May Her Name Be for A Blessing June 28, 2008
Posted by voolavex in dying.Tags: diabetes, goodbye, Hostess Cupcakes, love, Memory, Satya
add a comment
I have said all the goodbyes I can
I know that good and happy memories are
the best and most enduring expression of love
So this is what I remember about Barbara:
She came to love me and I loved her.
We shared our good times and bad, holding onto each other.
She listened. Patiently
Her advice was good.
She made me want to follow it.
She loved her children Marcella, Jeff and Begona without question
She was sorry about your middle name Marcella
She was glad you stopped looking like a rat Jeffrey
And she was relieved too.
She did the things she learned were right once upon a time
Sometimes, often, they were things that were not good for her.
Old habits die hard.
She did things she knew were right too.
And I learned those things from her.
She had a wicked and dry sense of humor.
She laughed with ease and she smiled
Even when there was little to smile for.
We laughed together a lot.
She didn’t like diabetes and she didn’t like
restricted diets. So she cheated.
She liked Hostess Cupcakes.
She liked to eat everything a good Jewish girl from the
Bronx should never eat and she relished them all.
She will not be barred from Heaven for a single bite
The Lord always knows a good person when he sees one.
She believed in promises.
They didn’t always work out the way she imagined.
She cherished the friends who
kept faith with her
Charlotte especially.
She loved my cat Elliott and he loved her.
They both gave life a good work out.
I hope he is close by today
And stays beside her in their own forever.
But the one she loved and cherished most is Satya.
Every coo, every song, every tear, every smile
She adored Satya.
It was a joy to watch her be Nana,
And she felt it was the best part she had ever had.
If they gave Oscars for Best Nana, my money would be on Barbara.
She was a great Nana.
So that is how I hope you remember her
I think she would be very happy for that
Remember her as your dearest friend,
as Jeff and Marcella’s mother but above all else
as her most beloved Satya’s nana
This is how I will think of her
My friend Barbara, whose very existence brought
such pure light to my life.
My own personal light, still shining, still keeping me warm.
May her name be for a blessing.
With love to everyone who loved Barbara
Chloe Ross
June 27, 2008
At
Mt. Sinai Cemetery
Los Angeles, CA
In That Single Act June 8, 2008
Posted by voolavex in dying.Tags: death, dying, Eishet Chayil, friend, grief, soul, woman of valor
add a comment
In the end the tears refused to come. The wind blew west across the hill facing the freeway and the home of Mickey Mouse and the Disney Studios. The cars raced along the 210 and on Forest Lawn Drive and not one tear escaped my eyes. I stood with my husband at a grave site in Mt. Sinai Cemetery, beneath a canopy and saw one very small, plain pine box waiting to be put in its forever bed. A fine linen shroud embracing my friend in death. A Star of David atop the coffin. I prayed, alone and aloud, the rites for the dead. She and I – bound forever in that single act. Eishet Chayil. A woman of valor. Her price – to me – beyond rubies and beyond the diminished months of life she tried so hard to leave. In the final moments though, she found the courage and the strength to take one last breath and leave us wishing, too little, too late, for things to have been better. In the end she decided she had had enough and then left us wondering: where had she been and where did she go? Her time had finally come. Grief and faith tell us that she is in a better place but all we really know is that she is in a different place. She is not with us any longer. I long to believe her pain and sadness is over and that she remembers us just as we remember her. I long to believe that my version of the place her soul sought out is what she would have wanted. I long to have done a thousand things differently for her. I never saw her cry and perhaps that’s why my tears won’t come just yet. They will come when it’s time.
Voolavex 