Attempting to complete a beloved colleague’s work meant trying to see with her eyes and reckoning anew with her absence. By Leslie Jamison  Clockwise from left: Rebecca Godfrey, Peggy Guggenheim, and Leslie Jamison | Photo illustration by Lauren Peters-Collaer; Source photographs from Janet Johnson; Adam Golfer; Alamy The last time I visited Rebecca in the hospital, in September, 2022, we spent the afternoon researching hospice options and talking about her novel. Rebecca had been working on it for a decade, and for the past four years she’d been sick: lung cancer that spread to her bones, and then her brain. If I was being honest with myself, and I probably wasn’t, there was a kind of magical thinking embedded in the pleasure of hearing Rebecca talk about her book, which was about the life and times of Peggy Guggenheim, the legendary heiress and art collector. Surely someone this enmeshed in an ambitious project couldn’t die in the midst of realizing it. It seemed like the effort itself would keep her alive. Support The New Yorker’s award-winning journalism. Subscribe today » | 
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