Remarks by Dennis at Celebration of Life, Fairfax Memorial Funeral Home: 5 June 2008

Psychologists tell us that the death of a spouse is probably the most stressful and traumatic event that a husband or wife will ever face in their lifetime.  Likewise, the loss of a parent through death is often associated with a period of intense suffering for his or her children.  I thank all of you here tonight for coming out to be with me and Lisa and David and our families in our time of sorrow.  We are also comforted by our belief that my deceased parents and ancestors – the Sedlaceks and the Gehleys – and especially Nancy’s deceased parents and ancestors – the Tagliaferris and the Aiellos – are anxiously waiting to welcome Nancy to her new home.

Our Capital Hospice family counselor gave us a booklet to help us deal with Nancy’s dying.  The booklet has a short essay that helps remind us that our focus should not be on our grief. Our focus should be on Nancy.

"Gone From My Sight"
By Henry Van Dyke

I am standing upon the seashore.  A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.  She is an object of beauty and strength.  I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says: “There, she is gone!”

“Gone where?”

Gone from my sight.  That is all.  She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her.  And just at the moment when someone at my side says: “There, she is gone!”, there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: “Here she comes!”

And that is dying.

Tonight’s remarks started out in January with the title "A EULOGY FOR NANCY, MY WIFE".  After many title changes since then, in the end, I call my comments simply "A LOVE LETTER".  And the letter begins like this.

DEAR CINDERELLA,

I begin with three words: SHORT, HAPPY, and JOURNEY. A number of months ago I asked our son-in-law, the Reverend Jay Angerer, what advice he might give me to help prepare a eulogy.  He told me that he gives the same advice to those preparing a eulogy as he gives to those preparing a wedding toast: keep it short.  Tomorrow our son will deliver a short eulogy at the end of your funeral Mass at St. Bernadette. Our daughter Lisa helped David edit those remarks.  As they say in her household, she gave him much assistitude. My love letter tonight is not so short.

The second word is HAPPY.  Nancy, you were a happy person and you brought happiness to those around you.  When I met you at a dance in Charlottesville, Virginia, in September 1965, you were a happy college freshman.  Four years later, in 1969, you were a happy bride. Two years after that, you became a happy mother for the first time when Lisa was born in Heidelburg. And 32 years later, in 2003, you became a happy grandmother when Lisa gave birth to Renee.

Someone sent me an email sympathy card a while back that contained a sentiment I found very useful in preparing this letter.

“When I am dead and gone, do not frown and be sad.  Instead, smile and remember me when I was happy.”

But how are we supposed to smile when we sit here stressed and traumatized and grieving over the loss of a wife, a mother, a mother-in-law, a grandmother, a sister, a sister-in-law, a neighbor, a friend?  Maybe I can help your family and friends smile with a list I made.  I call it List 1: People, Places and Things That Made Nancy Happy.  I stopped when the list grew to over 60 items.  Here are just a few.

• Amusement parks
• Beaches 
• Carnival Cruises, castles, canolis, and Cirque du Soleil
• Dancing and drummer boys from Springfield, Tulsa and Vienna
• Emailing and Entertainment Tonight
• Family, friends, and funnel cakes 
• Grandchildren, girlfriends, and gondola rides
• Hot fudge sundaes, helicopter rides, and the Hubcaps
• Jewelry
• Line dancing
• Movie watching and marimbas
• Puzzles, painting, parades, pasta frolla, Peanut Buster Parfaits, and your PT Cruiser
• Roller coasters 
• Saxophones, shagging, snorkeling, S.O.S., and sex (but not necessarily in that order)
• Underwater adventures with tropical fish and rainbow-colored coral and me
• Water parks, waterslides, watermelon, and weddings
• Zoos and zucchini sticks

The third word is JOURNEY.  I borrowed the word from something my father once told me and something my mother gave me many years ago.  My father told me that he thought travel was a great education.  When you travel, you see new places, meet new people, and learn lessons that you can use in the future.  And if you travel with the same partner for a long enough time, you learn a whole lot about that partner, too, and about yourself.

