On a beautiful winter Sunday three days after Christmas, Barbara Davidson Collins let go of her physical body and released as spirit into the next great adventure of her soul's evolving. Her peaceful passing, attended by beloved daughters and sons-in-law, brought to closure a lifetime of love and friendship and caring felt by everyone who was blessed to know her.

Born in Chicago in 1933, the eldest daughter of Barrett Kaad and Rose Durbas, Barbara was the big sister by several years to Rosemary (Fiore), Marilu (Arendt), and Noel (Kalinowski). The sisters grew ever closer throughout their lives, and whenever they were gathered there was much laughter and bantering to be heard around the table.

Barbara grew up in an apartment on Chicago's northwest side across the hall from her paternal grandparents, her beloved Grandma Marnie (Margaret Mack) a welcoming, loving, generous and humorous guide in her young life. She was part of a pack of glamourous girlfriends in high school, some of whom she had known since kindergarten and who remained friends for life. Convinced of their supreme beauty and natures, they called themselves The Epitomes. (At seventeen, humble they were not!) Many a hilarious story was recounted about The Epitomes and the trouble they stirred at their all-girls Catholic high school. The group lost one of their sisters early in adulthood; Barbara looked forward to reuniting with Norma Pfeiffer, and her other Epitome companions in life, love, and laughter, in the realms beyond this one.

Barbara married the love of her life, the handsome and gregarious Don Davidson, on Sept. 8, 1956. Together they raised five spirited and independent-minded daughters, which they set out to do intentionally when the first daughter was born in 1958. The legacy of Barbara's life as a woman of great love and empathy carries on in the hearts and service of her five daughters and their husbands: Susan and Jack, Patricia and Martin, Terry and Muzalliq, Marianne and Pat, and Lenore and Mike. Barbara loved her grandchildren and great grandchildren to beyond the moon and back, and their love for her was palpable and overflowing. GBarb (Grandma Barb) will be dearly missed by Zack Hinderyck and April; Hannah Syed, Nora Syed and Brooks, and Adam Syed; Connor Grant and Annie, Kellianne McDonough and Kevin, Matt Grant and Erica, and Gavin Grant and Julie; and Nick Brieger. GGBarb (Great Grandma Barb) made an indelible imprint of love and sparkle on her great grandchildren, who brought her such deep joy in the winter of her life: Ryan, Liam, and Molly McDonough; Bo and Dixie Grant; and Audrey, Margot, and Olivia Grant. Through her life Barbara was also "second Mom" to countless friends of her daughters who found a special comfort and wise counsel in her welcoming ways of being and communicating.

Barbara made a big leap into the unknown when, at 89 years old, she left the city of her birth and the only place she had ever lived to move to Vermont, settling close to her daughter Susan first at Park House in Rochester and then living at their home with Susan and Jack. In Vermont she found her love for trees and birds and plants, spending hours in her comfy chairs bathing in the energy of the light and the nature beings around her and acting as "playground supervisor" to the birds visiting the feeders and squabbling for food outside her wall of window. Late in her life she was blessed by making new friends at both the Park House and in the circle of good souls that constellate around Susan and Jack's hearth. Especially memorable for Barbara were long Sunday afternoon teas with Marianne and Deborah and a very special bond with her caregiver, Darlene Peters. Jim Corrigan of San Diego and Charlene Joyce of Chicago were spiritual companions who understand and follow the teachings of a living Jesus that Barbara fashioned her life by and who remained close through the miles that separated them.

Our hearts are filled today and always with sweet love for Barbara, an extraordinary woman whose flame of love and spirit of adventure was expressed in the quiet and powerful ways of authentic connection with the people who came into her life. A celebration of Barbara's life will take place in the spring in her hometown of Chicago.

… Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell
When I embark …

"Crossing the Bar"
Alfred, Lord Tennyson