On March 29, 2025 Christine Kay Eckerman completed her journey through this life.
Chris believed we are here to take care of each other and to move toward wisdom. This belief was part of her sense of family, her work, her friendships, and spiritual grounding.
She practiced this belief while living with serious illness through much of her adult life. Chris felt that Multiple Sclerosis and cancer were her teachers. They helped her to see what is of most value in life – being blessed each day with connection to others and sharing deeply with them life and its variety of challenges and wonders. Sometime in her last few months she wrote by hand, “(The) silver lining of a cancer diagnosis is that it provides a reminder that our departure from this world is imminent (or more imminent).” Illness taught Chris to live life fully. Her personalized license plate said it best: “Xubrant”.
Chris cherished her many friends from all areas of her life. She was blessed and they were blessed by how wide her circle of friends was. A few months before her death, encouraged and supported by friends, Chris held a party. But it wasn’t just a party. There were nametags with colored stars on them, each color representing if you were Chris’s friend from family, childhood, work, her book group that read 13th century Zen Master Dōgen, yoga, her book and dinner group that had read 123 books, or her Buddhist Open Door Zen Community sangha. The final group on the list was Other because Chris’s friendships were always growing and didn’t necessarily fit a category.
Her mentoring of several younger women was a testament to this. Her intention for the party was that people would start conversations with someone they didn’t know, so that her friends could meet and get to know each other. With whimsy, clarity, or obscurity, she created a line for each person’s name tag to facilitate conversations starting. “Has to be forced to wear shoes.” “I often smoke.” “They took away my common sense.” “Doesn’t pay his parking tickets.” The memory of the party brought her joy long after it had ended.
In her professional role as a psychotherapist, she was known by colleagues and clients alike for having the rare and hard-to-measure quality of caring deeply for the people who came to see her. She always felt her clients were among the most courageous people she knew. One person in a group of friends began seeing Chris for therapy and recommended her then to the others – who recommended her then to the others. They told her that among themselves they fondly called her “shrinkette.” Chris loved this.
Chris’s most treasured role was being a mother. She felt that mothering was an inspiration and daily reminder that what is most important in life is love, growth, and embracing all of life’s s hardships and joys. In her last month's her son Eric moved back home to take care of her. In her last days, he sat close by her bedside, leaning forward and whispering comfort to her. Love returning love. Eric completed his mother’s circle of connection and love.
Chris and Eric would like to thank her friends who, led by Kim Neuschel and Bonnie Schmidt, so lovingly tended her as she became confined to home and also the amazing care team at UW Carbone Cancer Center who made this difficult journey easier, especially Drs. Ellen Hartenbach and Kristin Bradley and Nurse Practitioner Chessa Fischer.
Chris is survived by her sons, Eric Eckerman Heitzinger and David Park Ripp, and daughter Allison Hyogin Ripp (Lance) Simkins; mother Ruth Eckerman, brothers Tim and Dan Eckerman and nieces and nephews Andrew, Michelle, Jamie, Kyle, Alyx.
Services will be held on Friday, May 9, 2025, in Madison, WI.
Further information for donations in Chris’s memory to non-profits and a memorial bench will be provided at a later date.
“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”
-Johan Wolfgang von Goethe
Cress Funeral & Cremation Service
3610 Speedway Road, Madison
(608) 238-3434