Louise Pascali Eulogy (11/7/2008)

To understand my Mom and the type of person she was, you'd first have to understand the people who came before her.

My Mom's maiden name was Brown. She came from a long line of simple, hard-working folks that scrimped and saved all their money, just to make a living and raise their kids. They were the type of people that worked their fingers to the bone and never did have any kind of a fuss made over them.

Mom's Great Grandfather, Thomas Brown, left County Cork, Ireland in the 1850's to study at the University of Cambridge in England. He relocated to the United States after becoming an exchange-student, and for some unknown reason, decided to settle-down in a small, non-descript town in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania called "Shamokin".

In 1863, when the Confederate Army was descending upon Pennsylvania, Thomas Brown enlisted in the Union Army and fought with the Pennsylvania 118th Infantry Division in the Battle of Ghettysburg.

Thomas Brown marched into the deep South and was eventually wounded and captured in the Battle of Cold Harbor, Virginia in 1864. He went on to live a long life and raised a large family in Shamokin.

Mom's Grandfather, Joseph Brown, was a Coal Miner. Her Father, John Brown, was also a Coal Miner as well as a Timber Inspector in Shamokin in the early-to-mid 1900's. Her Mother, Stella, worked in a factory on an assembly line, putting together women's clothing. She baked her own breads and pies, jarred her own jams, and canned & preserved her own tomatoes. They raised their three children the best way they knew how under the hardships of the Great Depression in a third class city where job opportunities were scarce, but it was the place-to-be for raising a loving family. In the coal mines, John Brown often had to eat potato peelings for lunch so that his children didn't.

These were some of the folks from which my Mother developed her character. I mention these people today because although they will never be remembered in history as great people, they were people who achieved greatness through their unending loyalty to their family and to their nation.

My mom was also very hard worker who was driven to be a top Sales Associate with Strawbridge and Clothier for 19 years. A woman blessed with great vitality, she met the demands of a full-time job and also managed to keep up with all her household duties, while raising three boys and putting them through Catholic School.

But, my mom was also a terrific dreamer; a romantic at heart who's imagination took her to the far ends of the world, even though she would never have the pleasure of physically traveling there in this lifetime.

When I was a boy, I would watch my mother regularly wash all the walls and the ceilings down in the house. While she was doing this backbreaking work, she'd be singing these beautiful songs. I was very young, but I asked her what she was singing. She gave me this great smile and said, "That's Nelson Eddie and Jeannette McDonald" "When I was a girl, I used to pretend I was Jeannette McDonald." "She was so beautiful and had the most gorgeous voice." And then she laughed as she said, "But, Nelson Eddie wasn't really my type."

Every Friday she'd scrub the kitchen floor. Not with a mop, but on her hands and knees. One of my earliest memories is of her scrubbing the floor and singing "We've Only Just Begun" by Karen Carpenter. It is a song filled with enormous hope and endless possibilities. At the time, my mom was 41, and she still had not lost her ability to dream.

She used to buy for me all the great 45's in the early seventies. When she gave that one to me, she said, "Steven, this is my favorite song in the whole world."

She loved to stay up late at night on her day off and watch Judy Garland and Clark Gable movies. She would often tell me about how in 1939 she went to see "The Wizard of Oz" in Shamokin. She said, "Steven, we never saw anything like it. The colors were so magnificent. It was out of this world."

And when we'd watch the movie together when it came on TV every Easter, that small-town girl from Shamokin briefly escaped her hard-working life and dreamt of being Dorothy Gale for the next three hours.

My mom sometimes thought about reincarnation, and used to tease me that she was Cleopatra or Nefertiti in a past life. Then, she would say, "I wonder what I'm going to come back as when I die".

See. Our mom was a very passionate person. And she wasn't afraid to show it to people. She had so much feeling inside of her. She would sing to Mantovani records as if she were on the stage in Carnegie Hall. She was a real deep human being, who actually felt the very pain that you were going through.

All of our lives she used to tell me and my brothers, Raymond and Michael, that we were handsome and always told us that she loved us and that she was extremely proud of us.

When her and I talked, she praised my brothers by saying, "Our Raymond, he went right up to his room after school, and he studied for hours-on-end. And he never once gave me and your father an ounce of trouble. He's good to Diane and he worked harder than anyone else to get a good job. Your father and I are very proud of him."

When Ray was young, the local AM radio station was offering an essay contest to win a boy's bicycle. My Mom wrote the essay for him and won the bike. She wrote that Ray wanted an "In-Between Bike". The "In-Between Bike" is what he needed because every time he tried to ride someone else's bike, it was either too big or too small for him.

