One of a kind. In more ways than one.

This is among my favorite photos of Marie. I’m sure my dad shot it, to her eternal aggravation. He really captured her essence in that moment. Plus, she looks like a movie star. It was made in or around 1953.

Three months since Marie’s departure. I’ve finally collected my thoughts. There’s a lot I could say about her. But none of us have that kind of time.

I’ll say this. Anybody who ever met her got that she was a special person, immediately. Her eyes lit up when she saw somebody she loved or met a new somebody she hadn’t yet befriended. She was a mentor to many, an inspiration to legions and a friend to all.

She was generous. Magnanimous. Creative. Giving. Caring. Nurturing. And loving, in every sense of the word.

She was also stubborn, obstinate and opinionated. After all, she came from a long line of the stubborn, obstinate and opinionated. They call themselves Sicilians.

As kids, she inspired us to follow our passions. As long as we didn’t make a mess. I suppose that’s the reason none of us ended up artists. Paint is messy. (Ironic, because she was a brilliant artist in her own right and completely self-taught.)

Her true medium was food. She could whip together a meal for six with two eggs and a can of peas — a skill that came in handy when both money and food were short. We never knew hunger. If the cupboard ever went completely bare, I expect she would have gone out and throttled a large animal so we could have some meat. It never came to that, but I would not have put it past her.

Even in lean times, she always made a little extra, in case somebody dropped by. It didn’t matter who — friend, family or stranger, if they were hungry, they got fed. Sometimes they got fed if they weren’t hungry. When it comes to food, it’s pointless to argue with a Sicilian. Well, it’s pointless to argue with a Sicilian about anything, but that’s another story.

To my mom – as to most Italians, food is love. And mom was generous with both. My cousin Carol nailed it:

I do not believe there is a gentler soul that walked this earth. One of my favorite people on the planet. She could somehow make a simple meal of egg salad taste gourmet and she always knew what to say. One time while attending College of New Jersey, I had what I thought was the worst day. Since they were right there, I thought popping in on Sam and Marie was the escape I needed. Of course it was. Aunt Marie gave me a cup of tea, a salad and a cookie but most of all she listened and showed me love and helped me through whatever it was I thought was so huge without ever making me feel like it was anything less than important. I love her dearly.

She was naturally creative and insanely resourceful. She loved exploring and seeing new places. She could have been a chef, an artist, a photographer, a computer programmer — we’ll never know. She never went to college but she always excelled at jobs that required more qualifications than she held. She figured stuff out, worked hard and no matter where she worked, she was loved by nearly everybody.

She was famous for having a ridiculous inventory of stuff in her house. On one occasion, we learned of a young nephew’s gift wish at the 11th hour, a pair of play boxing gloves. Beth wondered aloud where we might find them in time. Mom went to her room and returned with a brand new pair, in the package. This sort of thing happened all the time. If you couldn’t find something or needed it in a hurry, we learned quickly to ask Mom first. There was no telling what her magic closet could produce.

She was also in charge. Without question. She was Sicilian, after all. As kids, any of the four of us could get whatever we wanted from the others with this simple threat: I’m telling Mom. (You wouldn’t get anywhere with “I’m telling Dad.” It never came up.)

One day, after some egregious violation of my human rights as an eight-year-old, I packed food and clothing into my book bag and announced to my siblings that I was running away from home. Sister Michele told Mom. To which she promptly replied, “He’s not running anywhere until I get back from the grocery store.”

I unpacked my bag.

She had a seemingly endless supply of love for those she loved. As a true Christian in every sense of the word, she even loved those she didn’t want to, though sometimes reluctantly. One day, we were chatting about a person of whom Mom was not a big fan. I teased her and said, “You know, Mom, Jesus said we should love our enemies.”

“Well,” came her reply. “I can love him from a distance.”

She loved a funny story and laughed easily. Into her 90s, doing just about anything was a daily struggle. She needed a lot of help and she got it from family, friends and a parade of medical professionals. But she never lost that sense of humor.

One day, one interrogated Mom, as medical professionals do, to gauge her mental awareness.

“How many children do you have?” she asked.

“Four,” said Mom.

“Who’s the oldest?” she continued.

“Me!” said Mom.

When she was well, she loved trolling flea markets and yard sales. One day, she made a lowball offer on a chair that caught her fancy. The seller said “I’ll chop it up for firewood first.” To which my mother replied, “I hope you brought marshmallows.”

She led by example and taught us the most important thing a parent can teach a child; integrity. She didn’t tolerate greed, mendacity or thievery. Honesty was always her policy, even when it was not in her best interest. As kids, getting caught in a lie was a terrible infraction. Nearly as bad was showing disrespect to our grandparents. Either would get you grounded, a penalty she wasn’t bashful about enforcing, when any of us were dumb enough to lie or mouth off to an elder.

We loved her more than anything. Even though she could drive you crazy with her rules. She had a lot of them and some made no sense. Rules about throw pillows, light switches, clock weights, doors, microwave ovens, curtains, cold cuts, bedspreads and who knows what else. Let’s just say my mother had it over God, in spades. God handed Moses just 10 commandments from up on high. She had thousands.

But it was her house, until the very end, and we respected the rules. In a way, the rules were the canary in the coal mine. When COVID made senior care very complicated, Beth and I sold our house at the shore and moved in with Mom to help take care of her. We saw her nearly every day for 18 months. Although I hated thinking about it, I had a sinking feeling that the end was near when Mom suddenly stopped enforcing the rules. That’s when I suspected she was losing her grip on this world and preparing for the next.

The comic irony is that whenever my siblings and I are over there nowadays, sorting out her famous house inventory, we always return the light switches and throw pillows back to their “correct” positions. (Well, most of the time, at least.) Old habits die hard.

She was a fighter and a survivor. She beat breast cancer and thyroid cancer. She survived more than a few strokes and gave congestive heart failure a run for the money. Although her body failed her, she was rarely in a bad mood and she faced each infirmity with courage and a sense of humor. She lived as best as she could for most of her 93 years.

She embraced motherhood and was the master craftsman. One day I was thinking about my adult siblings and me – all crazy in our own way, but to a person, steady, grounded and hard working. I made this observation aloud and asked Mom her secret. It was a lesson I’ll never forget and tried to pass on to my own kids. “All I did was love you and try to teach you right from wrong,” she said.

And she was a mother to many, not just her own. She really loved kids, blood and stranger alike. When she was well, she was a regular visitor to her granddaughter Amy’s classroom, where she taught the kids how to grow flowers and vegetables in their schoolyard garden.

Decades ago, when her brother’s wife was seriously ill, she took in his eldest, my cousin Michael. Mike was only three or so and as far as he knew, my mom was his mom. Fortunately, Aunt Doris recovered and the family was reunited, but Marie had been Mike’s mom for a very long time. As he recalled:

Marie was not just my aunt. For a few years in the early 1950s she was my substitute mom. A very special lady, kind, loving, and giving. She leaves us with many happy memories. We will always feel fortunate to have been a part of her life.

We do, too, Mike. We do, too.

Good-night, sweet Princess. And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

=S