Long Goodbye (Amy Carol Webb)

Constance (Concetta) Izzo Driskell Maresco

September 9, 1930 - July 19, 2009

Mom passed away peacefully in her sleep about 7:00 this morning, July 19, 2009. We are currently in process of contacting friends and relatives and will keep everyone posted as to details of funeral arrangements as they unfold. Mari and Brad are at Mom's house now and Sue will be flying back up later today. Thanks in advance to all for your continued love, support and prayers.

Please check Mom's CaringBridge Journal and Guestbook for updates - long story short: ultimately, mom was prepared... physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually (she really did do it Her Way... :-)

P.S. Synchronistically, it's also the seventh anniversary of the death of Dave Carter - those who know me will understand the significance...

SONG: Long Goodbye by Amy Carol Webb (link to YouTube video)

BOOK: Nobody's Child: How Older Women Say Good-Bye to Their Mothers by Diane Sher Lutovich

POEM: Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

QUOTE(S): "Grief, when it comes, is nothing we expect it to be... After my mother died I received a letter from a friend in Chicago, a former Maryknoll priest, who precisely intuited what I felt. The death of a parent, he wrote, 'despite our preparation, indeed, despite our age, dislodges things deep in us, sets off reactions that surprise us and that may cut free memories and feelings that we had thought gone to ground long ago. We might, in that indeterminate period they call mourning, be in a submarine, silent on the ocean's bed, aware of the depth charges, now near and now far, buffeting us with recollections.' "~ Joan Didion

"...it's not really when you die. It's whether or not you really lived."~ Jerri Nielsen