Delaware, A Scallop Wrapped in Bacon, and Driving Home with the Boss

If there's any one (well, composite) image that I shall forever and heretofore associate with receiving the news of my mother's death, it will be that. Or should I say, "these." Or, more precisely, "those."

Those images of Delaware, with a tooth-picked scallop wrapped in bacon, which, after eating, resulted in driving home with the boss.

You see, I received the news of my mother's demise while I was in Delaware, with the boss (who was only there because yet another employee's grandmother had just died). We had just finished presenting our respective quasi-infomercials to the greater Delaware Division of the Arts' representatives who were ostensibly interested in learning more about email marketing. Which is to say, we had just wrapped up our "pitches" to our then-presently assigned audiences.

We had just wrapped up our "pitches," and we were feeling quite good. Quite good about ourselves, and our product, which is how we were supposed to feel. But we hadn't yet reconnected, amidst the happiness of Happy Hour, and so I was expecting his call.

Which is when the call came.

It wasn't his call, at first. At second, yes, it was. But at first, there was a message from my father.

My father has only called me three times in my life. Once, to tell me that his mother "had passed," twice, to inform me that he would not be co-signing for me on a Manhattan apartment, and now -- now.

Now, he was calling me (as I poked at and attempted to chow down a scallop wrapped in bacon), to tell me my mother had just died. I looked up from my cell phone as I was retrieving the message and lo, and behold, there was my boss. I told him what I had just heard. That was all he needed to hear. He told me to get packed and to get into the car.

The next few hours were surreal, to say the least. We had to reschedule all the rest of my week, which was supposed to be spent touring Minneapolis and Duluth with more seminars. We had to call the Office Manager and another other Sales Rep who was on the road, to get her to cover my calendar. We had to make several months' worth of planning re-arrange itself within one night. It sucked.

But there was never any doubt on my boss's behalf that I needed to go home and take care of family business, despite my offering to find some sort of compromise. I hadn't had a good relationship with my parents since 1983, I told him, so they could wait. That didn't fly. He wanted me home as much as my father must have... So we drove back to NY together, in a Hertz rental, stopping off for family-style seafood at a cute greasy spoon somewhere between Delaware and Pennsylvania.

So, neither Delaware, nor scallops wrapped in bacon, nor greasy spoons along the way between Dover and Philadelphia will ever be able to remind me of anything but receiving the news of my mother's death.

News, by the way, that was met with immediate relief. Yes, I've grieved since then and I'm still indeed grieving, but I've always believed that the first reaction one has upon receiving the news of someone's death is usually the strongest, most "real" reaction one is going to have. So far the hypothesis holds true. Especially because it's also been my father's main reaction!

My point is this: Watch out for significant signifiers. You'll never escape them. Delaware, scallops wrapped in bacon, and driving from Dover to New York will never lose their meaning in my head...

What're the signifiers in yours?


Love,

Ma’s Eulogy

{Ed's note: I had one day's notice during which to come up with this, or anything like it... Neither my father, nor any cousin; not even the funeral director himself called me to tell me I was responsible for this element of the funeral Mass... The only crack within the sequence of events -- wake, wake, ceremony, procession, Mass, further procession, and finally burial -- during which to write it came at midnight, after the wake, and after having had held myself up over pizza and Martinis with certain loving friends and family.}

Good morning, everyone. I stand here before you having to undertake one of the most difficult writing assignments I’ve ever had to complete. I must deliver to you a eulogy. A eulogy not for a business associate, nor a dear friend, nor a cousin, nor or sibling, nor even a spouse – but for a mother. My mother. I stand here before you, this morning, having undertaken this, the most difficult writing assignment I have ever had to complete: writing a eulogy for my very own mother.

I won’t make it long. I won’t provide you with chronology. I believe the obituary did an excellent job at that. If you’re interested in learning more about the course of events that comprised my mother’s life, then I refer you to that. The obituary. This is not an obituary.

This, as a eulogy, must not summarize the course of events that comprised my mother’s life. Rather, it must capture the essence of that life. As soon as I recognized this differentiation – this difference between an obituary and a eulogy – I felt as sense of liberation. For upon first hearing the news of my mother’s wish that I write her eulogy, like most people, I panicked. Truth be known, I didn’t stop panicking until I looked up the definition of eulogy, and then compared it to the definition of obituary. Once I’d learned what distinguished the former from the latter, I overcame my panic, and I was ready to proceed.

