I never thought I’d do this. In the never ending mêlée of sibling rivalry I never hoped to surrender an inch never the less this semi-sacred space, but in honor of my beloved mother I thought I’d surrender the blog to my older sister, the poet and essayist Christy Gualtieri who delivered the following eulogy at our mother’s funeral Mass on February 4, 2016 at Our Lady of Mount Carmel. I achingly confess she is “il miglior fabbro,” the better artisan. Happy Mother’s Day to you Christy, you won the battle but the war rages on.
My mother could make friends with a bag of rocks.
She had the ability to befriend absolutely anyone, no matter how standoffish or introverted, and within a matter of moments, make them feel comfortable. It was a gift, and one of the things that will be missed most about her. She made others feel important, and it’s a sure thing to say that if she knew you, she loved you. Her joy came from those in her life, and where she came from. Growing up in Florida, my brothers and I heard stories about Inwood, and it seemed almost like Neverland to us: a place where that was more family than community, and every day brought a new adventure. To my mom (and everyone who knows it, I imagine) Inwood was not only a place on a map; it was a source of life, a spring where she drew love that sustained her. No wonder she had to be close to it, even if it was across the Hudson River. She could feel that love even then, the love that made her tough enough to endure years of surgeries and procedures and chemotherapies that scarred her body, took her energy, and dimmed her light.
But through it all, she never complained. Through the overwhelmingness of it all, each time I’d ask her how she was doing, she’d say “good.” I knew it was a bad day on the days she’d say “I’m doing okay.” Like Saint Paul wrote in the Epistles, she was constantly beaten down, but not broken; constantly wrapped in flame of pain, but never consumed.
What was she really consumed by? The love she felt for her husband; a love that had been tested and tried and found to be stronger than the greatest steel. She was propelled by the love and pride she had for her children and her grandchildren. She was uplifted by the joy she found in the presence of her friends.
She loved her life, as hard as it was, and as joyful as we are that her suffering is gone, the most pain lies in the hard reality that the world doesn’t get another Janie Guerra.
Saint Paul writes in the second letter to Timothy, “I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.” It was a race filled with hardship on a road paved with the sharpness of suffering, of uncertainty, doubt, and fear. She was, like all of us, just a human being. But her ability to run it – and to run it so well – said so much not only about her, but about the God she so fervently believed in and loved so much: a God who knew suffering, who knew the value it holds. There truly is no crown without the cross. Her suffering had redemptive meaning; it was the manner through which she obtained her glory. Her last days were flooded with palpable grace.
Death looks so ugly from the outside, but there is such beauty to be found in it. There is so much about the world that is ugly, but you and I – and my mother certainly knew – the awe and wonder that is in it as well. How lucky we are to have known her, to have loved her.
So where does that leave us? She is in a place where we can know she is with God; where her beauty has been restored to her. In a place where her smile is no longer crooked, where her face is full again. Sitting on a stoop that looks suspiciously like the one on Park Terrace West.
Her life here is over, but ours continues. Our responsibilities have not gone away; we still have jobs to go to and bills to pay and hard things to endure. But we can draw strength from the knowledge that the love of God that sustained her belongs to us, too. We can spend our days remembering it and living in it; and living our lives to their fullest is what will honor her best.
In the words of Mother Teresa, “Yesterday is gone, tomorrow is not yet here. Let us begin.”