This has been requested...and I wanted to log this anyway. Its sad, its happy... and I didn't say it word for word... I think I spoke it better than it reads, but nevertheless... here it is.
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Marge Fecarotta ( September 13, 1945 - March 25, 2013 )
Thank you all for coming. My mom disliked
sadness and passed that along to me, so if I see too much of it I’ll dismiss
you early to the Irish pub nearby. J
Very simply put, my mother, Margaret
Fecarotta, was my hero. I’m just going to list a few of the things that made
that so for me through some quick stories that I hope communicate and celebrate
who she was.
The Big thing, to me at least, is that she
was able, somehow, to deliver me and my sisters from an incredibly challenging
childhood into a future as functioning adults with only a few weird habits. J I won’t regale you with the difficulties of
our youth, as you may not have ever realized it. My mom was steadfastly
independent, and she had a great way of making things alright; of making us
feel okay. For those who were with us through thick and thin, I want to take this
moment to thank you for help during our childhood.
With all the distractions of a challenging
life, my mom found time to be a great parent. I remember when cable had just
come into the homes. We still had the wired remote to the box. The movie Thunderbolt and Lightfoot came on. A big Clint Eastwood film, and I was probably
10. I begged and begged to see it. She
refused, as it was inappropriate. While I cried and pitched a fit, deep down
inside I knew that she cared for me. She protected us from all things that
might harm us - I always felt that mom would take my side, but give me the
straight story too.
She was funny and bright - We laughed at the
craziest things. As a teenager I took up the habit of running into stationary
objects and mocking injury, just to get a rise out of her. Our walks up to King
Kullen were replete with me mashing my head against a signpost and having her
shriek, and us laughing about it all the way home.
Later in my high school career, I would
sometimes skip school. Mostly I just would watch TV, but I recall one
particular day mom came home when I wasn’t expecting it. I powered down the TV, ran into the back
yard, and hid behind the garage. The next thing I knew, my dog came pounding around the corner and
licked on me…and right behind him was my mother with her arms crossed. She had deduced my presence by feeling the TV
(TVs back then were made with very hot, high voltage vacuum tubes). Clever woman. As I got older I learned more from her as she
treated me with respect. I recall that
one time on Lombardy Blvd. in Bay Shore, where SO much happened, I was throwing
a baseball around with friends and one of us broke a windshield of a car. Well, someone called and she asked me if I was involved. I lied, and I said no. When she eventually discovered that I did do
this ( you can’t lie to mom) she said I broke her trust. I was devastated…but she emphasized to me the
importance of truth to me, but she
didn’t scream and yell or hit. Through
me shooting my sister with a bb gun, locking them in closets, giving them
indian burns, and on and on – it was always respect, intelligence and strong
honest instruction – in a word, it was Love.
My mom was a fighter and remained a fighter
to the very end – I have pictures on my cell phone if you don’t believe
me. Though she was a fighter, that was
not what she wanted to do. When I was a teenager I somewhat insensitively asked
her, “So mom, what did you want to do with your life (as if it was over) and
she turned and said, “I wanted to be a princess.”
At the time I thought that was a terrible
answer. It’s very difficult to become a princess. Yet, that answer informed me of how she saw
her life…how she envisioned it with my father.
And for many years, most of my childhood and beyond, she was very
happy. Princess …no…happy…yes.
If you would permit me to get metaphysical
for a moment, I need to tell you my journey with losing mom. It’s easy to see the body of my mother, as
with my father, and wonder where the soul went.
I believe our souls are a culmination of all that we are – the best of
all Marges, from the kindest kid in the courtyard to the heart of a mother
making Christmas a special day ever year.
Mom is now the sum of all that was the best of Marges that live on and
that is exciting. I want to meet that
soul.
About 400 hundred years before Christ, Plato
conjectured that life that we are seeing is a mere shadow on a cave wall, and
that truth that lay beyond. We are prisoners of this perspective yet what we
see is a shadow of the infinitely greater reality beyond.
Like Plato we all have an inkling, a sense
that there is more to it than what we are. Humans aren’t just atoms. The natural world makes us fear death, but
the supernatural whispers in our ears – this is not the end.
The Bible says it better than I can in 1
Corinthians 15:55:
Where O Death is Your Victory?
50Now this I say, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither does corruption inherit incorruption.
50Now this I say, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither does corruption inherit incorruption.
57But
thanks be to God, which gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58Therefore,
my beloved brothers, be you steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work
of the Lord, for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the
Lord.
My mom isn’t chained to Plato’s cave any
longer. She’s been freed from the bonds
that bind our imaginations, and those things that terrify us no longer affect
her. She has shed the corruptible and
put on the incorruptible.
Lastly, I think about that scripture, and I
see the word kingdom. My mom is in a kingdom, and if her time on earth was any
indication she’s certainly running things up there. I realize that now my mother has actually,
finally, gotten the job that she wanted.
Margaret Mary Theresa O’Leary Fecarotta is finally a Princess.
Thank you for coming – and God bless you all.
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