Eulogy for Gramma Bella

When I went to write this, I looked for a few quotes about grandmothers…  The first two I found were:

“Grandmas never run out of cookies or hugs” and the next: 

“A grandmother is a little bit parent, a little bit teacher, and a little bit best friend.”

Done.   My work was done.

These so perfectly fit our Grandma Bella, that it made me feel a little deflated- those are so generic- anyone could look them up on the internet...  and OUR gram was so special…

You probably read in the paper that my grandmother had 21 Grandchildren, 22 Great grand children, and 1 great-great grand daughter.  It is remarkable to note that FIFTEEN BABIES: 1 grandson (Alex), 13 great-grand kids, and baby Mackenzie (The great-great-grand) were born in the last 9 years since our grandpa died. 

Gram experienced a lot of grief after Grandpa died, but looking back, these years were teeming with babies-

and she LOVED that.

But of course if you knew her, you know she didn’t have just 44 grandchildren.  Our spouses, our inlaws, our cousins on the other sides of our families, any one we brought to her house, anyone who was our friend… she counted all of them too… that’s literally hundreds (possibly thousands of people that knew her as

Grandma Gaetano or Grandma Bella) and she welcomed and treated everyone one of us with love and respect.

I had the idea that I might get up here and mention some of the most important things that Gram taught us.

THAT is a completely overwhelming prospect.

I mostly wanted to represent the grandkids in taking an opportunity to publicly thank her for all that she did for us.  I think we all did our best to tell her this every chance we got- to get as many hugs from her as we could…

What is hard to put into words (in the face of losing her) is that we are losing a relationship that was above all else uncomplicated. 

To be Bella Gaetano’s grandchild was to be loved and appreciated. 

Period. 

She loved us without exception and without expectation. 

She wanted to know us, and see us, and be seen by us. 

She met us where we were and asked nothing more of us than what we could (or were willing) to give. 

She bragged about us. 

She laughed with us. 

She didn’t compare to us each other. 

She just enjoyed us.  

For many of us, she was the first person we brought our grievances and heartbreaks to: When our parents took our favorite toys away or bestowed some insult or punishment, she brought out the cookies and the hugs- sometimes tough love, too- but usually not.

When we started showing up at her door with our tattoos and our more legitimate heartbreaks, scholastic and relationship failures, and other mistakes and adult struggles…

She behaved as a friend. 

She treaded lightly.

She listened more than she preached.

She offered compassion and reassurance…

She reminded us that life was hard, but it was long. 

Without minimizing our pain, she asked us to see hard times as necessary and temporary.

She worried about us when we were hurting…

She locked her blue eyes on us- daring us to see what she saw: that no matter what we did or what we didn’t do we were enough, always worthy of love.

She mostly did this without words… 

Truthfully, a LOT of the time she did it with FOOD. (She could heal a heart with a little plate of parmesan cheese and sautéed zucchini, a plate of food that your parents wouldn’t have been able to get you to eat if all of your lives depended on it.)

She might also cheer us up or distract us with a funny story, or a ride on the golf cart,

or invitation to walk with her or to help her clean up her yard.

Gram was such a good role model.

She had LOTS of friends.  Because she was so generous and so eager to help a neighbor, she collected people and racked up loyalty the way some folks rack up debt.  And her friendships were long lasting and withstood the tests of time, because she knew that giving to others did not subtract from, but only added to what was hers… 

She liked to keep busy and visit with people. She was quick to laugh and forgive small grievances.  And mostly her friendships were strong because she was a good judge of character but never a harsh judge of people.

She taught me that a life well-lived usually means losing labels like “us” and “them”.  And accepting and finding things to appreciate about everyone that wanders into your life.  She was eager to meet new people. She enjoyed watching people do things they enjoyed, even if it was something she would never be interested in doing.  She gave everyone the benefit of the doubt.  She sometimes suffered fools GLADLY.  She expressed and experienced gratitude.