Mom's favorite story to tell about Ray is when he was a little boy. My parents were watching TV in the living room. A cool breeze blew in from the front window and my Dad said, "Louise. Shut the window, a draft is coming in". All of a sudden, Ray became very frightened and upset. My parents couldn't figure out what was wrong. But then realized that Raymond thought there was a real Giraffe coming through the window. My Mom always got the biggest kick out of that story.

My mom was a big fan of her father. And in my brother Michael, she saw parts of him. She would say, "That Michael, wherever he goes he runs into somebody he knows. Everybody likes him. He's much like my Father". I always thought that was a great compliment.

Her favorite story to tell about Mike is when he was a child in the mid-sixties. She was inside the house ironing, when our neighbor, Mrs. Rosen, called on the phone saying, "Louise! Hurry up, your Michael is running down the driveway without any clothes on! My mom always thought that was the most adorable thing and would say, "That Michael, ain't he something. He's a real pip, that Michael."

My earliest memory is of my mom giving me a bath in the kitchen sink while I watched my older brothers playing outside in the driveway. I must've been less than a year old, but it's a memory that has been with me all my life.

We spent countless hours together, shopping, going out for hamburgers, and watching movies.

Some of my most cherished times were when we would drive up to Shamokin to see her family.

My mom was a gentle woman. But, she was no push-over. One night about 1969 or '70, she had had just about enough of me and my brothers' foolishness, and told us all to go to bed. "And I don't want to hear a peep out of anyone or else you're all gonna get it!"

See, our mother was an extremely fair woman. So, if one of us were going to get a lickin', then all three of us were gonna get one.

Being the baby, I went up the stairs still giggling as we settled into our beds. My mom was downstairs watching an old movie on the black and white.

I couldn't have been laying there more than a few minutes, when I heard Ray whispering to me from his bed in the back bedroom, "Steven. Come Here. I have a quarter for you."

Unable to resist the temptation of this quarter, I crept out of my bed and peeped around the corner and saw Ray holding out his closed hand. As I crept into their room, attempting to retrieve this fictitious quarter, Ray suddenly grabs my hand and pulls me into his bed and begins giving me a "Zonkel Head", which was his invented name for squeezing the top of my head very hard.

So, I start screaming and laughing typical of a two-year old.

The next thing you know, the bedroom light goes on and there's my mom standing there in the doorway and says, "Alright, that's it! Now, you're all gonna get it!

Now, we're all staring up in surprise and fright at my mom holding my father's police belt. Waiting for who was going to be the first to get it.

Then Michael, who's actually trying to sleep, pleads "Why am I gonna get it? I didn't do nothing!"

Thankfully, that saved us.

You never knew what my mom was going to say next. She would say, "When I die, I want a Viking Funeral. Just put me on a Viking ship and set it on fire out at sea."

She was also a great kidder. In her final days, I once asked her if she wanted something to drink. She perked up and said, "How about a Manhattan." I'll never forget what my mom said to me on my wedding day. She said, "You're married now. Take good care of Donna. Your mother doesn't come first anymore. Your wife comes first now.

In closing, I would like to say, that over the past 48 years, my Dad, Ray, Mike and myself were given the greatest gift you could ever ask for in life. A woman who put her family first, who stood firm on her beliefs, cooked the most delicious meals and told the most descriptive and imaginative stories. Every year she sewed our Halloween costumes from scratch and her Christmas shopping was completed by early November.

She got up every day at 5 a.m., saw us off to school, and took public transportation into Center City for work. She always arrived an hour early for her job at Strawbridge's, and arrived back home at 7 p.m. She ate her dinner and helped us with our homework until it was time for bed.

She spent her days off cooking and cleaning and never asked for a whole lot in return.

She praised us openly to other people and saw to it that we grew up with a healthy self-esteem.

She gave the most heartfelt hugs and the most tender kisses when we were feeling sad or injured ourselves playing football.

She was a woman who never gave up or let the harsh cruelties of life steal away her dreams.

They say Time is the Fire in which we burn. We leave so many things unfinished in our lives. Louise Pascali left nothing unfinished. Her work is clearly done.

There's a loss that can never be replaced, a destination that can never be reached. A light you'll never find in another's face. A sea whose distance cannot be breached.

Thank you all very much for being with my father and the rest of our family today.

I mention all of these memories today, because although Louise will not be remembered in history as a great person, she was a woman who achieved greatness through her undying love and loyalty to her family, her job and her friends.

I don't know where my Mom's next life will take her. But, I do know this. She's wearing those Ruby Slippers - somewhere over the rainbow.