My mother died in 2016, but she’s much on my mind these days since my father’s passing last year. If I did it for him, I feel like I have to share the eulogy we prepared for her. That way, to paraphrase the words of the great detective Nero Wolfe, then I’ll know that I have honored my commitment to the clay. What follows here is the only work of co-authorship I’ve ever created with my brother, Tony, who lives out west. I wrote the obituary for my Mom that was posted on the funeral home’s website. My brother then took my language and added a lot of his own, which he read at the service. He did a great job. As I said when I posted my father’s eulogy a few days ago, if you read this, understand that the belief system and terminology reflects our Catholic upbringing. At the end, I have few links to stories I’ve written about my Mom in the past. She, like my father, was a pretty funny person. My Dad was a skilled raconteur, my Mom was just unintentionally funny.
Good morning Friends and Family, on behalf of my Father, brothers, and I, I thank you for coming today to help celebrate the life of my mother. Before we start mass, I wanted to share with you some thoughts about Mom. Most here knew her as “Tony’s mother who moved here 3 years ago,” “Carol’s Mother-in-Law,” “Luke and Max’s Grandmother,” or as that senior citizen who would sit in the back at the school mass on Wednesday to catch a glimpse of the kids filing into the church.
Mom (left) with a girlfriend in Brooklyn, New York, back in the day.
But, before that; she was a sister, Zia Lillina, Aunt Lilly, Aunt Angie, Angela, Mom, and Nonna. Long before that, she was young girl from a remote mountain village in central Italy. Her family were masons and farmers that taught her that if you work hard you can have anything; and if you pray and keep your faith with God you will have all that you need, no matter how bad things seem to be. She was able to put this to practice as her childhood was made turbulent by the forces of World War II. Her family was split during the war—her father and oldest brother having earlier immigrated to the United States—while she, her mother, and two siblings remained behind in Italy. Later in life, she would often tell stories of how she and her family of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins survived bombings and repeated encampments by both the Axis and Allied military forces.
On numerous occasions she recounted the story of how she herself immigrated at the age of 18 to the United States and settled in Brooklyn, New York, with her father and brothers as they awaited the arrival of her mother, a few years later. Almost immediately she went to work as a seamstress. Because that was what was expected back then, to contribute to your family. She told us she never really got to be a teenager here in the United States. After losing her mother and father while in her twenties she met the love of her life, our Dad “Big Frank.”
That was when Mom really found her calling.... She was proud to be his wife, he was the man that shared her passion for God and duty to family by working hard and providing everything her three sons ever needed or wanted. Leading a life where serving her God, her family and her community would be, as she put it, “her joy and pleasure.”
For the better part of the 1970s and ‘80s, she was our Supermom, shuttling us in her Chevy station wagon between home and school and a variety of activities that called upon features of her personality she probably never knew she possessed. For the love of her family, she became a pattern cutter, sample maker, a superb cook, cake decorator (football cake for the whole school), and magnanimous hostess. For the love of her sons, she became a den mother, homework tutor, craftsperson and handy person, and the de facto bilingual language instructor; very excited by the fact all three sons studied Italian in high school. For the love of her church and community, she became a ceaseless volunteer, lasagna maker, and latter-day Betsy Ross who once used her skills as a seamstress to design and sew the flag of the school her sons attended, curtains for the school hall, costumes for countless school plays, and even coverings for the lectern and alter at church.
Our memories are loaded with family traditions that were a combination of things that she brought with her from Italy, some she learned from her American sister-in-laws and friends. Things like making pasta, baking pizzelle cookies, seafood dinners on Christmas Eve, baked ham, apple pie... Oh, and don’t forget the cream puffs.
One of the biggest traditions was planting her annual garden in our back yard. The pride she took in that garden was amazing. How she turned the soil, and planted the perfect selection of crops that could be harvested throughout the summer and into the fall just like her grandfather taught her. Oh, and the TOMATOES..... Tomatoes that she would use to make the best “gravy”—what Italians call sauce—and jarred them every year. That gravy was so good! When we were older and she decided to work at Nordstrom’s for fun, that gravy and her Baked Ziti and Meatball recipe won her the best recipe contest three years in a row. It would have been four times, but she told us she decided to give someone else a chance. That garden was so important to her that if a deer or other animal would destroy it, she would try countless things to stop it from happening. Remind me later today to tell you about the “deer stories.”
She always made our home the center of the world for us; and we loved to have friends over and she loved having them. It was just another chance for her to share her love and her.... FOOD. Countless friends have reminded my brothers and I how they loved coming over to do homework or just hang out during school breaks, and on a moment’s notice Mom would have the table full of something great to eat. She remembered everyone’s favorite, and just when you thought it was done, there was more—more food, more fun... more love!
As we got older and more independent, we all moved away and may have taken some of these traditions for granted, but Mom was always there to call for a recipe, a story about growing up in Italy, to help one of her three grandchildren to learn a traditional Italian song or even make them a Halloween costume. But most of all she was there to remind us how much she loved us all.
At the age of 81, her and my Dad embarked on a new adventure. They moved from New Jersey and their house of almost 50 years to be closer to their grandchildren. They moved to San Diego and for the past three years enjoyed every school performance, sporting event, awards ceremony, after school pick-ups and snacks, church events, and even a trip of a lifetime to visit Mickey at Disneyland. Something she had always wanted to do!!
Overall Mom was a very modest lady that sacrificed herself, for her husband and sons never seeking a thank you or praise. She would modestly say things like “it was nothing,” or “stop it,” or “you kittin’ me,” or “I do it for them.” She set the example: for us to study and work hard, stay close to God, how to treat one another, how to always open our home and our heart to family and friends. She taught us all. There was always room at the table for someone else, and the best way to show someone you love them is by praying for them, serving them, sharing and feeding them... Because to my Mom... FOOD was LOVE. And because of that, I would like to invite you to come have a meal with us after mass and share the LOVE.
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Ok, this is Joe speaking now. Thanks for reading down to here. If you’d like to see pieces I’ve written about my mother over the years, you can click over to these posts, which appeared at the mystery writers’ blog, SleuthSayers:
Here you can read some of the funny things I discovered while compiling a book of my Mom’s recipes.
Here’s a look at how my mother butchered the English language and her gift for malapropisms.
Photo of trees at top by me.