I think my sister Nora came out of the womb talking.
We called her “Chatty Cathy,” after the doll that talked when you pulled her string.
But you didn’t need to pull any string to get Nora to talk.
She was a natural-born storyteller. The stories she told were your stories, all of you gathered here to mourn her. She told these stories because she loved you and she found your lives fascinating and worth sharing with others.
And so …because of Nora --I knew a lot about Shane and Colby, Duane and Amy.. and Juliana, Duane the third and Hope. I knew when Stuie was cracking jokes you couldn’t understand and I got the whole story when DeeDee hit a flagpole at a garage sale. I knew what was up with DeeDee’s nieces and her sister-in-law Marcia and her cousin Janet. I knew about Chris and Keith Schueler’s love lives and career successes. I knew when Rick and Maria landed in Lake Havasu City in winter and when they returned to the cove in spring. I tried to keep tabs on the all the different folks in the Connecticut Connection…Nora knew who they all were, but I needed a big diagram.
I heard second-hand Doc Nesbitt’s medical advice. I heard about Paulette’s decline. I experienced Boots’ final hours and her funeral because Nora told me about them. I knew how bad Hurricane Irene was for Catharine and Jesse Hamilton in Vermont. I heard about Corry Heinrich and her healing oils.
Because of Nora, I knew what exquisite care Rocco took with cars and I knew each developmental milestone Rozzie, Dahlia and Daisy achieved. I followed the reconstruction of Jen Dee’s house and the progression of Nancy Shields’ husband Arne’s illness. Nora always let me know about Ernie and Lori –whom we called Sonny and Cher—and their kids. I learned about a new neighbor, the Forgers and their Dunkin Donut franchises.
Nora once walked back and forth between her house and Tom & Judy Caroon’s to ask legal advice of their lawyer daughter Julianne and relay it back to me by phone. Nora was as proud of Julianne as if Julianne were her own daughter.
I knew how Nora treasured her time this summer with Michael and Patty Peck and how pleased she was when Michael admitted he had had a crush on her when they were teenagers. I heard all about the lovelyJulia Bonaime.
When she lived on William Street in the Cape, I heard all about Sheri Hall, Bud and Ruth Constance, the Youngs, Barry and Amy Davis, the LaMoras.
Nora had married into a large and colorful family, and through her, I knew about the impeccably-dressed Uncle Charlie the undertaker and his wife Flora the former showgirl. I knew about Aunt Hilda and Aunt Elsie. And John’s many cousins –Boots and Judy and Candy, Sally and Tootie, Billy and Debbie Dermody, Judy Dermody Buffum and Chuckie Cummmings – and their richly-patterned lives. I heard about Cousin Cathy’s unexpected death in California, and how sad Nora was that she was alone when she died.
Nora also told me about all the travails of John’s friends:Angelo, Ken from Spicer’s Bay marina, Tony Lawyer, Kenny and Lolly, the larger-than-life and louder-than-life Tommy Gates, Dick Battista, and Bill Fisher…whom Nora set up on dates with a couple of her friends. In the summers before she got sick, she would routinely have ten or 12 people at her dinner table…many of whom I had first met through her stories. And she always had a freshly baked layer cake on the cake plate.
Nora came late to teaching, but she was a natural-born teacher. She loved the collegiality of working with .teachers, principals, aides and superintendents…friends like Marlene and Joe Durgin, Ann Crissley, Cathy Bell, Mike Bashaw, Dr. Slattery, Heather LeVarnway, Amy Booth, Toni Gibson, Bonnie Cooper, Joanne Faukenham. Myra LaClair, Lisa Graham, Bob Hurley, Debbie Eldredge Block, Miranda Urac McKenzie. (Nick said Miranda named her first child after him.)
She was very involved in the lives of her students. Nora would buy clothes for her students at garage sales and the Salvation Army. Her friend Marlene Durgin talked about how Nora once sent flowers to the mother of a student…the mother had never before received flowers.
Nora also told wonderful stories about her very special special ed students. I remember one student would come into school in the morning and immediately strip off all his clothes. Another student with Asperger’s did flawless weather reports in a broadcaster'’s voice.
Nora grew up in a suburb outside New York City in a family dominated by strong women. My mother sang in a deep alto and was one tough cookie. I was the oldest …they adopted my brother Lou, who was probably psychologically damaged when we made him play dress-up with us. Then came the twins,Marian and Margaret. Nora w as the baby of the family for 6 years until my late brother Tommy came along. Nora was named for my mother’s favorite aunt and Nora was my mother’s favorite because she had brown eyes like my Dad. In her twenties, Nora lived with both Margaret and Marian in Tucson Arizona.
Along the way, Nora would add on some sisters-in-spirit…Dee Dee and Maria, Birgitt and Christina Trottier, Carol DeAugusta, Debbie Solensky, Lisa Savage. And she was extremely attached to our Aunt Ann and our cousins, especially Eileen, Kathleen, Tommy, Georgie and Carol Ann .
