Dandelions, Roses & Patent Leather Shoes; Memories of Mary
According to the research I've done on the subject of blogging, new bloggers should just be "themselves" and never attempt to mimic the style of another. That makes this blog a very easy one to write as I believe my style is so scattered and random that nobody could mistake it for another. It's very important to me though that the reader understand that in writing this post, my intention is not to shine a light on myself or to elicit empathy or regret about the circumstances of my life. The goal of this blog is to illuminate and celebrate one of the great blessings God ever gave me; Mary Cecelia DiLeo Howard, a faithful friend who brought joy and light to my world. Though I am sad beyond words, I can only imagine the depth of the grief of her parents, her husband, her sons, her siblings, her nieces and nephews but my heart particularly aches for her girls.
Lately memories of years gone by have been triggered by current events and when I sit down to write I am more focused on making sense of the past than I am in looking toward the future. Memories that I have long since dealt with and packed away have sprung back like a jack-n-the-box in the wake of Mary's illness. I'm not sure how healthy that is, yet the memories are clamoring and competing with each other just to be the first out of my head and onto the paper and they keep surfacing relentlessly in a loop. They wake me at night, right out of deep sleep. I convince myself that the most profound and insightful words ever strung together are trapped in my head and I'm compelled to release them, but I am in too dreamy of a state and set the urge aside, roll over quite convinced that in the morning, the thoughts will still be just as profound and meaningful. Trouble is that when I wake for the day and if I manage to remember anything, they never make as much sense as they did when they were unearthed from the depths of my brain in the night. The following is a hodgepodge of memories and insights that probably won't mean much to most of you who are reading this, but I hope its interesting if not helpful to those with whom I share these memories or that they are a comfort to the loved ones of those they left behind.
I grew up in a small town in central New Jersey on a street with not so many houses, yet every house was filled to the brim with kids and we could name every one. I grew up in an era where kids didn't sit in the house during the day. The doors opened in the morning and children of all ages poured out into one great big mass of chaos. We didn't need adults to be present to organize the never ending games of Red Rover, Hide-N-Seek, Jump rope, Army, Barbies, House, Chinese School or Hopscotch that we played as we did for our own children. Somehow, even as little children, we had the wherewithal to organize these things for ourselves. Our imaginations were infinite, the sky was the limit and the possibilities were endless and we were never idle. The only time we ever went home was to get money for the ice cream truck.
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| OLP School Today |
Of the kids in our neighborhood about one quarter of us attended the local Catholic elementary school while the majority attended the local public elementary school, so there were only a few kids that were both school friends and neighborhood friends, therefore life was pretty segmented between the environments and it was fairly easy to leave what happened at school at school and not have it cross over into your neighborhood life and vise versa.
There was one person in my life, however, who spanned both worlds; her name was Mary DiLeo. Mary lived across the street from me at number 43
and I lived at number 42.
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| The DiLeo's #43 |
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| Mine #42 |
She and I were in the same grade and by default, we were best friends. Being my friend must have been hard for her because my life was far less settled than her more traditional one. Mary was one of 7 children and she had an involved mother and father who cared for each one of their children deeply. My life was a bit more of a mess due to my mother's illness and my father's absence and I looked to their family as the pinnacle and standard of what family life should be. Somehow, the majority of the neighborhood kids never really picked up on the chaos that was my life, but the result of my mother's inattentiveness and inability to care for us well due to her alcoholism was very evident to the kids in school. My appearance for school was disheveled at best. I learned to iron my school uniform blouses at a six years old. I only knew that ironing was necessary because the nuns would publicly call you out if you had a wrinkled blouse. But the really important personal hygiene things they never addressed, so many times my hair would be as matted as a wasp nest and a stringy and greasy as the hair of a hippie at Woodstock. I'm not sure if this was what caused the kids at school to tease me or if it was some sort of pecking order that I was at the bottom of, but the kids at school were merciless and unrelenting in their cruelty and the saddest part is that the teachers and nuns never intervened. As I said before, Mary spanned both worlds and though she had a different set of friendships at school than I did, including some of the leaders of the squad that teased me, Mary never joined in being cruel and it took courage to stand up to peer pressure that was pretty intense and unrelenting. Just yesterday, on a Facebook thread, I tried to explain, quite inadequately, that Mary's kindness has made more of an impact on my life than the words and the actions of the bullies ever did.
