Mama and Me

Mama's Eulogy

I wrote this for Mama's Mass but since I was not there it was not read. I want to share it nonetheless:
It’s hard to write a eulogy for someone who you know was mortal but who you never expected to die. Mama was the type of person that, as my friend in Trinidad said, “Only something like this could take that woman down.” She was healthy, strong, and though at times her memory was slipping (Don’t tell her that) she was all in all supposed to be around for a very long time. But as Mama would say, “You plan and God unplans.” She always reminded us to keep God in our lives and would tell us to “Say your prayers” and that “Tomorrow isn’t yours, so say, Tomorrow please God.”
Well she was right. We all learned that tomorrow may not be ours when Mama was taken away from us so suddenly. I never thought of Mama as old, but I suppose in terms of years she was. She had a way about her that was timeless, that defied time. She was old, she was middle-aged, she was a youth, she was a little girl. She was fun and funny, smart and outrageous, she could ****talk with the best of them and like she would say too, hold her own in almost any conversation because, “Common sense beat back book sense.”
Well I said on Mama’s Blog that she wasn’t my Mama only but rather Everyone’s Mama. Forget about the family for now, which we can take as a given for the recipient of her love and care, but let’s think about all her friends, many of whom are here now, friends who loved Mama as a member of their family, and who she cared about too. Some of these friends I have never even met, so far and wide was her circle. But I do know that they were always there for her; inviting her to church service, church lunches, brunches, birthday parties, bus rides, and so on, bringing her food, calling her and having long long long conversations on the telephone.
I would joke with her that getting through to her was like getting through to the President of the United States of America. The line was always busy. Mama’s warmth and vibrance was so contagious, she had so much charm that even while in the hospital it was reported that people from all over the hospital heard of her and came to see this woman who had survived so much. And indeed she was a survivor. She survived two World Wars in the 20th Century. She even survived Michael Jackson. It is no coincidence I feel that she passed the same year as he did. After all, they were both stars in their own right. And perhaps it shouldn’t surprise us either that Mama died in a stellar fashion, with as much mystery, controversy, and tragedy, as Princess Diana and Princess Grace of Monaco. Great people don’t depart the earth quietly. They leave it with a bang.
Perhaps the greatest lesson Mama left with us is not to be afraid of anything. Not to live a life ruled by fear, but to live and to live fully. She was independent, lived on her own terms, went everywhere she wanted to go. She was free. Perhaps too free. But Mama fought for that freedom. She worked hard until it was time to retire, she didn’t marry again after Jose Serapio Ramirez Senior (Sonny) passed, but instead dedicated herself to her children and grandchildren. She loved to take care of the people she loved.
That was when she was most happy; taking care of people. And I think it’s safe to say Mama took care of everybody, and that’s why she is so loved, and why she is missed, and why she will never be forgotten. Death is as natural a part of life as birth and now, without her, we may be sad here, but she enjoyed life, and would want those she cared about to be happy. So let’s celebrate her life and her passing. She is in a good place I know, with all her relatives who passed before her; her husband and sister and father and granddaughters and great grandson and many many others. She will be glad to see them too and we can all rest assured in the knowledge that one day we too will be with her again. One day we too will join her on another plane of existence, but until then, like Mama, we will enjoy life, as a way to honor her.

Notre Dame

I said a prayer for Mama at the Cathedrale Notre Dame de Paris. She would probably have found it curious that in this most famous of French churches an African priest was giving the sermon.
I think she would have liked it here. I had been thinking of taking her here on our next vacation together, but it was not to be. With hindsight I see it would have been a little hard for her to do the tourist thing, which is to walk around for hours looking at all the sites and crossing the bridges and so on and so on. The good thing about crossing over to another plane of existence is that you can be everywhere and anywhere at the same time. Non local I think is what physicists call this state.

Mama's Photo From Trincity Mall 1992

Sent by Claudette Ramirez
She didn't look a day older in 2009!

The Xmas Bunny!

This picture is from Melisa. Christmas was one of Mama's favorite holidays and you can see it here in her festive attire.

I used to keep a diary and would like to share some parts

I wrote this a few years ago. Maybe 4 or 5 or 6 years ago. I am going to post the parts of my diary that deal with Mama; my best friend. It is an homage to her, and to all the people that loved her and that she loved, like Melisa, for whom Mama was even more than a best friend.

Diary Entry
I dreamt about my grandmother as a young woman and she was beautiful. Even as an old woman there is something of the girl in her, of the coquette. Sometimes she is sweetly shy. Always she is wise.

Mama
My grandmother grew up without a mother. Ida Maria Craig was her mother’s name. Ida Maria was of Irish parentage but had grown up in an orphanage. Ida Maria had died when my grandmother was about two years old. She died five weeks after giving birth to her last child, a boy. My grandmother and her two sisters and brother grew up with an aunt while her father remarried and had another family. First three girls and a boy and then four boys and a girl. They grew up on Pembroke Street in the capital of Port of Spain near my old highschool St. Joseph’s Convent.
My grandmother had servants to wash and clean. A van delivered bread from the jail where her uncle worked. She was about ten years old when her aunt died and they went to live with their father and stepmother in the south of Trinidad. As a young adult she moved back to the capital and worked in a department store called Fogartys until she married my grandfather.
She met Jose Serapio Ramirez at an “ole year’s night” , that is, a new year’s eve party. Leonora (Ned) was her older sister. Jose liked Ned first. Ned was slim, pale like her Irish mother, with gray green eyes and straight light brown hair. Later, he liked my grandmother and at Ned’s engagement party it was discovered that Ned’s fiance and Jose were cousins, and they didn’t know until they met at the engagement.
My grandmother married Jose and had three girls and two boys. She stayed home with the children and raised them while he worked offshore for an oil company, Shell.

Memorial Service For Mama Info. Thank God for Claudy!

This is the arrangement for the Mass for Mama in New York for now.

DATE: 17/10/09

TIME: 9 AM

CHURCH: OUR LADY OF REFUGE (CATHOLIC)

ADDRESS: 2020 FOSTER AVE, CORNER OF FOSTER AND OCEAN AVE



If arrangements goes as planned in Florida I will confirm or let you know if there are changes.