Sunday, November 18, 2018
Eulogy
How do you eulogize such a remarkable woman after 101 live years of life?
A woman who made the color pink fashionable before "Breast Cancer Awareness".
Who, even at 101 years old would be the first to dance and steal the spotlight, to everyone's amazement, and until just a few weeks ago, danced with her son, Tommy at Sunrise Senior Living.
How do you characterize a woman who lived and loved life itself as much as she loved her husband, Tom, family and her Church?
Marge or Margie, was born on the lower east side in Manhattan first attending Pubic School #1 and was the 2nd youngest of five sibling: Andrew, Lucille, Fay and Rose...who even as Octogenarians, debated the merits of everything...especially cooking!
Early on, she began working to help support her family, yet never lost the quest for knowledge, nor the value of a good education, which she instilled, along with many other positive values in her children.
As an adult, she completed her own education, becoming the Administrative Assistant to the VP of an International Insurance Company until her retirement.
The original multitasker, in addition to holding down a demanding full-time job,
our Mom was an excellent cook and housewife. When Tommy was born, prior to her work career outside of the home, she spent six months daily visiting my brother, who was in an incubator.
When I was eleven, she and my Dad, also visited me daily for months in a hospital and spent a subsequent nine months caring for me during my recuperation from back surgeries.
As for my Dad, the best Dad in the world, he was the love of her life and she, his.
Thinking back, they were such a loving, affectionate couple...much to our embarrassment as teenagers!
When our Dad died in 1977, our Mom, being the stalwart rock, independently carried on, completely living on her own until she turned 100 and was persuaded to move to Sunrise.
She was a life-long Catholic, attending St. Thomas Aquinas for 30 plus years, even walking by herself to and from the Church for Sunday Mass, at 100 years old! At St. Thomas, she taught 4th grade Sunday school under Father Thomas and asked that her favorite, Monsignor Brown, bury her, but she outlived him. She also volunteered on Tuesdays to prepare sandwiches for the homeless, as we'll as helped widows with grief-counseling. A compassionate person, she was always quick to help someone in need. She always enjoyed her "girlfriends" and later in life, travelled with five of them to Florida, where they spent the winters. She also spent 20 years attending the Jay Harama Senior Center, where they took excellent care of her. There, she was gregarious and always the life of the party, actively dancing and exercising!
She made wonderful lifelong friends, and she adored her children, her son-in-law,
Charlie, her grandchildren, Kristin and Jeff, and all her nephews, nieces and great nephews and nieces.
As a parent, she was a strict, no-nonsense disciplinarian and I always thought she should have been English, instead of the proud Italian-American, because she believed in the "stiff upper lip", and did not "suffer fools gladly".
She was a force of nature, impacting the lives of each and every person with whom she came into contact. She had high standards and was fiercely independent.
Do not stand at my gravel and weep, I am not here, I do not sleep...
Mom, we will miss you and you will always be in our hearts, minds and prayers with
great love and affection.
Rest in peace with your family members who have passed on before you in Heaven. Your long life was a precious gift from God.