My mother’s contribution to the word JOURNEY comes from a small piece of paper that she gave me almost 30 years ago.  It was an essay by a Southern Baptist minister named Robert J. Hastings.  According to Reverend Hastings, reading his essay out loud should invoke the feeling and rhythm of riding on a train.  My mother’s father had been a Union Pacific railroader for 49 years, and she often told me railroad stories as I was growing up.  Some of her happiest memories involved riding trains, and she must have known that some day Reverend Hastings’ essay would have special meaning for me.  Today is that day.

"THE STATION"
By Robert J. Hastings

Tucked away in our subconscious is an idyllic vision.  We see ourselves on a long trip that spans the continent.  We are traveling by train.  Out the windows we drink in the passing scene of cars on nearby highways, of children waving at a crossing, of cattle grazing on a distant hillside, of smoke pouring from a power plant, of row upon row of corn and wheat, of flatlands and valleys, of mountains and rolling hillsides, of city skylines and village halls.

But uppermost in our minds is the final destination.  On a certain day, at a certain hour, we will pull into the station.  Bands will be playing and flags waving.  Once we get there so many wonderful dreams will come true, and the pieces of our lives will fit together like a completed jigsaw puzzle.  How restlessly we pace the aisles, damning the minutes for loitering – waiting, waiting, waiting for the station.

“When we reach the station, that will be it!” we cry.  “When I’m 18.”  “When I buy a new 450SL Mercedes Benz!”  “When I put the last kid through college.”  “When I have paid off the mortgage!”  “When I get a promotion.”  “When I reach the age of retirement, I shall live happily ever after!”

Sooner or later, we must realize there is no station, no one place to arrive at once and for all.  The true joy of life is the trip.  The station is only a dream.  It constantly outdistances us.

“Relish the moment” is a good motto, especially when coupled with Psalm 118 Verse 24: “This is the day which the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”  It isn’t the burdens of today that drive men mad.  It is the regrets over yesterday and the fear of tomorrow.  Regret and fear are two thieves who rob us of today.

So, stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles.  Instead, climb more mountains, eat more ice cream, go barefoot more often, swim more rivers, watch more sunsets, laugh more, cry less.  Life must be lived as we go along.  The station will come soon enough.”

Reverend Hastings did not know Nancy, but I am convinced that it was her he was talking about in the last paragraph of his essay.  The Nancy I knew was the girl eating more ice cream, going barefoot, swimming, watching sunsets, laughing more, crying less, living life as she went along, and definitely not thinking about The Station.

And yet here we are at the station with her, at the station that came much sooner than we thought it would, or should.  How hard it is to smile.  To help us remember Nancy when she was happy, I made another list. I called it List 2: Places and Sights on Nancy’s Journey That Made Her Happy. There were over 175 places on that list – places in Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland, Holland, England and Canada; places in Mexico and the Caribbean and the Mediterranean; places in North and Central and South America, places in the wild wild west, places as far east as Istanbul and as far west as Hawaii.

But I came to realize that List 2 did not need to have 175 places on it. List 2 should be a much shorter list – a list of the places that made her journey the VERY HAPPIEST.  Those would be the places that involved her family that she loved so much. Places such as Ashburn, Virginia, and Bear, Delaware; Bren Mar Drive, Barnack Drive, and Brenham, Texas; Cove Haven, Pennsylvania, and Great Wolf Lodge; Horseshoe Drive; Moon Glass Court in Columbia, Maryland; Lawrence and Medford, Massachusetts; Plano, Texas; St. Louis, Missouri; and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

I have a disclaimer to read about the original list of 175 places.

Despite what Nancy may have told some of her Best Friends Forever – girlfriends such as Audrey, Barbara, Jerry, Nancy, Penny, Sandy, Sherry, and Sharon – I want to assure everyone here present that, in the words of one of our recent 20th century presidents, I DID NOT HAVE SEXUAL RELATIONS WITH THAT WOMAN in all of those places. (But I thought about it.)

My father would want to know what I learned from traveling with Nancy during our 38 years of happiness, and I would tell him that Nancy taught me 3 LESSONS in particular.  They are what I call the ISTANBUL lesson, the WATERSLIDE lesson, and the HELICOPTER RIDE lesson.

The ISTANBUL LESSON comes from the very first cruise that Nancy and I took in 1971 when we were in Europe.

