I've always been puzzled by the way so many obits and eulogies end: "She is survived by ..." - as though everyone reading the obit is taking advantage of a last opportunity to stick their tongues out at the one about whom it has been written. "We'll have a beer tonight after your interment, and in a generation and a half (two at the outside), you'll be little more than a nameless relative in an occasional family photo. We've survived you." But I won't have to worry about the peculiar language of "survivorship" with this obituary, partly because I'm writing it, partly because very few who knew her would ever think that way, and partly because my mom, Carol Greco, is not so much survived by anyone as she is mourned by them; and for good reason.
Mom buried more siblings and friends than most people will record in a forest of family trees, including her husband of 49 years. With each death, those of us who were close to her could see a part of HER die too - the feistiness that enticed my dad to put his fist through more than a couple of walls in their younger married years and gave her the ability to thrive as one of the earliest women in management in the early years of a then "male-dominated" silicon valley - being slowly chipped away with the presentation of each casket. But she was too busy comforting and helping nieces, nephews, children and friends to ever consider herself "a survivor" of anyone. No matter how badly you had soiled your life, you knew that Aunt Carol still loved you; even when you fully deserved all you were getting, mom could be counted on to knock on the door halfway through a whipping you had certainly earned, resulting in dad cutting it shorter than it should have been; when you didn't have enough money to pay for your cut and perm, she mysteriously "remembered" that she was running a special that day on cuts and perms; if she suspected that you wanted a second steak, she was coincidentally "not hungry" that evening; and when your boyfriend had broken up with you or your parents were driving you crazy, Grandma Greco (whether she was your biological Grandmother or not) somehow knew just what you needed to hear in order to feel whole again.
No, my mom isn't survived by people; she's lamented by them, missed by them, cherished by them, emulated by them. No focus on "surviving Carol Greco" here, only assorted questions about how to survive the next time some critical part of life breaks apart and she's not there to answer her phone when you call to ask about how it might be glued back together.
Born in Sacramento in 1932, Carol is not survived by any of her five siblings either. All three of her brothers preceded her in death: Joe was killed by a drug addict he caught trying to steal Christmas presents out of his car; Pete died after a long battle with cancer; and Walter finally lost a life-long wrestling match with polio. Neither of her sisters outlived her: Mary was taken by cancer, and "Tiny" (Josephine to the uninformed, and the youngest of six children) died as a result of the same complications to the same type of surgery that took their father. Mom isn't survived by our dad, Art Sr. In fact, he died right in front of her, in spite of her aggressive attempts to revive him through CPR while paramedics rushed to her aid in response to her 911 call. Yet, regardless of the tragedy Carol’s eyes saw and the pain her heart endured, mom IS survived by the hope she gave, the love she shared, the Christian faith she lived, the kindness she showed, the tenacity with which she defended, and the legacy to which she contributed.
In short: mom was a pretty great woman - not a perfect one, to be sure - but a great one nonetheless.
Friends and family will gather on two occasions to celebrate the ways mom helped them to "survive" through the example she was as she pushed through the hardships of Multiple Sclerosis and resisted the temptation it brought to become reclusive and bitter. The first of those meetings will take place at her committal service at San Joaquin National Cemetery in Santa Nella, CA, on Friday, October 28th, at 1:00 P.M. The second gathering will serve as mom's memorial service, on Friday, November 4th, at 5:30 P.M., at her church, Tigard Covenant Church, 11321 SW Naeve St. (corner of Naeve and Hwy 99), Tigard, OR. Mom's pastor, Rev. David Greenidge will lead the memorial and the church will provide a light meal immediately following the service.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorial gifts be sent to the Tigard Covenant Benevolence fund to aid them as they care for the poor, broken, needy, and discarded. After all, if brokenness and neediness insist on "surviving" my mom, why shouldn't the church's historic ability to address those things be helped to survive her, too?