Gramma knew her worth and stood her ground- with her husbands, in her business dealings- but she was not immovable.  She was always willing to show vulnerability.  She would put herself out there even if it meant sometimes getting her feelings hurt.

She didn’t stifle laughter.

She didn’t stifle tears.

She was present. 

She was participatory. 

She never shied away from having her picture taken.

She made her mark on people- on purpose-

not because of what they might do for her but for what she might do for them.

In the last 2 weeks of her life, my gram attended 2 weddings.  The one I was lucky to be with her at, she would have stayed all night. 

This was not a woman who prioritized sleep over living. 

Who looked for rest over dancing or watching others dance.  

Who couldn’t keep up with the kids. 

Who would leave a lobster uneaten.  (If you know her, you know she was no joke with a lobster).

Katy and I apologized to her that we were interested in leaving before the dancing was actually over (we were her ride back to the hotel) and in her usual form, she said something like,

“Yes, you two work so hard, you’re probably exhausted.”

(She wasn’t even rolling her eyes at us when she said it).

My sister and I were talking about our sadness and we know that there has never been a moment of our lives (because we were her grandchildren) when we didn’t know that this day would come. 

But this is the other side of being loved so completely. 

This is the bittersweet nature of having been so perfectly nurtured. 

These are the tears that are shed for you when you live in such a way that hundreds of people know they have lost one of their best friends.

We celebrate these tears, because they are from and for you, Grandma.

And the most important thing is –

We will try to take care of each other- using you as a role model. 

Because, if we do our job right, people who never even got to meet you will get to feel how it felt to be loved by you.







 

** Let's Talk.About.Thanksgiving... Shall we?!?

Today, the world lost an amazing woman, and extraordinary nurse. I lost a friend, a mentor, and an occasional surrogate mom.

I was 23 years old when I met Deirdre. I was a new nurse, starting a new job in the MICU and everything I needed to know about her, I learned in that first shift: She was all business, no nonsense when it came to the job. At first blush, she scared the shit out of me. But you only needed to hear her laugh to know there was nothing to actually fear - she was full of life, heart, humor, mischief, giggles, and truth. Dee would tell you what was what without batting an eye. She could say to you "Why are you wearing that? You look ridiculous!" but make it sound like, "I've been thinking, and I have a great idea for a make over!" She was what my gram would have called a "rascal". To qualify for the label the way my gram intended it, you'd have to be someone smart, someone that intuitively knows exactly what is going on, someone that pays attention and "doesn't miss a trick", someone that speaks truth in a good-natured way, that can knock an arrogant fool down a few pegs without seeming mean or threatened, someone soulful but who truly enjoys a good joke.

Deirdre was all of this. And a real class act.

She taught me so much about what it means to be a nurse. Being a nurse means doing things the right way. Working fast but not taking shortcuts. Taking care of what you can, fixing and organizing what you can; and creating comfort and respectful solutions when things can't be fixed. Washing and rubbing a back, lotioning someone's feet, helping a person eat or go to the bathroom, listening as people talk about their lives- these are not small, insignificant things... They are usually the most important things.

I stopped working in the ICU almost 10 years ago... And Deirdre left before then. We hadn't spoken in a long time, until last year when I learned that she had been diagnosed with Cancer - stage 4.
We emailed a few times, and in November, we had a big party in her honor.



She looked fantastic! The last time she wrote me, she told me that her prognosis had improved... Today, I was caught completely off guard by the news. I hadn't realized that she had recently gotten much worse, that she was hospitalized last week and transferred to hospice.
She died last night, surrounded by her family. She was only 65 years old.

There are too many stories to tell about Dee and all that she taught younger nurses and all that she did for (hundreds and hundreds of) patients, and all of the laughter she encouraged, but these are two of my most vivid and treasured memories.

Grief Stricken Nubbie:
I worked in MICU right out of college. I had recently broken up with my high school sweet heart, my first love of 6 plus years, by BFF all through school. I spent that first year as a nurse, trying to learn how to be a competent professional, trying to recover from the break up, trying to figure out who I was, trying to make sense of it all.