We took a week long cruise of the Greek Isles, including a stop in Istanbul, where we took a tour called Istanbul by Night.  So there we are with one other couple in this very large cab and our driver/tour guide Abdul.  Abdul takes us to this scenic but quite desolate hill overlooking the city. As Abdul is describing the history of the city, its architecture, its people, Nancy pulls me aside and says “This place is giving me the creeps.”  I asked “Why?”  She said “This is exactly the kind of place where Ali Babba and his 40 thieves would show up, steal all your belongings, kill you and chop you into a thousand pieces, and that’s the last time anybody ever sees you.”  I told Nancy “That’s not going to happen to us,” and she asks “Why not?” I replied “Because the tour book says that we are supposed to go to a night club and see a belly dancer, and we haven’t done that yet.”

Nancy gave me one of those looks that only a wife can give a husband, that Marge Simpson kind of look that is somewhere between “I can’t believe I married such a moron” and “It is possible, just possible, that he could be right.”  So she says to me: “OK – go find the belly dancer.” And we did, and it was fine, and many years later in the ‘70s or ‘80s, Nancy actually took up belly dancing herself, complete with costume and soundtrack for her dance routine.  I have photos to prove it.

So, Nancy’s ISTANBUL LESSON is this: When you are cruising on your journey of life and you get to Istanbul, do not worry about dying or about Ali Babba and his 40 thieves. GO FIND THE BELLYDANCER!

Nancy’s second lesson – the WATERSLIDE LESSON – comes from the time we were at Disney World’s water park in 1983.  Nancy is coming down the waterslide.  You can hear her laughter before you can see her.  She shoots out of the waterslide like a cannonball, hits the water, stands up like Bo Derek in the movie 10, and has a major wardrobe malfunction, just like Janet Jackson at the Super Bowl.  Nancy is not aware that one of her “girls” is on the loose.  She thinks that my wild jumping up and down and pointing in her direction has something to do with the awesome splash she made.  I point with both hands.  She gives me two thumbs up.  I wave my hands in the air.  She waves back.  Finally, I give her the international symbol for “nice rack.” She catches on and covers up.  She comes over and says “I am so embarrassed I think I could just die.”  Later that night at dinner, Nancy tells me “You know, of course, that it could have been worse.” I ask her “How so?” She says “Hey, it could have been the bigger one that got loose.  Or maybe even both of them.”

So, Nancy’s WATERSLIDE LESSON is this: When you slide down the waterslides of your journey and you have a major wardrobe malfunction, do not worry. You will not die from embarrassment. It could have been worse.

Finally, there is Nancy’s HELICOPTER RIDE LESSON.  Nancy and I are on a 3-week rental car vacation out West in 1994.  We are celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary.  We visit the Grand Canyon.  We decide to take a helicopter ride.  The helicopter takes off.  Nancy has her headphones on and is listening to Kenny G and snapping her fingers. She is sitting up front with the pilot.  I am in the back seat.  The pilot tells us that we are now approximately 2 miles up from the floor of the canyon.  I start thinking like Wile E. Coyote, right after he has gone over the edge of the cliff.  I’m thinking “If that helicopter engine quits, we are goners.”  I have sweaty palms and beads of perspiration.  I am thinking about a fiery crash and burn scene.  I am thinking about dying. We finish the ride and return to the heliport.  Nancy says “Wasn’t that the most awesome thing you ever saw?”  I say “Actually, no. Most of the time I was thinking about plummeting and crashing and burning.” She gave me another one of those  Marge Simpson looks, only this time there was a short lecture to go with it.  “Listen, mister, we did NOT spend good money just so you could start being a wussy boy.  And we are not going to die on any helicopter ride.  If you can’t suck it up, I won’t be taking you on any more helicopter rides.”

And sure enough, when we went to the Big Island of Hawaii in 2003, the very first thing we did was to take a 3 hour helicopter ride over the flaming volcano and the whole island, and I was not a wussy boy.  When we returned to Hawaii in 2005, we took another helicopter ride on the island of Maui.  By this time I was mui macho about helicopter rides.

