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Remembering Emily
By Anne Bernstein
Decades have passed since I first met Emily Visher. She and
John, her husband, fellow stepparent and parent, co-author, and co-founder
of the Stepfamily Association of America, had just written Stepfamilies:
A Guide to Working with Stepparents and Stepchildren. In the early stages of the relationship that would form
the basis for my own stepfamily, I seized on the opportunity to invite Emily
to speak to my students. In a one-day workshop for the San Francisco Department
of Social Services on-site Masters Program in Family Therapy, her presentation
was lively, engaging, and replete with information about families who, until
the Vishers began to write on the subject, were markedly underrepresented
in the professional literature. At least as interested personally as I was
professionally, I was grateful for the newly charted map of the little known
territory she set before us. Her, their, contribution to demystifying stepfamily
life—exposing the myths and unveiling the promise—has been immeasurable,
the more remarkable for its mastery of that fragile balance: acknowledging
the pain while always imparting hope. For those of us following in their footsteps,
to hear that, yes, it had been so very difficult, and yes, meaningful and
loving relationships do come into being, was an invaluable source of strength
during shaky times.
Remembering Emily, in
so many contexts, over so many years:
At AFTA, Emily was essential in keeping the Stepfamily Interest
Group going, spirited, always eager to learn and to teach, to deliver services
to those in need. Even more impressive was her willingness to make herself
vulnerable, participating in a Women's Institute "fishbowl"
to highlight the challenges of those in "target" groups by speaking
for the older women among us, setting an example of aging with grace.
Emily maintained her youthful enthusiasm, her hunger for knowledge,
until the very end. Diagnosed nearly four and a half years before her
death on October 5, 2001 with a form of cancer that is almost invariably fatal
in a fraction of that time, she continued to travel the world, doing workshops
internationally, visiting family and friends, and photographing the beauty
she explored. And everywhere her high spirits were infectious. Last February,
in New Orleans for an SAA workshop during Mardi Gras, we stood watching the
elaborately decorated floats of costumed crews roll by and joined the crowds,
holding out our arms for the beads and baubles flung to the people filling
the streets to overflowing. And, time after time, those dispensing their favors
scanned the crowd, spotted Emily's radiant smile, her dignified bearing
and obvious gusto, and carefully aimed necklace after necklace right into
upraised hands.
Whatever she did, she went all out, giving herself wholeheartedly
to the business at hand, whether it was her professional work, her dedication
to her own family and to the world of stepfamilies, the American Association
of University Women, her women's group that met for more than thirty
years, her generous hospitality to friends, or her thimble collection. I,
and we, will miss her.
Anne
C. Bernstein is Treasurer of AFTA and edits the Website. She is a family psychologist
and mediator in Berkeley, CA.
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