I was happy though, making money, finding satisfaction in my work, developing really amazing friendships. All the people I met that first year, never knew me as John's girlfriend. Never knew me as any one's girlfriend. I didn't have a significant other, wasn't really looking, and maybe some guessed it, but I don't remember telling anyone that I was searching for a way out of the closet. It was complicated inside of me, trying to figure out a way to break the news to lots of people that I wasn't straight.

It must have been really confusing to my colleagues how devastated I was when John died in October of 1997. When people asked what was going on, I first had to explain about John and then had to try to convey the terrible grief I felt. Words were inadequate and so I used few of them. After trying on a couple detailed explanations, I shortened the tale to "He was my best friend" and now he was dead.

Those first few weeks, going to work was awful. You don't realize you work in a place that is all about death until grief settles in you like a magnetic field and the tiny, metal shavings of death (that lay like fine dust in a modern ICU) fly from their resting spots to coat your skin. I was a wreck. And it took several weeks before I realized that people there were watching me. People like Deirdre, looking out for me, moving obstacles before I bumped into them, intervening on my behalf- "You go help with this admission, and I'll do that" I'd be told when it was time for me to prepare and "bag" the corpse of one of my patients that passed away.

One night, I caught the Jay Leno show, and he had a clip from this new comedy called "South Park". Watching it, I laughed and laughed and laughed. It was one of the funniest things I had ever seen. I taped it and watched it over and over and realized, it was the first time I had laughed- really laughed- in almost a month. I brought the tape to work and showed several people (trying to figure out if everyone thought this was funny or if I was cracking up.) Dee was in that first crowd of people and she laughed even harder than I did. Hearing her laugh made me laugh even harder. The laughing felt good. She and I watched that clip a dozen more times that night. We set the TV and VCR in an empty patient room and every so often, we would go in there and watch it a few more times... getting more silly each time. After that night, I would have done anything for that woman- that experience really helped me start to heal.

What would your mother say:
The second story: I had started dating a woman that we worked with. She was a travel nurse and started on our unit a few months before, expecting to stay 3-6 months longer. She was colorful and funny and a good nurse. She was popular, but not quite comfortable in her own skin and had a tendency to be erratic- not at work, but when she wasn't working. Again, I was not really "out", but I wasn't NOT out. Anyone that asked a question, I told the truth to, but this was like 12 years ago, Will and Grace wasn't yet on TV, not a lot of people brought it up.

Still, even though people weren't asking me about it the way they would have if Dana had been a man, we had told several of our friends and there is no doubt it was probably the worst kept secret on the floor (maybe in the hospital). One night, Deirdre pulls me aside...

D: What's going on with this Dana girl?
Me: what do you mean, what's going on? What do you want to know?
D: She's no good for you.
Me: (laughing, slightly embarrassed) what?!?
D: I'm not trying to get into your business, but you are going places and she is not going anywhere you want to be- this isn't about her being a girl... you want to be with a girl, that's fine, this isn't the girl for you...

Thing is, she was right. Not that the girl wasn't good for me, necessarily, but she was right to bring it up. She was right there for me... not letting her possible discomfort or fear of not being politically correct distract her from attempting to care for me. She was there to treat me and this relationship with the respect that comes from someone who tells you to "Pay attention!!!"... who reminds you not to shit where you eat... I wasn't even considering if Dana was "the girl for me" or not, but hearing that said out loud made an impression on me. I wasn't estranged from my family or anything, but there were no "parent-type" members that knew about this relationship (or if they knew, they didn't bring it up to me; and I didn't bring it up to them). Unless you count my MICU family (which I do...).

When you needed a mom or mother figure (whether you knew it or not) Deirdre was there. When you needed a mentor or a friend, same story.

