A Funeral without Tears

“C’mon, Rose, Tony’s waiting!”

Usually, urging on death would be ghastly. But dear friend George Banks – who always endearingly called Mom “Rose” – was in the fourth day of a long, difficult bedside vigil that could only have one outcome.

Connie had been rushed to the emergency room with pulmonary distress just after midnight on Mother’s Day. Doctors said the only realistic move was to the hospital’s Hospice wing. It was now late Thursday, Mom still unconscious and barely breathing. She’d received the Anointing of the Sick and Apostolic Blessing. Rosaries had been said. After five long days, it was heartbreaking for George and me to keep watching Mom’s battle between body and soul. Dad, and the angels, were waiting for her.

“Don’t worry, Mom, it’s okay to let go.”

Mom had achieved her last important goal – reaching her 100^th birthday – barely two-and-a-half months earlier. She celebrated at a big party with friends from Jacksonville and relatives from Syracuse and Texas. It was a great afternoon and she had a wonderful time. Big smiles all around.

To be honest, there were a few tears at her goodbye services – a vigil in Jacksonville, plus a prayer service and funeral Mass in Syracuse. But there were more smiles than tears as friends and family recalled happy memories of “Aunt Connie.”

Most of those memories involved family gatherings, sports, holidays – events that involved lots of family and friends. Mom, for as private as she could be, always saw herself in relation to others. And the memories almost always involved food, too. That was only proper – cooking is how Italians say “I love you.”

The service in Syracuse did not attract a lot of people. That was no surprise – at 100 years old, Mom had outlived just about everyone else. She was the family’s last survivor of her generation. And so many of those who had gone before her left so long ago. She hadn’t seen her father in 65 years; she had adored her father! Her mother died 43 years ago. Dad was her beloved; she lived the last 22-years of her life without him. She missed sisters Virginia and Antonetta terribly. And she mourned daughter Susan deeply after she died in 2018, often saying, “I can’t believe I’ll never talk to her again.”

Well, she’s back with all of them now.

Can you imagine what all of those heavenly reunions were like? That’s why there were so many smiles and just a few tears at Mom’s services – tears because we’re missing her, smiles because of her destination. The goal now, however, is to make sure heaven is in our future so we can have our own reunions with her and all of our other loved ones.