My lifelong. beautiful inside and out friend, Mary Cecelia DiLeo Howard passed away on June 4 following a 7 year battle with breast cancer. As was her character, she seldom complained, she had her rough moments but overall she remained positive. She continued working up until February as a nurse at CHOP (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia). CHOP is a hospital that is universally renowned for its care of the very sickest of kids This is extraordinary, because knowing her own diagnosis could potentially land her in the same place as many of her patients, she still commuted through that Philadelphia mess and boldly faced and cared for patients in varying stages of the disease that she was fighting
herself
. I can only imagine what a comfort Mary was to those little patients and what peace she was able to bring to a conversation with a parent of a sick child. She acutely understood how much it costs to have to wait for a lab test,
CT or biopsy result, she understood the systemic response a body feels when the words "you have cancer" are uttered and she understood that every word she ever spoke to a patient's family member was deeply analyzed and endlessly replayed in search of a hidden meaning.
Mary wrote me a note in early May sharing that she could feel her situation changing and though I quickly responded, she didn't reply to my response. Not knowing what else to do, I contacted her husband, Harvey, who told me that if Mary wrote me that implied that she wanted to see me. Wanting to be sure that I didn't miss my opportunity to tell her how much I loved her and what her life had meant to me and not knowing when or if she'd be well enough to receive a visit, I wrote her a letter. Rather than to try and regurgitate what I wrote to her, I thought I'd share excerpts of it here on this blog because it is important that you understand why the loss of Mary is so profound.
Dear Mary,
Today is Mother's Day and Mother's Day always has me reflecting on what went before, thoughts invade my dreams at night. This morning I popped open my eyes at 445, just in time for the birds to start their chirping for the day. I laid there thinking and praying and reminiscing until I noticed that the birds had stopped singing. Did you ever notice that when the light is fully on the horizon, you just can't hear the birds anymore? The same goes for my innermost thoughts. I guess that is why I do my best work in the stillness and darkness of the night. The following paragraphs are the product of a restless night and a very early morning.
You are present in every memory I have of my childhood. You are even in memories of mine in times and places when I know you couldn’t have been there, you were always lingering in the background of my life. I know that I have shared some of this with you before, but in the eyes of my childhood self, you and your family represented the epitome of what I wanted my life to be. I wanted to be just like you and I wanted everything you had, not to take anything away from you, but for us to have more in common because more than anything I wanted you to be my friend. I know that being my friend was difficult at times. When I look at skinny, scrawny, dirty little children now as an adult, I can see why other children might shun them. Though you probably wanted to, you never did. You tolerated my admiration and my envy and you paved the way for me to become a productive adult by allowing me to adopt a little bit of who you are and incorporate it into myself. You need to know how grateful I am for that. For over fifty years, you never, ever forgot my birthday and with those thoughtful cards and phone calls, you were communicating that I had value and worth, you could never understand the Herculean impact those cards had on the course of my life. I hope you can now, on some level, understand the impact your friendship has had on me and grasp how meaningful the memories of you are to me.
There are so many memories of Webb Drive, but the individual faces of which friend was present in which memory are mostly blurred, but there are some that clearly, you are the star of. I remember a pink umbrella with a Mickey Mouse handle being dropped down the McGowan's sewer as we waited for the bus. I remember an incident with you and Eddie Geary in Lynny Davis's garage when we were five. I remember your hands turning the jump rope. Those same hands have now soothed many hurts, wiped many tears, held many hands, stroked the cheeks of many babies, changed many diapers and as many IVs. Your hands have arranged many flowers, prepared countless meals, washed many dishes, plaited many braids, tied many shoes and a million both simple and meaningful tasks have been accomplished with those hands of yours.
