Eulogy
Thank you for attending this Mass in celebration of our Mother, Maria Antonieta Spadaro- Scalice- Palermo Who was Mary to most everybody
It is the Christmas season, a time of rebirth, the ending of the long labor of advent, of waiting. Within us we carried the seed of Our Father, making of our lives fertile ground for His Plan, His becoming in the world, as the birth of Christ. We have offered our hearts as His Womb — our emotional, broken and impatient hearts, a dwelling place seemingly too small and insignificant to bear the potential of God. We quickly learn our bodies are an impossible, impoverished hovel for the child He glorifies. Like Mary, the Mother of Jesus, we understand our humanity is incapable of holding the magnanimity of What God desires to bring forth. But on our lips we pray, Let it be done unto me according to your Word .This season our journey to become hosts to God has required we walk a pre-requisite path, a path of dying to self, that Christ might be born.
My Mother’s passing will always be to me a wonder-filled example of this process of dying to self as the veils and barnacles of her ego were pried from the psyche by disease, as she lost her memory, her functionality, her past, leaving intact, a core of tender, vibrant love which could never forget God, nor did God forget Mary.
I offer this Eulogy as letter to her who is with us today.
Dear Mama, you entered these days of dying and transition with all the personality you had in daily life, with a tenacity bordering on stubbornness, bearing the last drops of mortality with amazing strength and with a love, hidden at times from your children, as you hid it from yourself. This love arose in your later years like a fragile weed, making its way through the concrete of your woundedness, becoming a great tree, a mustard seed in which many have found shelter.
You labored, Mama and we labored too, midwifing the truth of you through illness and your body’s death, understanding you were indeed, ready to shed the dense and dysfunctional, as your soul remembered once more your life as God created you.
In pre-dawn morning of Dec 12, on the full moon and feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, in the company of Jesus and your patroness Mary, you succeeded in transition, leaving us to wonder at the gentleness of your departure, the apparent peace that had followed weeks of trauma and pain. After you left, I remembered the picture of Our Lady on your wall, the rosaries draped across your headboard, the Hail Mary’s we had said out loud together, and the photo you had taken where Mary appeared in my kitchen window. That night as I slept in your bed I noticed the plastic prayer card on your night table with the novena. I knew that Our Lady had been a guide and comfort through all of your life and with you in death.
But today we celebrate your life. You would not have wanted a long speech, being selfless in that way. Perhaps that truly encompasses your nature. You are proof that we do not need a big, glamorous, rich or famous life to make an impact on the world. You are the demonstration that loving kindness blesses and is truly helpful in healing lives. Coming out of a Brooklyn Public High School, you were mostly housewife and mother, stumbling at both, but later on, gaining a foot hold, a confidence, finally learning to drive, beginning a career in banking at age 50, moving into your own home alone, venturing into new relationships. Inspired by catholic beliefs and a big heart, you set out into the world to fulfill your part. Your greatest part was perfecting the charism of giving. You are a great giver Mama.
You would feed anyone who walked in the door, offering, food, drink, clothing, furniture and to our dismay, had piece by piece given away most of your jewelry, not to best friends or family. Your giving was of a different order. Your heart spontaneously opened to those you met, mere acquaintances, strangers. Your ever pressing need was to care for them. I remember once bringing you a large fruit basket. The following morning I sought a juicy pear for my breakfast. I found the basket nearly empty. Upon inquiry you brushed it off saying, Oh, I gave it to hadiacallit. Hadiacallit was the happy beneficiary of many of Mom’s gifts.
But it was not merely the material gifts you offered. You gave your time and attention. You had presence and empathy in abundance. You provided rides for doctor’s visits, trips to the grocery store, even putting drops in your neighbor’s eyes. You were a beautiful woman with a captivating smile and a genuine welcome for everyone. Still you had idiosyncrasies. These became endearing to us.
Mama I remember how enthusiastic you were at the prospect of a family vacation…how you would wash, iron and pack clothing weeks before, putting all your outfits in baggies in perfect order. I am afraid I have inherited the baggie thing. We would join in overabundant eating, games and talent shows. At one of these, you mc’d as Dolly Parton, painting your lips red, stuffing your blouse with balloons, singing and dancing to a country tune. We peed our pants in hysterics and gave you the booby prize for that one.
Mama, you loved ice cream! It was a nightly ritual. One portion was not enough. You would wake in the middle of the night breaking off pieces of Klondike bars or double dipping your spoon in the carton. Of course, you had some reservations about its effects on the hips, hanging signs on the refrigerator and mirror that said, Lose Weight. Diet Today! Those signs may as well have been written in invisible ink. When we pointed them out, you would laugh, shrug your shoulders like a little girl and retort, oh, it’s just a little ice cream. I have to have some fun.
Mama how you loved your family. Even in the throes of dementia you insisted we visit. I would call from Boston pretty regularly. The conversation went something like this:
Mama says: when are you coming to see me?
I tell her the date. She yelps with delight. Wow! Wow! Wow!
That is followed by a big gulp of air. Then, what do you want to do when you are here?
I say, just hang with you. She says, okay. Then, like a streaker running full sprint across her tongue, she asks all over again,
so when are you coming to see me? I tell her the date. She yelps with delight. Wow! Wow! Wow! Again it is followed by a big gulp of air.
Her emotion is raw and the words impassioned. Each time she is excited and surprised. We go round and round this way until I tire and let her know I have to go back to work.
Then she says three times, quickly and precisely, I love you, I love you, I love you.
I say, Mama, I love you too! I’ll see you very soon. She says, when are you coming to see me?
This is Alzheimer’s. It is an awful disease, where forgetting can steal your ability even to breathe. Still I see behind her disease the deeper Truth remains. That truth is What we are, that Truth is the Love that God created.
There is a Self that cannot be forgotten because it is held intact, in the mind of our Creator. Mama, like our Father, could not lose the feeling of her children, nothing could break that bond. She never forgot one of us. She lost only the resentments, criticisms and judgments, becoming more loving, accepting, appreciative and affectionate.
It is hard for children who love their mothers to have the tables turned so completely around, to find the parent disabled. I prayed through her illness that she might gently pass from this place, fall asleep and wake in some new realm, I imagined she would wake up next to Jesus going, Wow! Wow! Wow! I believe my prayers were answered. I believe she had a holy escort home. And I believe she continues to call out to those of us temporarily left behind… So when are you coming to see me?
In celebration of Maria Antonieta Spadaro Scalice Palermo, I say,
Wow! Wow! Wow! I’ll see you very soon Mama!
I love you, I love you, I love you.
Ain’t no mountain high enough
Ain’t no valley low enough
Ain’t no river wide enough To keep me from you babe.