Allow me to wax poetic, please or scroll on by if too sappy…
Mom has departed this vale of tears.
Forty years apart and much life in between, mom and dad stepped off this sod and into eternity.
But they live on here and there in their loved ones
In their photos and mementos with the memory of their laughter and tears. The funny stories and sad regrets. Their empty places and treasures they left behind. Their wise advice and lifelong faith.
They live on in the eyes and smiles of their families:
The face and funny stories of my brother are those of my da and his blarney!
The looks and personality of my oldest sis Patricia are a mirror of dad’s mom Nana Sharkey
The beauty, brains and heart of my sister Eileen are those of Dad’s sister Winnie and of dad himself♥.
The love and history we all have with each other are the fruit of mom and dad’s love and long marriage.
While we are any of us still treading this blue ball
the love and influence ancestry, hearts, minds, and dreams of our parents and their parents still live on in us.
At least for now.
Until we each step off this blue ball to join their beautiful souls in God’s eternity.
I don’t know if I’ll be saying a eulogy at my mom’s funeral. I said we didn’t want that ,and none of us likes to speak in public. But I wrote this today—in case. I thought I’d share it with a few friends to honor mom:
“10/16/2021 · Good morning, Welcome and thankyou for coming. Today we say goodbye to Margaret DeMasse—our friend, relative, and mother and grandmother. Margaret Mary McWilliams Elizabeth Gaffie Jones DeMasse That was the complete name she told me. And I always loved to rattle it off.All her relatives wanted her to have their names. Of course Jones was added when she married my dad Richard Francis Jones. Demasse was after she was widowed 2 years and married George DeMasse. Mom was born 3 days before Christmas in 1919 in Albany NY. Her mom Elizabeth cried and cried because she was in the hospital on Christmas. The only way her dad Edmund Gaffie could console her mom was to bring her a big turkey leg to eat in the hospital on Christmas! But of course,Mom was their only child and very, very loved. Unfortunately, her father died tragically in a fire when she was only 8 years old. She remembered him coming in late from work because he owned his own gas station and store. But he never came empty-handed; he spoiled her with candy. One story she told teenaged me ( after I cried so much at her mom’s viewing and funeral) , was about her dad’s funeral. She didn’t remember much, except the altar boy at the Mass. As distraught as she and her mother were, mom still remembered the gift of laughter God gave her at that Mass. The altar boy wore long vestments. He had to climb up and down steps leading to the altar throughout his duties at Mass. Mom said the little guy tripped on his way up the steps over and over throughout the funeral. 8 year old Margaret got a fit of laughter each and every time! She and her mom were very close and survived together through the Roaring 20s, AND the Great Depression. Then my mom and dad met in their 20s while working for the state of NY in accounting. They fell in love and married 11 months later with both their moms in attendance. The ceremony was at the Irish Catholic parish in NYC where my dad , his two siblings and his parents were members. St Michaels has been a thriving parish in the heart of Brooklyn since 1870! They married in April and honeymooned in DC, so mom could enjoy the cherry blossoms . Mom was soon expecting our sister Patricia. While pregnant, on December 7,1941 while cutting out paper curtains to hang in their apartment, mom heard the news over the radio that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. Men rushed out en masse to sign up for military service. Dad was not drafted due to the surge of volunteers available and the situation of him being a married man who wore glasses and had a newborn daughter. They raised a Catholic family of four kids and many grandkids over a 42 year marriage. 2 / 3 Dad retired in his 50’s and mom,dad, and I moved from upstate NY To here on, Merritt Island in August 1971. We knew the founding pastor well—Fr. Sean Malloy from Ireland. We were members here from then on. Mom was a member for 50 years!! Dad passed in April 1982—the same month as my parents’ wedding anniversary– and we had his funeral here, as we had done a few years before for my maternal grandmother who lived with us, Elizabeth Alber. Two years later, mom married George DeMasse. They met & married here at Divine Mercy. He had lost his first wife a few years before. She and George were happily married 14 years. Then we had George’s funeral here as well. And now we come for the fourth funeral of a family member. My whole lifetime, I heard Mom saying that she KNEW she was going to live to be 99! Well she did. Plus two more years that were a race downhill for her frail health. She died on August 15—the Feast of Mary’s Assumption— at 101 years old—exactly 50 years from the month we moved here to Merritt Island. But before that she enjoyed life and people, socializing, friends, singing, dancing, family and neighbors. She was a lifelong history-buff ,avid reader, birdwatcher, &gardener. Mom raised breathtaking beds of roses and tulips. She loved nature and always said God is the greatest artist with the beauty He paints for us. She always looked 20 years younger than her age. She’d been a homemaker, mom and grandmom and everybody’s friend. In NY, she worked as a foster mom for Catholic charities, loving and nurturing infants in our home for years. She’s been in church choirs, attended Bible studies and church groups, sent her kids to Catholic schools, and always kept the family first. She was devoted to the Blessed Mother and taught us all to pray the Rosary daily and always keep one under your pillow. The fact that she passed on a Marian Feast Day was, we feel, a gift from God and Our Lady. The last few years she had the constant companionship of her oldest child Patricia and caregivers and hospice lovingly provided by my sister Eileen. My brother Jerry came to stay a few weeks with her every year for her birthday and Christmas .Everyone always called and sent her flowers and cards for every special occasion. Her kids and grandkids celebrated Christmas and holidays by phone or in person with her always. My husband Naz has always looked on her as a second mother and gone way above and beyond to do anything for her that was needed. He never forgot how much she did for us when we were first married—even buying his first suit and dress shoes , so that he could go on job interviews after college. 3 / 3 We all feel a deep loss and big hole in our hearts now. The matriarch of our family—the glue that held us together, raised us, prayed for us, and told us our history and family stories—is gone. She touched many lives over her 101 years through the Great Depression, WW2 and all the crazy 20th century and on into the 21st century for 21 years!! We thank God for this wonderful and unique LIFE AND legacy He gave us in Margaret Mary McWilliams Elizabeth Gaffie Jones Demasse!! We now ask Him to take her soul to be with Him to the light and love of His heaven. Rest in Peace mom. Amen. “
Keeping UP With The Joneses—Family Memories 