Lauren had a powerful love of family and her heritage and was very close to her grandparents, Yetta and Louis Markewich, Carol and Herbert Zieben and Bernice and Alton Lipkin. Ironically, her greatest fear was losing one of them. In her last year, she had researched her family history and had conducted audio interviews of each of her grandparents. This love and devotion to family extended beyond her immediate relatives to include my family and her many close friends.

Lauren was a woman of beautiful contradictions. On the one hand, she was a tough and outspoken activist, marching in Portland's worst rain, on the other she was feminine, soft-spoken, and graceful. The natural health advocate that she was, she often went on 4 or 5 day juice fasts, only to break the fasts not with the prescribed light salad and bulgar wheat, but a complete prime rib dinner and accompanying martini. I remember being lectured on the evils of refined flour and sugar in our kitchen, only to discover her hours later playing guitar, smoking a rolled cigarette, and drinking a Budweiser tall-boy in the backyard.(despite all of the great micro-brews in Portland, this remained her favorite guilty pleasure)

Lauren was an incredibly affectionate person. I never arrived home without a loud "Sweetie!" accompanied by hugs and kisses greeting me at the door. During our many road trips, she would often make me kiss her (while driving) until it was "satisfactory." (sometimes 7 or 8 times) This would go on at least a couple of times an hour. She loved animals, especially cats - we took many evening walks around our neighborhood after dinner - Lauren would "call" each cat off its porch and spend a few minutes petting - after a few weeks in our new neighborhood she had made many friends.