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June 30, 2005

A great personal loss, Thurs., June 30, 2005, 4:14 PM

I walked into my Dad's room at the Lodge shortly after 8 am this morning. I had a beaming smile; "You are looking terrific" I said as I saw he was sitting upright in bed, looking more alert than I've seen him for several months. At my request, the staff had not taken him to the dining room today. (ADDENDUM dated July 1)

"I feel good; how's Mother?"

An hour and a half of highway driving, trying to think of something to say, to break the news that my mother, his wife of 65 years, lay dead in the adjoining private room, and I smiled and said I'd be back in a moment. I turned around and left.

Nothing in life prepared me for that instant.

To compose myself, I went out to the nurse and asked her to come in to Dad's room after 15 minutes. I returned and took a chair beside his bed.

Still I couldn't talk, so I mumbled, "You know how proud I am of you two?" and he replied, "And we're so proud of you kids as well. We did a good job." Then he stopped, and asked again, "How's mother?"

And again I couldn't say anything. I knew this would be the toughest task in my life, and that as oldest of three sons, it was something I had to do. But, I was speechless for probably three minutes, rocking back and forth on the chair.

Then, somehow, I stood up and reached over the bed, and whispered, "Mom passed away last evening, and I could not make it here until this morning. She is still in her bed, and I want us to go in to pay her a final visit."

He was quiet; then asked when did she pass away, to which I replied that she went peacefully at the dinner table with nobody noticing until staff observed she was not eating, or moving. So they returned her immediately to her room, and called my brother.

Dad then explained he was not well enough to go to dinner last evening.

A few minutes later, two staff members came into the room and asked if we were ready to go next door. I nodded, and, as they were transferring Dad to a chair-bed, I went to visit Mom for a brief moment.

Catherine Elfreda Neely Ciccarelli (March 27, 1921 " June 29, 2005). R.I.P.

I was startled that she looked so good. In fact she didn't look dead; just stiff. It was completely surreal.

Deeply saddened, but also relieved she looked so perfect, I returned to get Dad. I then wheeled him in next to Mom's bed, and asked if he wanted to hold her hand.

For the next two hours, they held hands. I sat on the bed between them and did the same. Occasionally I kissed her for Dad who could not move from his chair.

I learned some things in those final moments between my Mom and Dad.

John met Catherine when she was 15 and they married soon after she turned 19, and he was 22. He then went into the army as a volunteer for World War II. For a couple years, they kept him in Canada to train soldiers, not sending him overseas because he was Italian and the Allies were fighting the Italians as well as the Germans.

In fact he volunteered for both the Air Force and Navy, and twice for the Army, before he was accepted.

When the War was going badly, he was informed he would be shipped overseas. That's when I was conceived.

This morning, he broke down many times, but the most awful was when he said after he returned from the War, I told him he was not my father. I replied that no two-year child could possibly understand such things, and tried to turn the conversation to the good parts of their lives together. And that's the way today went.

Growing up in the Great Depression, going off to war, then over 60 years together " through thick and thin, but never apart. It must have been a shock when I just walked in without notice this morning and told him that it had all come to an end, except for the memories " and then brought him in to visit her for two hours before the funeral director came to pick up Mom.

I can only imagine the emotions he was going through " so unexpectedly.

It was so tough on both of us, but, after a massive stroke last year, Dad has been on the verge of death in the past 13 months, so the stress he was under today had to be powerful.

After Mom had been taken away, Dad's doctor came over to visit him, and told me that Dad was an amazing patient. She told me, "For several months, every few days I think we've lost him, but then he has an astonishing recovery".

I told Dad that, after his return from the hospital to the Lodge last week, Mom could see that she had finally done all she could do for her boys; and so she decided last night was her time to let go.

I've said this before that life for me was like having TV's Harriet Nelson for a Mom. I never heard her raise her voice in anger once; yet her always positive, peaceful demeanour hid the wilful qualities in her character.

Mom is Scottish (Dobson of Isle of Skye) on her mother's side and Irish (Neely of Ulster) on her father's side.

She was determined her whole life that everything around her would be as perfect as she could make it. That's what drove her.

She never once met a new friend who did not say the same thing of her, "What a Lady!"

When I saw her last week, I told her she was looking terrific, and she said to me, "When I get better, I want you to take me home." We both understood what she had meant.

Her request, as is Dad's, is to be cremated and have the ashes spread around their country property at Brighton, overlooking Lake Ontario. And they will too; but shortly before I left at noon to return to Toronto, barely 90 minutes after Mom had been taken away, Dad asked if her ashes were ready to take to Brighton. I replied that, no this takes a while, and besides we're going to keep her around until Dad joins her.

Then I asked him if he had good thoughts of West Palm Beach where they wintered for many years, and he smiled. I told him I was going to save some of their ashes for under the big orange tree beside their old house there. And when he smiled, I said to him that everything in nature must stay in balance, so while I knew he was going to cry over Mom after I left today, I told him I wanted him to balance that with smiles and remembrances of good times.

Mom told me, last year, that if you can't smile, it means you have nothing to live for. So every visit, knowing how the cancer was taking her from us, I'd do whatever possible to get her to smile " even pulling her leg a couple weeks ago by telling her I knew I was her favourite son.

Today I told Dad that because of my blog, thousands of people around the world " in countries he never heard of " were praying for both him and Mom. That warm and comforting thought should make him smile.

By the way, 35 years ago I changed my name from John William Ciccarelli to William John Cara. My Dad was hurt by that, but Mom understood my need to have an efficient name. I too try to make everything perfect, and won't stop until I succeed.

With the name change, first I didn't want people calling me John, when my name is Bill. And if you strike the first three and last three letters of Ciccarelli, you get "Care", so I changed it to Cara.

The last engagement in my audit career was Cara Operations, and I was leaving PwC to set up my own consulting business. I was with my client that day, who took me to the Cara Inn at Toronto Airport for a celebratory drink when I told him people were having trouble with the name pronunciation. I was doodling on a napkin, and the Cara airport manager came up with "Cara". My new wife agreed, and the rest is history.

Mom asked me why I didn't choose the name Cecil, like Dad's eldest brother had done, and I replied that I was proud to be Italian, and didn't need to be validated by a consonant and not vowel at the end of my name. In fact, members of my family and some others still often call me Ciccarelli, which also makes me proud.

When I left the Lodge today at noon, Dad was being put into bed for a much needed sleep. One of my brothers was expected to be there at 2:00 pm to be with him this afternoon. The other brother who lives 1000 miles away is on his way.

As for me, I'm headed to bed now as well. Today lived up to all my expectations, as I had written in this blog at 5:15 am. It was the toughest day of my life.

But I will never forget Mom. She has gone from a good place to a better place, thanks to God.

One final memory: her password for the family voicemail...5683.

"Now you'll never forget it," she told me. "It stands for L-O-V-E."

ADDENDUM

Later that day, my Dad passed away.

Posted by Posted by Bill Cara on June 30, 2005 04:15:10 PM | Category: Cara re: Cara

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