Charles and Lucy Casoria

When my father passed in 2006, it was somewhat unexpected and I could not compose myself enough to speak at my father's funeral. When my mother passed, I honored them both in the same eulogy.

I really should have spoken at my father's funeral but I was totally destroyed at the time so I opted to be silent. So many thoughts have filtered through my mind since then and I always knew this time would be coming, but for some reason, the date and time of his death was a shock. I play-acted it in my mind a million times of how this day would go. I know this is my mother's funeral, but for me, it is not only that but an end to an era. Because for me, and for the few people in this church who witnessed it personally, Lucy and Charles Casoria where one in the truest sense of the word. They were basically an anomaly, especially in today's society for two people to be so dedicated to one another that they operated in one accord. And it is for that reason that I not only want to speak about my mother but also about my father. Because for Lucy, she was nothing without Charlie, and although Charlie was the stronger, more dominant of the two, in reality,it was the same for him. Charlie could not have ended up being who he was without Lucy. She was literally the strength behind the strong man and neither one of them if given a chance would have ever done it any differently.

The sad and unfair thing about life is it seems that when you grow older and life takes its twists and turns, you end up like today at a funeral for a person and the people attending might not have really known the person�"the support is for the offspring and that's cool and I appreciate that. So I would like to take this opportunity to give you a glimpse of who they were. 

My father was the more dominant of the two. For many the joke was and still is is I am my father's daughter. I can agree with that I guess. Because the parts of his character�"the stubbornness, the strong opinions, the sticking to a cause or a belief even when the results in your favor would seem unlikely, that “my way or the highway” mentality, and that flair of Italian temper �"yeah, I guess I can see the similarities. They say that Fire + Fire=explosion. That was me and my dad. But what others may have not noticed or even realized is that behind the man, was a woman. And behind the daughter that has such strong characteristics of her father, was the mother. For every time the daughter was stubborn and the father was stubborn, my mother was always the peacemaker. And she wasn't a peacemaker like I would be. For me to call peace I would say everyone here needs to get along now and I am going to make sure it happens. Mom didn't handle it like that. I can remember right after graduation from college. It was 1987. Now when I was living away at school, no one had a problem with me living on my own because that is just what you do. But at the time I did not realize that when I came back and chose not to live with them, that my father would take such offense. So when my father found out I was moving in with a friend, he went ballistic. I still remember being outside the front of my parents home, and as I approached the front door I could hear my father yelling from inside the house basically towards me but he wasn't showing himself. Now before I go any further, let me preface by saying who the players are here�"3 full blooded Italians so nothing can be neat and tidy when you are dealing with that. Anyway, so I am in the front of the house, and he is yelling through the door, “tell her to get off the property, I don't have a daughter. ” So I started yelling back, of course, “you're disowning me?”, As I approached the door to walk into the house to give him a piece of my mind, my mother stopped me at the door. And not everyone might agree with this but this is how she did it. She said, “stop, you need to leave�"for now. He is very very upset, you have hurt him badly and he needs to calm down. Please leave. You know he will get over it.” I remember leaving thinking I have no foothold here, they're both against me. But I did go away and like my mother had said, it took a little bit but she called me to come back to the house, and things were worked out. And what I never knew until later was what went on behind the scenes. She said to him later on when she was able to talk to him: “you need to get over this. You have exiled your daughter, and I need my daughter and you need to make things right. And he did. So that is the power of the man behind the woman. 

And in return he worshiped the ground she walked on�"he really did. No matter what type of self-made man he was who reinvented himself over and over again through various entrepreneurial endeavors and even after his retirement, his true happiness was being loved by my mother, because for her, the sun rose and set in his eyes, and I always believed that he drew his strength to be all that he was because of that love. That he was able to be a better man because of her.

I have often used that type of love as a gauge for my own life and because of it have often been disappointed with people not matching up. That might sound as if I am saying that nobody can ever match up to my father so no one is ever going to be worthy but that is not it at all. But there is a way my father loved and respected this woman through not only his words, but actions that showed me that anything less than that is unacceptable. My father once told me a story about upsetting my mother once very badly. It was a ferris wheel ride in Coney Island, she did not like roller coasters but he convinced her it wouldn't be that bad but he knew better. But he thought she would be fine once she experienced it. She was absolutely frightened to death. He was so taken by how upset she was over that ride and how it made her feel that he vowed to make an effort each and every day of their lives to honor her feelings regardless of whether he personally understood them or not. So whenever over the years I would have my smart mouth or an attitude because things weren't going my way or I treated her with any disrespect, he would always call me on it. And he called me on it as recent as 2005�"he was sick with his illness but at home and she had moderate-to severe Alzheimers at this point. I would sometimes get frustrated by the disease, which many do, because it would get frustrating as time went on. Sh would repeat herself over and over again and she would ask me the same questions and it would get worse and worse. I remember once him seeing my frustration and didn't have a problem pointing out to me “I know you are frustrated, but this is your mother, and she loves you more than anything else in this world. Every word when you are not around is "where is Charlene?". And you'll miss her the day she is no longer here standing right next to you loving you, asking you if everything is alright. He was right again. He was always right.

My friend Edda reminded me of how best to sum this all up. It's 2006 and my mother has been cared for by a friend of mine as my father has been in and out of the hospital, from nursing home to hospital, back and forth. All my mother knows at this point is that she is not with Charlie and she is waiting for him to come home. He was being discharged from the hospital and being transferred to the nursing home for recovery and I had worked it out that I would have my mother transferred into the same room in the nursing home so they could be together finally after so many months of separation. They transfer him into the room but he is oblivious at this point of where he is going. They go to set him up in his bed and as they do this, my mother sees that it is him and runs to him yelling “Charlie, my Charlie!” He heard her voice and started crying "Lucy, my Lucy!" and they embraced. There wasn't a dry eye in the room. Maybe there isn't a dry eye in Heaven.