Just returned from the funeral of a very close family friend (so close that I always knew her as “Aunt” Eileen, and she really was family). She had suffered from Glioblastoma, the most aggressive form of brain cancer, for close to a year, and finally succumbed to it a week ago. All of her friends were forced to bear witness as the cancer changed her into someone mostly unrecognizable. Although she did have her moments of clarity and her sharp wit did on occasion return to her, it really seems like she’s died twice, now: last April, when the tumors were first removed, and then again on January 30th, which made it official.
The funeral procession was certainly harrowing: the hearse was moving along at around 85 mph for much of the trip, and we traveled from Belmar to the George Washington Bridge in about 50 minutes. The torrential rain didn’t help things.
Eileen was extremely close with an amazing amount of people — I wouldn’t be surprised if fifty people turned up at her wake, and all of them had a very deep connection with her. What was interesting about her friends was that she had certain different “groups” or “pods” of people she knew: there were her friends from childhood, her coworkers, people that vacationed with her at the shore and at a lodge on Hunter Mountain in upstate New York, and many, many others. All of them, even if they only knew her for four years, were very close to her. It was her personality that made this possible: she was incredibly smart, very quick-witted, and unbelievably kind — perhaps these seem like cliched qualities in amicable people, but everyone that knew Eileen knows how truly they applied to her.
It so happened that one of these groups of friends was made up of some police officers, and it turned out that one of them was owed a favor by a sergeant. So, when we show up to the GW Bridge, not one, not two, not three, but six police cars join the procession and escort us across the bridge. When we got to the Cross-Bronx Expressway, which was to take us to the cemetery, the police practically closed it off for us; one of the cars would park itself in front of the on-ramps so that nobody could jump on the highway and interrupt us.
Naturally, everybody in the procession broke down crying as soon as we saw what the police were doing; everyone’s thought was that Eileen would have found the scene hysterical if she had been with us. I admit with no reservations that I cried as well, even if it was mostly on the inside.
I’ve rambled for a bit, and I’m probably getting too personal — most people that read this didn’t know this wonderful woman and how she touched everybody she knew, so I’ll get to the point. Her illness was horrible, and being the kind woman that she was Eileen didn’t have the strength to bear it. She had never been married or had any children, and the only relatives she had left at the end were a few wonderful cousins that I had the great fortune of meeting today. But through it all, she was supported by some of the greatest friends anybody could ever ask for. They wanted her to know that she wasn’t alone in her sickness, and they all stood by her until the very end. One of these friends was her childhood “sister” Gail: even though Gail’s right leg was broken very badly in an accident just a few short months after Eileen’s surgery, she and her three children did so much to help her. They organized holiday dinners, managed her money for her, and did their very best to make sure that Eileen never felt abandoned or alone. When the time came, they took care of her funeral arrangements, and despite the sadness and the high-speed highway procession it turned out to be a very beautiful sendoff indeed.
When we were thanking Gail, she said that she was just a normal human being. But that was the thing: it is because she possessed such humanity and such kindness toward this wonderful woman in her time of greatest need that she was extraordinary.
Every story has a lesson. The lesson I have taken from Eileen’s life and struggle is that the most important thing in life is living. The most important thing we can do is survive and be content with the way we live. If you are happy with your life, you will live the rest of your days feeling like a king.
So goodbye, Eileen. Though you were taken sooner than any of us would have liked, the people you’ve left behind have been profoundly impacted by knowing you. Our only regret is that we could not have been friends for a little while more.
You were the most wonderful person I have ever met, and the most wonderful I will ever meet.
Goodbye.
