lived the brightly burning life that was in her in the best possible sense. Who Marie was is inseparable from how I grew up, who I am, and the person I most want to be. Losing her has been a reminder to me, to never take those I love for granted or miss an opportunity to be in their lives, and to "live the life that is in me" to its fullest.

Marie was taken from the many who loved her on May 30th, 2004, by a burglar who gained a watch and the contents of her purse. I miss her beyond belief.