Joan Lane

1939 - 2025

"People who wonder if the glass is half empty or half full miss the point. The glass is refillable." Such is the message of Joan Lane that reverberates up to and beyond her death on May 25, 2025 at the age of 86. It is evidenced in her many deep conversations with friends and loved ones, in her life-loving get-togethers and outings, her charitable donations, and on one modest T-shirt gifted not so long ago to one of her five treasured children, Dawn, Gregg, Todd, Christopher, and Mathayu.

With a loving heart that seemingly outweighed her body, that some say was bigger than this entire world, Joan - a striving and avowed wife; a humbled and generous sister, mother & grandmother; a devout Catholic; and a dedicated and excellent nurse and friend - brought care, spunkiness, and spontaneous overflows of laughter to her days. Studious and brave toward life's heaviest questions, and delighted to find answers in the wisdom of the believer and the non-believer alike, Joan (Jo, Mom, Ma, Grandma Joan, Mimi, Memaw, Shortie) gave her shining smile and bright blue-eyed gaze freely to anyone wanting to talk or just sit.

For decades, her household brimmed with family and holiday meals, cast parties, and arts & crafts, dancing, woodworking, and music. On behalf of cherished grandchildren, she grew sprouted avocado pits all over her kitchen and hosted sleepovers complete with handmade pajamas; she painted lovely images in oils and acrylics; revelled at treasure-hunting in Stockbridge's "Sidetracks," and one winter, when her kids and husband David had claimed all the sleds, she settled for the tight-squeeze advantage of a forgotten (and clean!) cat litter box.

Her "simple-gift" approach to life is best found in a recent observation made by a granddaughter going through her clothes: "A bar of soap in every drawer," she chuckled. Why? Easy. To yield a pleasing fragrance and keep the bugs away.

Joan's surviving immediate family are her sister Carol; children, Dawn (and partner Cynthia), Gregg (partner Christie), Christopher (partner Deborah), Mathayu; daughters-in-law Karen and Joelle, and grandchildren Marina, Nika, Calder, Emmett, Mason, and Owen. A Funeral Mass will be held on June 28 at 10:30 AM at St. Joseph's Catholic Church, 11 Elm Street in Stockbridge, followed by a Committal at her burial site in Stockbridge Cemetery.