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Eulogy for my Grandmother - Save us from serious and sullen saints!

Reflection for Nanny’s funeral 

Monday, January 14, 2013

Thank you all for coming today.  My name is Ned Berghausen, and Barbara Cassidy was my grandmother.  I am the oldest of her ten grandchildren.  I am sure she would have been overjoyed to see you all here today.  She always loved and thrived on social occasions, and the more people together, the better.  I know she would have especially loved to have seen all her family together.  The last time we were all in one place was for her and my grandfather’s 50th anniversary.  Their marriage and relationship was such a strong bond, that we all have all looked to them as an example of married life.  As someone who is recently married, I have really come to appreciate their example and witness of a faith-filled marriage. 

For their 50th anniversary in 2005, the whole family went on a cruise together.  At the time, I was serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Bangladesh, and the family all thought that I was the one family member that wouldn’t be able to make it.  It was so important to the two of them, and especially to her, that they flew me home, but they didn’t tell the rest of the family.  Nanny sent PawPaw to the airport on the pretext of picking up a box of T-shirts. The family was all together at my grandparents’ house.   You should have seen my family’s faces when I showed up there in PawPaw’s car when I was supposed to be on the other side of the planet.  I will especially never forget my Aunt Kathy’s face. That is just the sort of joyful surprise that Barbara, my Nanny, lived for. 

St Teresa of Avila prayed, “From serious, sullen saints, save us, Oh Lord.”   My grandmother was a saint, and probably just the sort that St Teresa would have appreciated.  She wasn’t serious or somber, but full of joy.   My cousin Sada read you a poem about Nanny as she remembered her before her sickness.   People frequently said about her that she looked ten years younger than she was.  She was such a vibrant, life-filled woman.  The people I talked to the last few days frequently mentioned her laughter.  She had a very memorable and infectious laugh.  She was also a practical joker

 Probably every grandchild thinks that their grandparents are saints, but I suspect with my grandma, this conviction is shared by more people than just me.  I don’t mean for my reflection to be a hagiography, a traditional, airbrushed biography of a saint.  My Nanny had her shortcomings.  You only needed to visit while PawPaw was watching a basketball game to them in evidence.  She hated it when he watched ball games.  She also was not a real big fan of dogs or pets of any kind. 

If you knew my Nanny, though, you knew that her most memorable trait was her service of others.   She touched so many lives, and she loved to help people.  I lived with her and PawPaw for five of the happiest months of my life after I returned from the Peace Corps.  They were so kind to me, at a time when I was deep in the throes of reverse culture shock and bewildered by things like grocery stores and the unlimited choices they offered.  If it was ever a challenge for them to have a 20-something grandchild living in their basement, they never showed it.   

  I remember when I lived there, the phone was constantly ringing.  It was usually someone who was lonely and needed a friend or somebody who needed a hard-to-find something from the Bargain Barn.   I am sure that almost all of you have something from the Bargain Barn in your houses.  If you visited her, she was sure to both feed you and give you something.  At family dinners you could be sure you could never get her to sit down.  She was always hovering about making sure everyone else had enough and was happy. 

Yesterday, I met two of my mom’s friends from high school, Enrique and Eddie.  They told me that at first they liked to come over to see my mom and Aunt Kathy at their house, but after repeated visits they wanted to hang out with Barbara!  I heard how there were times that my Nanny would make a pizza at 2AM to feed these hungry kids. 

My aunt Gerri told me a story about one of their neighbors from the two or three years that they lived in Miami, Florida.  This woman lost her husband at a young age and in a tragic way.  My grandma stayed in touch, and would call her every year on the anniversary of her husband’s death for 25 years or 30 years.  The woman said it meant so much to her to have someone remember her husband and share in her grief. 

Nanny grew up in a house of nine children. She always claimed that all those kids never fought. Never once.  I know that strains belief (PawPaw would always chuckle a bit), but if never fighting could ever be true of a person, it would be Nanny.  PawPaw (my grandpa Al) told me that she never complained during her long illness.  She might say that she wasn’t feeling well, but she never asked, “why me God?”  My sister Katie told me that Nanny said to her, “Katie, Parkinson’s is the pits.

Nanny used to tell the boys in our family that we were her Best Boy.  The secret was, you never stayed as the best boy for long.  It was like the old Highlander movies, there could be only one.  Only one Best Boy at a time, and everybody wanted to be Nanny’s Best Boy, and she’d let you know if you were doing anything that moved you down the list.  She called the girls in the family, “My Girl,” and she’d pat her daughters and granddaughters on the knee and say, “you’re my girl.” 

My grandmother’s faith was strong, and it was shown in relationship with other people.  Hers was very much a lived faith, one of service and generosity.  On one of the last days I visited her, Archabbot Lambert from St Meinrad came to pray with her.  She couldn’t talk, but she made the sign of the cross and held her hands together in prayer.

In the Gospel of John, right after washing the apostles’ feet at the Last Super, Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment:  love one another, as I have loved you. This is how all will know that you are my disciples.” The old Christian hymn says, They Shall Know we are Christians by Our Love.  If you knew my Nanny, you knew her great love.  The best way that we keep our memory of her alive, is by loving each other and serving each other as she did each of us.  Thank you. 

“I kept faith, even when I said, “I am greatly afflicted.”  Psalm 116:10 

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