But what I picture in my mind when I think of your hands is a little girl with a bunch of pretty roses wrapped in a wet paper towel and wrapped again with tin foil, clutched in your hands as you bounded across the street to get on the kindergarten bus one day on a sunny day in May. I believe they were meant for Mrs. Canavery and of course, I wanted to do what you did, but I didn't know any better so I picked a bunch of dandelions. It was you who taught me that dandelions were weeds, useless and ugly. You meant no harm, but you were wrong. Though dandelions may be the scourge of lawn owners everywhere, they have always represented something else to me. You see that day, you gave me one of your flowers to give to the teacher. It was an act of kindness that I had completely forgotten about as it was mixed in with the trauma of being told that my "flowers" were weeds. I guess that is in some way a metaphor for my life. God can take anything and in the right light and under the right circumstances, He can make it worthwhile and beautiful. That is how He used you in my life, that is why you mean so much to me and that is why I don’t want to say good bye to you. My world will not have the same meaning without you circling in the background.
Besides assuring you of my forever love and my constant prayers, I'm not sure how best to end this letter. I don't want to say good bye, or say see you later, so I guess the best thing to say is that I finally agree, your black patent leather shoes were pointier than mine ever were!
I love you....................
Her response was full of humility, classy and as usual reflected her care and concern for others. An excerpt of her response;
"I can feel my health changing quickly, but I believe I am accepting and prepared. I am at peace with my friends and loved ones, with nothing left unsaid. I am not sure of a time frame....but it is not months. I pray for grace and dignity to help ease the burden for my family. I have a deep faith in God, and believe that any questions not answered or understood in this lifetime will be soon. I am just bewildered at times. I think of my parents....88 and 93....I could still be helping my sisters to take care of them, help share that responsibility.
Even as Mary faced the end of her earthly days, she was thinking and worrying for others. In response to the shoe comment, this is what she said "As for our shoes, not sure about the pointy part, but I was probably very happy they were not hand me downs!"
The shoe story for those whose interest has been piqued. While in kindergarten, bus #19 picked us up at my driveway. Mary being one of seven children, had a competitive edge to her (hard to believe) and she always wanted to be the first onto the bus. I deferred most of the time because I didn't really care (and she was bigger than me). We didn't wear school uniforms in kindergarten, but every day we wore black patent leather shoes and for some reason, Mary always boasted that her toes were pointier than mine. It was a ridiculous, childish argument that neither of us ever forgot. A couple of weeks before she died, I finally conceded, that her shoes, were indeed pointier than mine. (But mine were shinier I'm sure)
On May 18, 2017, my husband drove me the 2 1/2 hours to visit with Mary. The time we spent together was short, but the conversation was both powerful and meaningful. Even though she was in pain she didn't show it, even though she was very sick, her house was tidy and dusted, even though she was weary she offered me hospitality and even though she knew the number of her days were waning she chose to spend one of those precious days with me. We reminisced, we shared updates on our families and Mary talked about being ready to go, but she was devastated to leave her girls. Most of all she was bewildered and baffled, not quite grasping why this was happening to her because she clearly knew that her continued presence in her loved ones lives would make their lives so much easier. She hated that they would have to grieve and miss her. The only way that I knew to comfort her through this conversation was to assure her that her presence in their lives would grow bigger and not dimmer as the years go by and they would always remember the words their mama spoke. I assured her that her words would become legendary and the memories that included her would be magnified. Following a loss so huge, your mind takes a still shot and then stores it on top of your brain for easy access later.
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| Mary and Anne Marie 18 May 2017 |
Even after all these words have been written and every memory excavated and examined, I still don't feel that I have sufficiently expressed the essence of Mary. I know that my words are of little comfort to her family, but I can only pray that sometime in the future they will read this and understand that their wife, mother, daughter, sister, aunt, friend made a significant impact for good in her short 56 years.
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| Allyson Minarchi Petoia, Me, Margaret Moser Schneider, Lorraine Miller Kosobucki and the late Katherine Ludwig at Brad and Anne Marie McAlester's wedding August 4, 1990 As I can testify via this photo, two out of the six gals in this shot have left us now secondary to cancer. Let the brevity of their lives teach us to be mindful at all times of our words and our actions, but let's be especially mindful of the times you choose not to act. Life is full of opportunities to make an impact for good.
"For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak,knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."
From 2 Corinthians 4
"Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all."
2 Thessalonians 3:16
Amazing that so much life can fit into about one inch of text.
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