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Memorial Remembrances of Philomena Aquino

by John Aquino on 05/07/17

This is the eulogy I delivered for my mother on April 25, 2017 at St. Ann Church, Washington, D.C.

It has been so overwhelming for me to read family members and friends write on Facebook and hear them in person referring to our Mom, Philomena Zappi Aquino, as an angel. It has special meaning to me because that is my first memory of her--coming into our room at night, with the light from the hall behind her bathing her shoulders and angelically crowning her head. Today, she surely is an angel. But throughout her entire life she acted like an angel in so many ways.

She was like a guardian angel, watching over us, caring for us, giving us guidance and hope. If you had a problem, she had a problem. And this was true for her children, her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, her brothers and sisters, her nieces and her nephews.

I remember her brother Pat telling us that after her wedding he, his brother Sam and their sisters Mary, Edith and Joe stood and cried because their elder sister had always been there for them and they would miss her so. When her grandson Robert Pascucci wanted to go to California to look into working in films, Grandma went with him. Now Grandma never possessed a credit card and as a result they had difficulty renting a car, but in the end they bopped around Hollywood together, the ultimate road trip. Her niece Linda in Texas wrote that it was our Mom’s example and advice that inspired her to get her Master’s, and all of her nieces and nephews knew that if they needed help they could dial “A” for Aunt Phil Aquino. Just a few years ago, Mom heard that the ring bearer at her wedding, who had gone on to become a monsignor, was dying. She wrote him and said she would be happy to pay his way to Washington and that she would take care of him in his last days. She was 95 and he was 75, and she was going to take care of him. And Mom has continued to take care of her son James—his cremains will be buried with her in her coffin today.

Mom was generous, kind and, like an angel, also fearless. It never dawned on her that that something couldn’t be done. Our Dad used to recite a poem that went,

Everyone said that it couldn’t be done,

But he with a chuckle replied

That maybe it couldn’t but he would be one

Who wouldn’t say so till he tried.

So he hurried right in

With a bit of a grin on his face,

If he worried he hid it.

He started to sing as he tackled the thing that couldn’t be done

And he did it.

 

Dad recited the poem. Mom did the poem. She lived the poem. She was the poem. Mom spoke Italian before she spoke English but went on to earn a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in English and teach English language and literature. She drove until she was 95, she mowed her own lawn until she was 98. When her children sent her to Italy in the wonderful company of her brother Sam, his wife Barbara and their daughter and Mom’s goddaughter Mary for her 70th birthday, she was the one who insisted that they climb the Spanish steps. I remember one evening Deborah and I were at Mom’s house for dinner and she said, “Will you go up to my bedroom, open the window and reach out and pull a strand of ivy that is growing up the brick. I’ve been working on getting rid of the ivy. I've been stretching out and I’ve gotten most of it but I’ve stretched and stretched and I can’t quite get the last bit.” I said, “Mom, I’ve going to come to see you and find you lying on the front lawn!” We got her one of those necklace buttons to push for an emergency. She fell and fractured her pelvis and didn’t tell anyone for three days, even though we called her every day. We said, “Mom, why didn’t you push the button.” She said, “Why would I press the button. I could get up.”

In addition to watching over us and being fearless, she was like an angel in other ways, one of which was that I actually thought sometimes that she could fly. She would spend the day teaching students and helping them, and then fly home and care for a dying husband, care for an ailing mother, and feed and help her children do homework. It was like she was in three places at once, and in each place she was helping someone.

Mom lived a long and beautiful life. At every birthday party after she was 65, I, with my pigeon Italian, would toast her, saying “Cent’anni, ” which means may you live 100 years. And she would look at me, smile, and say, “Bite your tongue.” When she turned 98, I started toasting, “Cent’anni, et altro cent’anni”—a hundred years and another hundred years, and she shot me such a look.

And, as always, mother knew best. As the saying goes, growing old isn’t for sissies. I remember reading that in ancient Rome, the life expectancy was 30 but a few people lived to be 100, maybe 105. Today, the life expectancy is in the high seventies, but the body still doesn’t last much beyond 100. It was difficult, I know, for Mom, who was so used to taking care of other people, to have to have people take care of her. It was frustrating for her not to be able to talk to family members on the phone and to give advice and help out. But she went with the flow—one of her favorite expressions—and kept her good humor. And she was often very funny. We showed her the invitation for the 90th birthday celebration of her brother Pat, who was 10 years younger than she, listing some of his many accomplishments, and she said, “Gee, he really got to be a big shot.”

Now, she’s gone, but not really. My wife Deborah quotes a statement of St. John Chrysostom (shared with her by a dear Benedictine friend) that when a loved one dies they are no longer where they were, they are where you are. Mom is here in our hearts and minds, and she is elsewhere. She told us so herself in a way. When Mom was still able to talk, she was lying in the hospital bed in her living room speaking to her daughter Jean and her husband Bob on the phone, and they said, “Mom, you’re still so young at heart. What do you want to do? What do you want to be?” There was a pause, and then Mom said, “Guardian of the Galaxy.” And what had happened was the television was on, and there was an ad for the film “Guardians of the Galaxy,” the type rolled across the screen and Mom read it aloud. The more I thought about what she had said, the more sense it made.

Mom, you’ve always been like a guardian angel for all of us. If anyone can be a guardian for the entire galaxy, it’s you. We miss you. We love you. We know you’re with your loved ones in heaven and are watching over us—and the galaxy—and we know you’ll keep doing your usual excellent job.

Copyright John T. Aquino 2017

Comments (1)

1. Daniel Duggan said on 5/12/17 - 11:59AM
John, A wonderful elegy for a lady in all the best senses of the word. That is the way I remember your mother, from many years ago, when you and I were young. Go now with her love always in your heart, as she is now with the Lord. Dan


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