I attended Miss Day's funeral Friday morning -- it was a lovely small gathering at the Oak Hill Cemetery Chapel in Georgetown. Warm and fitting tributes were given by Alice Braelove, Geoffrey Smith, and Kevin McKenzie, and we went back to Miss Day's house where her longtime assistant had arranged for the group to release 96 white balloons into the air -- they went up right over the school. Although it is sad to say goodbye, it is a comfort to know she spent her whole life doing what she loved. I last visited with her in March and she was full of stories and plans to write down some of her old ballets from the early days. Not only did Miss Day leave her mark on the world's great ballet companies, but many "Mary Day dancers" are successful doctors, architects, teachers, lawyers, physical therapists -- and parents too -- and she was very proud of that. I studied with Miss Day from 1971 to 1978. We did not just learn how to achieve a nicely pointed foot and pretty arabesque line -- we learned how to learn and how to fight for what we wanted. She may not have had her own children, but she certainly raised 1000s of children very well indeed.