WILMINGTON — Marilyn Joyce Lung, 83, of Wilmington, North Carolina, died on July 8, 2026. She was born May 22, 1943, in Gary, Indiana, to George Francis Kupec and Elizabeth Danko Kupec, immigrants of Czechoslovakian heritage who taught her early how to face hardship with tenacity and grit.
Marilyn was never one to fit the mold. The nuns reported that she asked too many questions, and she never stopped asking them. She graduated as salutatorian of her high school class and studied sociology in college while working to pay her tuition, including a stint as a bank courier with briefcases handcuffed to her wrists, and another at the telephone switchboard, where she got in trouble for talking too much.
While working as a secretary, she met Henry Elvin Lung II at the office water cooler, and their love story unfolded like a sweet novel. Henry knew she was the one when, offered a drink after a date, she asked for a glass of milk. They were engaged within three months (not out of necessity, but certainty) and married for sixty years. She learned to golf for him; he learned to dance for her (their favorite song in their later years was “Could I Have This Dance” by Anne Murray). Henry passed away the day after their sixtieth wedding anniversary, his last words to her were, “I love you forever.”
Above all, Marilyn was proud to be a stay-at-home mom, pouring herself fully into the home and family she built. She was the rock of the family, accountant, cook, historian, proofreader, and fierce protector of her cubs. Her love showed up in the things she made with her hands: flaky pie crusts, irresistible fudge, extraordinary cookies, and halupki made just the way her mother taught her. She sewed, baked, and cooked not because she had to, but because it was how she said “I love you” without having to say it.
A gifted seamstress from the age of eight, Marilyn made beautiful clothes and more elaborate Halloween costumes than Party City has on its shelves. She taught herself to knit, crochet, embroider, and cross-stitch, and later took up stained glass, ceramics, and wreath-making, gifting her artistry to family and friends.
Marilyn was a voracious reader with a home library to rival the public one, and a creative parent who once papered the entire kitchen floor so her children could paint a mural, took them to museums and the ballet, and marched into the principal’s office to defend her fourth-grader’s right to check out Moby Dick. She believed in lifelong learning and lived it: at 79, she enrolled at the University of North Carolina Wilmington to study sociology, taking creative writing, global politics, and even PE. She researched food insecurity, determined not just to feed people in need, as she and Henry had always done, but to change the systems that kept them hungry. She always had the answer to our questions and usually a plethora of facts to back it up as well. She consumed knowledge and instilled in each of us the thirst to pursue our dreams with strong support only a mother could deliver. A staunch supporter of education, health care, and women’s rights, she stood up to abusers before there were shelters or protective orders, and she planned to serve as a poll worker to help others exercise their right to vote. She was fiery, stubborn, and brave enough to say the hard things. Her grandchildren called her spicy.
Marilyn made friends wherever she went (her family joked she would talk to a tree if she could) and she loved nature deeply: walking the beach collecting shells (a lifetime collection to rival the Smithsonian’s), watching the barges from the swing at the water’s edge, and drinking her coffee among the birds, her favorite crepe myrtle, and the roses transplanted from her mother’s garden.
Marilyn was preceded in death by her parents and her beloved husband, Henry. She is survived by her sister, Patricia Hopper; her daughter, Dana, and children Henry, Victoria, George, and Alexandra; her son Vincent, his wife, Ella, and children Ashley, Taylor, and Olivia; her son Matthew, his wife, Maria, and children Elizabeth, Meghan, Abigail, and Ethan; and her great-grandchildren, Isabella, Chloe, and Everett.
The family will hold a private Celebration of Life at a time to be determined. Marilyn lived her life out loud and on her own terms, viewed every day as a precious gift, and will be remembered and cherished by all who were blessed to know her.
In lieu of flowers, please consider contributing to one of these charities that she supported: American Heart Association, Mother Hubbard Cupboard, and/or Lower Cape Fear Life Care (Hospice).
