Michelle Lafon, a beloved member of the Fellowship of Friends, completed her task after a twelve-year struggle with cancer on Monday, April 20, 2015 at 11:19 pm, Paris time. Michelle turned seventy-one last October.
Michelle joined the School, in Paris, on May 18, 1981; and soon after moved into the Chateau. There, she was a consistent presence, discreetly doing all she could to maintain the highest standards. Michelle spent time in both Madrid and Moscow, and lived at Apollo for about two years. In the last years, during her illness, she regularly visited Apollo and continued in her role as Center Director of the Paris Center.
Three years now, and memory still fresh!
We can all say that Michelle’s was a life well lived, awake and sprightly in face of a major protracted illness.
The final years, months and days spent with Michelle, whether in Paris or Apollo, were deeply memorable and valuable, witnessing a friend apply all she had learnt to the simple act of being in the moment, transcending physical suffering.
who met her in Paris, where she so readily hosted many friends in visits to her favorite places. One of these places, Vaux Le Comte engendered within me upon first encounter a mechanical stubbornness, a revolutionary attitude which may have covertly beset many students from America during the early period of the Fellowship’s European migrations. Michelle’s valuation for the school , however, and her appreciation of her friends as she guided many of us through Paris wore down the resistance and allowed us to receive the molecular beauty which alone allows impressions to penetrate essence. When she later moved to Apollo, and subsequently during her illness, this natural inclination to refined beauty was readily transformed into the radiant glow which marked the spirit by which we all recognized her.
Her mind was very precise and clear, she was a very helpful friend in times of confusion. There was this walk in the medicinal herb garden, behind the Musee de Cluny in Paris. Michelle’s soft and regular voice explaining her view on some part of the work, and my confused I’s at that moment getting into place, reorganized, like those squares of medicinal herbs around us, each playing their role at the right place.
Michelle, I thank you for the precious moments spent together.
I met Michelle when I moved to Paris in 1988 and was impressed by her quiet, steady dedication to the work. I remained in touch with her through the years, and worked with her for several years at RVW – where she helped to get the export side of the business underway. When, in recent years, I was able to spend time with her on her visits to Apollo, I could see that something had flowered. A steady, inward line of effort, and a traditional sense of duty, had opened into an expansive ‘chaleur’. A quiet warmth and openness. This was something stable, that she had paid for and made her own. She is an example of a person who made a major change in her being in this lifetime.
Dear sweet Solar-Lunar Michelle. She was my friend and confidant during the time we shared at the Fellowship’s Collin office. She enjoyed our tea breaks and told me about her horse and her life in Paris. She was a hard worker and ever devoted to the Teacher. The way she said ‘Robert’ with her beautiful French accent charmed me so much! Michelle, I thank thee for your sweetness, gentleness, and the love and friendship you gave me.