Nora not only talked early, she sang in her crib, rocking back and forth, usually singing one or another tune from the 1920’s or 1930s that my mother had taught her…Daisy, Daisy give me your answer true…and I love you, Yes I do, I love you.
She always loved music and went to concerts with Marian and Margaret from the time she was a teen until just a couple of weeks ago. She went to many Dave Matthews concerts with Nick and Kendall. She and I and Maria liked going to concerts at the Clayton Opera House. She was scheduled to go to a concert this coming weekend with DeeDee in Long Island. The music choices at today’s service –played by my son and daughter-in-law Matt and Melany—were ones Nora chose for her funeral….Joni Mitchell and John Lennon and Kansas. We can only be thankful she didn’t request Stairway to Heaven and Innagoddadivida.
She even told stories about her pets of the barking, swimming and tweeting variety.
She often told me about her fish who lived in that big tank in her living room. And she was always shocked when the big predator fish ate the small ornamental fish.
Her Airedale Buttercup was her canine soulmate for many years. Nora thought the dog’s full name… Buttercup LaChance..made her sound like a streetwalker. Nora also believed Buttercup was lesbian, a concept I never thought about before in a dog. Nora named her Maltese Sparkle after comedienne Gilda Radner’s dog… Gilda had ovarian cancer too.
On May 4, 2006 Nora called to tell me she has just been diagnosed with stage 3C ovarian cancer. Like Nora, 75 percent of women are not diagnosed until late stage. When the cancer has spread, only25 of women percent survive 5 years.
It was a death sentence. But Nora went for 29 chemo sessions over these past 5 and a half years. She would be so sick for 10 days after chemo that she stayed in the house and didn’t talk to anyone. Each time she recovered, she got up, made dinner, did the recycling, and went out to concerts and the movies and garage sales. She was good to go until the next sickening round of chemo.
When an intestinal blockage of tumor and scar tissue made it impossible for her to eat real food, she hooked herself up to a tube in her arm each night for nutrition. During the day, she walked around with plastic piping that snaked out of her gut to a plastic bag that held bile. Her cousin Shannon made her a hunter-green pouch to hold the bile bag. She turned her disability into a fashion statement.
She was proud to have participated in the national documentary The Whisper about the misdiagnosed symptoms of ovarian cancer.
She wanted so desperately to eat again that she underwent surgery in Boston this May to bypass the intestinal blockage. But the surgeon couldn’t find enough usable intestine, and the operation failed. For 20 months, she lived on liquid nutrition. But every time I talked to her, she would ask, “What are you making for dinner tonight?”
When she joined Facebook, she found another way to keep in contact with old friends, nieces and nephews and cousins, in-laws and out-laws. She was always posting links on political issues, including medical marijuana.
Her step-children Julie and Johnny were her age and were more friends than children.
Julie, one of the most fun times we all had on the river was your wedding reception in the back yard at Rock Beach in the summer of 2005. Nora, Sue, DeeDee and her nieces, Maria, Tom Caroon, Tom McQueeny and Maeve planned and catered the reception. Nick was the bartender.
Johnny, you provided monumental support to Nora and the family in her final years. She often expressed her gratitude to me for what you’ve done. She cherished Max and Sam and Sue, and always let me know what they were up to.
Nick, Mom thought you were a genius from the time you were an infant. We’ve been talking these last few days about all your hi-jinks…impersonating a park ranger, untying a sailboat full of sleeping passengers and letting it float away on the St. Lawrence, setting coffee creamers on fire after Nanny Amoroso’s funeral and causing the evacuation of an entire hotel. You caused Mom a lot of grief but she still thought you were a genius. She was so proud that you have grown into a successful, hard-working and empathetic adult who still retains his crazy, hyperactive, smart-ass, fast-thinking sense of self.
Kendall, your mother loved you so much.. You owe it to her and to yourself to become the glorious, acoomplished and loving woman your mother was. To do that, you get out of bed every day, put one foot in front of the other, ask yourself “What good can I do for the world today?” and pray to your mother for guidance.
John, the greatest story Nora lived in her life was your love story. Like any married couple, you had your ups and downs, but she valued the tender care you took of her. You first met when you took her for a boat ride in 1975. She loved all the boat rides you took her on for the next 36 years, and she was amazed at the house you designed and built for her. Each time you parted, even if it was just while she went to shop at Big M, you kissed each other three times on the lips. She couldn’t do that when she parted this last time, but you know what was in her heart. There will be three kisses waiting for you in Heaven.
She is gone from us, but she is somewhere else: probably chewing St. Peter’s ear off, planning an exquisite meal with Mom, Dad, Tommy, Ann & Achie, Paulette, Arne, Boots and Doc Nesbitt and inquiring about setting up a celestial Facebook account
.
We are better because she loved us and told us one another’s stories.