So, Nancy’s HELICOPTER RIDE LESSON is this:“When you are on your journey of life and you get the chance to go on a helicopter ride, do not be looking down and thinking about dying.  Instead, hold your head up, enjoy the view, enjoy the ride, and enjoy the journey.”

Do you remember Reverend Hastings talking about the day that the Lord has made?  Nancy, too, was a believer in God.  And heaven. And the resurrection of the body.  And all of that is very good news.

Why is it good news?  Because it means that Nancy’s journey does NOT end at The Station. It means that The Station is actually the place where one journey ends and another journey begins.  It means that The Station is the place where we celebrate changing trains.  The funeral home and the church that we gather at are not just a funeral home and a church.  They are part of something bigger. They are parts of The Station.

Reverend Hastings began his essay by referring to an idyllic vision where we see ourselves on a long trip that spans the continent.  I do not claim to be a visionary when it comes to describing Nancy’s next journey.  Whether it is long or short, it most certainly will be happy.

Rather than speculate on her next journey, I want to focus on a question that has been of some concern to Nancy’s older grandchildren, Renee Antoinette Angerer, age 5, and Matthew David Gehley, age 4.  It seems that for the last few months Renee and Matthew have been having difficulty trying to imagine just how Nanny is going to get to heaven. Matthew seems to think that it will take lots and lots of ladders and will take a very long time to climb.

I told Lisa & Becky to tell Renee and Matthew that Pops has one answer. (I am Pops, by the way.) Pops says that it will be a very special train that will take Nanny to heaven.  I can not tell Renee and Matthew much about Nanny’s next journey, because God is in charge of that, but I definitely have a vision about Nanny’s train.  The name of the train is “The Nanny Special,” and it looks like this.

The locomotive has a steam engine with lots of smoke coming out of it.  It has a special kind of car behind it to hold water and coal to feed the engine.  Next is a passenger car with the name Nancy on one side and the name Nanny on the other.  The passenger car is painted a brilliant Candy Apple Red, just like Nanny’s PT Cruiser, with all kinds of shiny chrome trim and leather seats with butt warmers. Then there is a dining car and a caboose.

The engine is long – very, very long.  It is called a Big Boy, and Big Boys were the largest steam engines ever made in the United States.  Nanny and Pops saw one of the Big Boys in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1996.  At the time, we thought we were just looking at the past.  Little did we know then that we were also looking at Nanny’s future ride. The Big Boy engine and its tender stretched almost 50 yards – half the length of a football field - and had a top speed of 80 miles per hour.  From front to back, the Nanny Special would be over 100 yards long.

Even more special is the crew. At the throttle in the engine is God the Father.  In the passenger car is God the Son, the conductor who looks a little like Tom Hanks in the movie Polar Express.  In the dining car is God the Holy Spirit.  And here is what happens at the station.

Nancy climbs the steps to the passenger car, where the conductor welcomes her aboard. “Nancy” says God the Son, “I have 3 QUESTIONS for you before you start your journey.  The first question is “Did you have a happy life?” And Nancy replies “Yes, Lord, I had a very happy life.  Look, I even have two lists to prove it.” The Lord looks at the lists and says “You had some help with these lists, didn’t you?” And Nancy says “Yes, Lord, I married someone who likes to make lists.” Then the Lord says “Nancy, did you make other people happy when you were on your journey?” And Nancy replies “Yes, Lord, I believe I did make other people happy.  I know I tried.” And the Lord says “Do you have any proof that you made other people happy? Another list, perhaps?”

“Silly Jesus” says Nancy. “I know that this is a trick question.” “What do you mean, “trick question?” asks the Lord.  And Nancy says “Because you already have the list. You have the list because you were the one who made it up.  That is List 3 – the names of the people who came here to the station to be with me while I am changing trains. I do not know how many are on the list.  There are way too many people to have their names read, but I have a pretty good idea of who is liable to be on that list.

They came from all over the East – from Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, DC, Virginia, West Virginia, North and South Carolina, Florida, Ohio, and Missouri.

And if they could not come to The Station themselves, they sent Bon Voyage cards from places like Alaska, California, Colorado, Texas and Washington.

And the Lord says “OK, Nancy, it looks like we are just about ready to go.  3 Words? Check. 3 Lists? Check. 3 Lessons? Check.  3 Questions?  Check.  Let’s roll!