So if the purpose of a eulogy is to capture essence, I asked myself, then what is essence? That answer came to me without the help of any dictionary. For essence is word that, as precise as any definition might attempt to make it, relies upon intuition in order to completely understand. Essence is less than logical. Essence comes not from the mind, but from the earth itself, and before that – from the spirit.

In having known and interacted with many of you here today, and indeed with many who might not be able to be here today, I have listened to and observed many words, thoughts, notions and feelings that would compete to encapsulate my mother’s essence. She was intelligent, beautiful, kind and generous to others, a spitfire, a gadfly, and the life of the party. She had wit, she had charm, but she was nobody’s fool. She could whip up the best Irish stew you’d ever tasted. She could organize a fantastic event, and dance with you until dawn, but still be there to hold your hand if you were having a bad day.

What, I’ve asked myself, encapsulates all theses terms? These thoughts? These notions? These notions that so many of you have had and expressed about my mother. Well, I’ll tell you what encapsulated my mother’s spirit. I’ll tell you what summarizes her essence: will. If there is one word, one notion, one concept that I had to use in order to summarize my mother’s essence – if I only had one word with which to do it – it would be that. Will.

My mother had a will of iron. A will of steel. A will of the strongest alloy that NASA has yet to develop. She had a will and determination that would have put the likes of such Hollywood divas as Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, or even today’s diva, Madonna, to shame. Indeed, she could have held her own at a tea party consisting of only those women. Maggy Thatcher and Hilary Clinton wouldn’t even have been invited.

So if you’re ever in a situation, be it social or merely within your own thoughts… When you have to find one word to encapsulate the sprit that was Patricia Ann Theresa Hurley O’Neill, let me suggest that word: will. It was her will that helped her become a Supervising RN. It was her will that aided her, alongside her loving husband of 50 years, Martin, in transforming the house at 124 Riverview Ave from a quaint structure with “good bones” into a home that was consistently referred to as “lovely” by all of its visitors. And, in more recent years, it was her sheer will that enabled her to not only endure, but temporarily remit, the cancer that would eventually claim her body.

I guess the Lord and the spirits in the great beyond now need that will more than we do. I suppose it’s now our time to let go of the great spirit that was Pat O’Neill. But rest assured, her will lives on. Not only in me, her only child, her only son – but by its very own volition. A force like that never dies. As the physicists tell us, energy can neither be created nor destroyed – it simply changes form.

If you loved her, then I love you. Thank you.

10.05.07

12:12am

G. ONeill

Fade to Black

So now it's happened. And this time around, I can't promise poetry.
I can't promise poetry because now, we have a few facts to establish.

Let me start by saying, I love and appreciate each and every one of you.
Each and every one of you who is either on my email list or not;
Who has received my emails or not;
And who has expressed any sort of response to said emails -- or not.

I am a very, very lucky human being.
Because I have many, many human beings who care enough about me to either
Reply to my emails or call whenever I make an announcement
The likes of which I have just announced.

This isn't cliche.
This isn't trivial.
This is how I acknowledge my status in life
And how I feel about (all of) you.

It is a lucky man indeed,
In this day and age,
Who can elicit any response
From his fellow human beings.

Being that response
Via email, via postal,
Phone call,
Or physical presence.

You have all provided me
With all the aforementioned,
And for that, let me mention,
That I love you, and appreciate you.

So hear ye,
Hear ye,
Hear ye --
Because if you do, then you'll actually hear me.

All that having been said, let me now say this:

UNDERSTANDING is one thing. AGREEING is quite another.
Just because I understand, it doesn't mean I agree.

FORGIVENESS is one thing. FORGETTING is yet another.
I shall do my best to accomplish the former,
but I will not even embark upon attempting the latter.
(I have my Jewish friends to thank for this creed.)

RESPECT for what one has given is one thing.
I ACKNOWLEDGE said respect in this instance.
But RESPECT is a two-way street.
Eventually, if not reciprocated, it vanishes and dies.

That's it.
That's all I have to say.

In regards to my mother,
Whom we are finally laying to rest,

It's all I have to say.

Please don't ask me to understand her,
For I already have.

Please don't ask me to forgive her,
For I already have.

Please don't ask me to respect her,
for I always have.

Most of all, don't ask me to like her,
Because understanding, forgiveness, and respect have nothing to do with affinity.

There.
I've said it.

And I don't care if my metre's off.

It's the truth, plain and simple.
I loved her, understood her, forgave her and respected her.

But I never really much liked her.