(3 October 1953 – 3 November 2023)
Tribute
by Ma Devabodhi, with the help of Machteld Bredman and Swami Prembandhu
Ma Prem Samarpito (Marian Birdow-Wertheimer) was born in Amsterdam and grew up as the only child of loving Jewish parents who hadn’t come out undamaged from World War II.
After going through school and then graduating from the Social Academy in 1975, she took off on an overland trip to India with her friend Aren. On the way, already in Greece, Aren met ‘the man of her dreams’ which left Samarpito to proceed alone for the rest of the journey.
It was only later that she heard of Osho, and took sannyas in Pune on 31 December 1980. She visited the ashram in Pune several times and lived in the Amsterdam Commune, Sadhana.
After Osho left for America Samarpito joined him in Rajneeshpuram and worked in the trucking department Baal Shem and in Gorakh as a garbage truck driver.
In 1985, she settled in America where she worked as a ‘Silver cab’ taxi driver, waitress, cleaner and social worker in Laguna Beach and later in Boulder, CO.
There she met Anthony whom she married in August 2001, with a big party in the presence of her mother, Anthony’s family and a number of Dutch and American friends. The Dutch friends spent two wonderful weeks with her and were well taken care of by the newlyweds.
Samarpito frequently visited her mother in Amsterdam. During these stays she also visited her friends who lived in various places across the Netherlands. Among them was her close and lifelong friend, Anneke (“my sister”), with whom she had grown up from kindergarten.
I had met Samarpito already in Pune, but we came to know each other better after we accidentally bumped into each other in a shopping center in Amsterdam in 2012. When she heard I was working with the elderly as an independent caregiver, she asked me if her mother (at the time 92 years old) could call on me if she was ill or needed help.
I came close to her mother and so had regular contact with Samarpito over the phone and by e-mail. I was not the only one who visited and cared for her mother, because Samarpito had managed to mobilize her friends and cousins to look after her, something we mostly enjoyed doing.
Around the time I picked up the occasional care for her mother, Samarpito was diagnosed with LSM (leiomyosarcoma), a recurring cancer of the soft tissues in the abdomen.
Although to live in constant fear of the always recurring disease, the various operations and treatments that were exhausting her, she did not let it hinder her to remain curious about life and remain loyal to her widely-scattered friends.
However, around her 70th birthday, this last October, she felt it was time to give up and was ready for her “final journey”.
Supported by Anthony and a circle of close friends, she left her body on 3 November in Broomfield, CO, only 14 months after her mother had died at the age of 100.
I am grateful that I could spend two weeks with Samarpito in Florida in February this year.
I will always remember her as a loving, curious and brave friend who enjoyed life to its fullest. A beautiful, strong woman, she was a true friend to many.
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