Then Nancy says “Lord, before we go, I have 3 questions for YOU.  And the Lord says “OK, Nancy, that sounds reasonable.”  Nancy begins with “Lord, I do not know how long this next journey will be. May I have an ice cream sundae along the way?  Or maybe a Dairy Queen Peanut Buster Parfait?” And the Lord replies “Nancy, just go to the dining car and God the Holy Spirit will take care of you for all eternity.”

Then Nancy asks “Lord, that cancer thing that I had for the last 30 months of my life was a real downer. One time I spent 3 weeks in the hospital, looking at nothing but the ceiling and hospital walls. Could I maybe have a really comfortable seat on the train, with a really good view?”  And the Lord will say “Nancy, your train has your very own passenger car. You may have any seat on the train that you would like.”

Finally, Nancy says “Lord, I am really going to miss driving my PT Cruiser.  I am going to miss going to Delaware to visit Lisa and Jay and Renee and Cole and Pete the Wonder Dog.  I am going to miss going to Ashburn to visit David and Becky and Matthew and Michael and Dylan the Other Wonder Dog.  I am going to miss taking my Cruiser to Sherry’s to pick up a fresh batch of home-made cookies.  I am going to miss going to Barbara’s for a girlfriends’ lunch out.”

And the Lord says while tapping his fingers on his clipboard “Nancy, is there a question in there somewhere?”

Nancy replies: “Lord, could I drive the train?”

I do not know what the Lord will answer. And I do not know how long it will be before it is my turn to show up at the station.  What I do know is that the Lord will be there and he will remind me that my major wardrobe malfunctions could have been worse.  He will remind me to keep my head up and enjoy the view and the ride and the journey.  And then he will tell me to “GO FIND YOUR BELLY DANCER!”

Nancy often told me over the years that she thought I was a good writer.  She liked my letters and emails and said that I should have been a writer rather than an auditor, because I would have been happier.  If I am such a good writer, then how should I end this Love Letter?

I will end it where it began, on that night back in 1965 when we first met, at a dance almost 43 years ago.  When Nancy got back to Longwood College the day after the dance, she wrote her parents a 10-page letter.  Much of it was about me.  Nothing I ever wrote could come close to making anyone as happy as her letter made me when she eventually showed it to me years later. Here are a few of the things she wrote:

“That’s when I saw him!...I said to myself “I would give my eye teeth to talk to him. To me, he was the sharpest and best-looking boy at the whole party.”

“He is the most fabulous dancer alive … We made such a perfect pair! … I tell you he’s everything I have ever wanted! I just wish he could be the one!”

“I am completely snowed, completely gone over that guy … if, by some miracle, I was able to start dating that guy regularly, I would marry him as soon as I graduated. To me, he was it.”

“… he’s got the most fabulous personality! … And he spent the night at the party with me! I couldn’t believe any of it! I was Cinderella and I was sure it was all a fantastic dream!”

“Even if he doesn’t write, I know I had the most fantastic weekend of my life … Maybe he’s not as great as I think [he couldn’t be] but he sure is the first guy that made me really think of marriage! He’s everything I ever dreamt of … maybe, hopefully, he’s the one!”

“Summer of 1969 after college graduation, smile proportional to prominent engagement ring.” 

Nancy and I married 4 years later.  I can still hear her laughter when she told her girlfriends: “I chased him until he caught me.”

That night in 1965, Nancy, you were my Cinderella. Tonight you are my Sleeping Beauty. Tomorrow you have a train to catch.  I will be at The Station to see you go.  Before the train pulls away, I say these words to you tonight from the song that we always played at weddings:

"You Ask How Long I'll Love You, I'll Tell You True, 
UntilThe Twelfth Of Never I'll Still Be Loving You."

Yours for all eternity, Dennis

Some People Hate Their Sixtieth ... Nancy Loved Hers

GEHLEY, NANCY JEAN AIELLO
DATE OF BIRTH: 06/07/1947
DATE OF DEATH: 06/01/2008
BURIED AT: SECTION 7-N  ROW 6  SITE 3
ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY
 WIFE OF GEHLEY, DENNIS MICHAEL 
CPT  US ARMY