The thing I'm having trouble describing in these memories of her is the love and vitality that Deirdre brought to every interaction. The perfect balance of salt and sweet. She would bust your balls, but it wouldn't be to break you down, it would be to build you up. She was a hard ass, with a heart of gold. She could be serious, but her laugh was seriously infectious.

When I got the news today, I felt sick and I felt sadness wash over me. For a few minutes, I thought I might start shaking with sobs at the loss of someone I haven't spent more than an hour talking to in the last 10 years. It's just this: As is true of most of the people who are our teachers, she is so much a part of special and important things inside of me, that she is kind of with me all the time. And intellectually, that's reassuring because that means (if she is living inside of me) I can never really lose her to death; those parts of her that she planted in me will still always be with me...

But...

That doesn't dampen the ache I feel knowing I will never hear her laugh or see her smile or her wise gaze again.
Sleep well, sweet-tough-nurse, funny-soulful friend.
You are loved more than you know and I miss you already.

**

What doesn't kill us makes us...

Sicker
Stronger...

Yesterday, I spent the better part of 7 hours up on our roof, shoveling and clearing ice.
It was a nice warm day (42 degrees when the sun was out) and the sun kept going in and out.





It was a little brutal, if I am honest. The snow was literally up to my thighs. Like the rings of a tree, there were all the layers of the storms we have had. I am well aware that we have had over 55 inches of snow this January, but somehow, standing up there, I could not get over how much shoveling had to be done. I wanted to quit so many times, but I knew if I got down and took a break, I did not have it in me to climb the ladder again. So I stayed and did the job as best I could. I used a hatchet at the edges, near the gutters where there was 4-6" of solid ice on roof near the gutter in the back yard (the South side of the house) and 10-12" of ice in the front yard (on the North side).

While I was up there, I seemed to be experiencing the stages of grief

First I was like, "this won't take long at all... it's a beautiful day! And getting up here at all is really the hardest part."

Then I spent a few hours sputtering a fuming inexplicably- pissed at Katy somehow (WHY wasn't she checking on me more often?!? Why hasn't she figured out a way to play some music for me?!?). Then turning the anger towards other members of my family- and friends that aggrieved or abandoned me (both living and dead).

I turned to Jesus a few times... "Help me out here, Lord, Please, I'll do anything..."

Then I got sad.

Really sad- strangely sad, thinking sad things as if I were alone in the wilderness and not on the roof of my own home. It was then that the events of last week (weather and baby's illness aside) came back to me... That we experienced the 2nd death of 2011. A friend of our family, Kevin. And then the "stages of grief" exercise that my brain was taking on didn't seem so totally strange.

Kevin married into the Tabor clan - whom I've spoken about here when G'pa Jim died and countless other times (especially when talking about the pool in the summer). The tabors are our family. The family we chose, choose, and continue to choose. My parents grew up with them and so did my sister and I.

They are some of the few people that know me now who also knew me when I was a shy, skinny kid. They helped me grow up. They encouraged my budding sense of humor, my musicality, my athleticism, my intellectual pursuits, and that I be honest and follow my heart. There's a stagger in the generations and sometimes I have more in common with the "adults" and sometimes I have more in common with the "kids" (we are all adults now so the gap is getting more narrow...) but I used to babysit for the kids of my babysitters and now those same kids, I occasionally call on to sit for my kids. It's a little convoluted, but it works. When I need advice or help, I call on my aunts, uncles and cousins in this "adopted" family as much as in my "real" family.

Kevin married one of Jim's daughters and they had 2 daughters of their own. They had a wonderful life, but at some point, the marriage stopped working.

Kevin was in NYC the day the towers fell. He called home to say he was okay and on his way home, and then he disappeared for 6 or 8 hours. The "radio silence" was in part due to a lack of phone service, but it turned out his "escape" was delayed when he was distracted by helping rescue workers sift through rubble some before making his way out of there. I remember getting a call that told me he was safe. And then I got a call saying he was missing. I remember hours and hours going by and I worked hard pushing the thought out of my head that we would never see him again. Then he came home, but he was never really the same after that. I only saw him once or twice again. His marriage had started falling apart before September 11th, and took some time to completely crumble. But even when we were all together, he always found a way to disappear from a crowded party after that.

Up on the roof yesterday, I couldn't help think of him and all this stuff I either hadn't thought of before, or hadn't thought of in a long time. He died last Saturday, January 22 at the age of 57. He died of natural causes after quite a few years (and reportedly several consecutive days) of abusing his body with not-so-healthy substances. He leaves behind 2 beautiful, strong, and heartbroken children. And a mess of us that miss him- what he was, what he could have been; plus the sadness that comes from knowing he experienced a lot of emotional pain and/or psychological anguish that couldn't be extinguished.

When I heard of his death, I had a very intellectual reaction that essentially amounted to, "That's so sad." When I went to the memorial service, and saw photos of him and saw his family- family that my heart recognizes as "my" family... i had a very emotional reaction. It surprised me. To suddenly be weeping and missing so urgently, someone I hadn't seen or spoken to for most of a decade...

Up on the roof, in the clear, cold air, I realized I was a bit of an emotional basket case. I was angry that this had to happen to him. Angry that he couldn't figure out a way to make himself whole. Sad and disturbed that the chance he could somehow make things better or right was gone forever. Sick that sometimes in the world, things just don't work out. Sad for my childhood and a time when there was less gray area in all aspects of life... I was glad to have all that physical labor to help me work it out.

Today, I am either sick, or just exhausted. So many parts of my body are sore: fingers, toes, arms, legs, neck, back; my throat is raw, my sinuses constantly draining post-nasal drip, my stomach full of mucus, my head pounding.

The weather forecast is not mild- the winter machine is starting again... the next three days might entirely erase all my hard work on the roof. But I feel I've done something to try to protect our property and our family, and that is something, at least.

Funeral for a friend

This week we lost a friend. Jim Tabor was an avid golfer a big time Red Sox fan, and the man kt and i considered to be our last Grandpa. He was the man my dad turned to when he needed a paternal role model, primarily because Jim could drink without turning ugly, and he could discipline without wielding a belt. But- my parents further observed- Mr. Tabor seemed to know that all kids needed to grow up healthy and successful was love and support. My parents made their decision that they would do their best to follow his example. That included trying to teach me that "home" is a place where you are loved and protected... That family members can be among your best friends... and friends are nothing more than extended family.

I came out to Jim and his family a few months before I came out to my parents, and a few years before I officially came out to my own grandparents. His response at the time changed the trajectory of my coming out process: "As long as you're still willing to give this old man a hug when you see him, it doesn't matter to me in the least." I know that if he and his wife had responded in a less accepting way- with quiet uncertainty, or a polite but awkward level of discomfort, I would have been less sure of how to proceed. I didn't realize until later that I had been testing the waters with Jim and Mazie, I was waiting to see if this ("I'm gay") news would change how loved ones treated me. It didn't change how he loved me at all, but it changed how much I loved and respected him. (Even more than before!)

When I brought Katy to the Tabors for the first time, she got drunk on all the love and acceptance. They were so happy to meet her and wanted to hear all about her. She said they were so kind to her because she arrived with me and she could see how much they loved me. But i told her that from my experience with the Tabors, if she had walked in off the street without any connection to me at all, it is likely they would have treated her the same way.

Mr. Tabor has been sick a lot in the last year. But his hospital stay was short- only a few weeks- and with so little warning, it's hard not to feel abused and robbed. Somehow, he is gone. And it's hard to feel the stinging reality of that. He's not gone from our hearts or our memories, of course, but memories are one-dimensional and watered-down... We'll never get to hear his laugh, or greeting from the door, or give/receive his hugs, or hear his eternally-optimistic spin on things again.

This, i guess, is the definition of mourning: it is a word that that describes not only the action but also the feeling associated with contemplating the void that a death creates and figuring how you will shift to bridge or fill that void.

Mourning blows.

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