Eulogy for Audrey Rectenwald (January 20, 1925 – October 8, 2021)

It is dusk in the sleepy town of Zelienople, PA. I’m sitting in a chair beside my mother’s bed. I gaze at her, and then out the window. Clouds barely mask a sinking sun, setting over the quietude of quaint country houses, fields of grass, woods, and the church she used to attend. Mom is in a deep sleep and can no longer open her eyes. Her breaths are shallow. She occasionally emits a very slight and tremulous murmur. It seems as if she teeters on a great ledge, unevenly balanced between two worlds. 

Despite her diminished state, in the deep wrinkles of her wizened face, I see her, all of her, and my whole life passes before my eyes. 

I well up. John-Michael, Molly, and Dylan leave me alone with her.

Mom, I say, it’s Michael. She exhales a muted “aw” and moves her arm ever-so-slightly toward mine. It’s all the power she has left. But she does it. Then she settles back to the difficult task of breathing. 

Thank you, Mom. Thank you for everything. Thank you, I say through the tears. I love you and always will. 

The words seem inadequate, but it’s all I have. Perhaps I’ll gather the right ones soon, I think, or by next time. I’ll see you again, I say. I desperately want her to understand this. I want her to know that I’ll be back, but in case I miss her, that I’ll see her again, no matter what. 

That was the last time I saw my mother alive.

Now, here we are. I’m still not sure that I can find the right words, words that will do justice to the life of someone who meant so much to me. But I’ll try, as that is what mom would want me to do and always said, Oh, Michael, just give it a chance. 

***

Mom was small in stature yet very large in character. She was a dynamo—an energetic, spirited soul with a zest for life.

She had heart of gold. She had the best intentions in everything she did. I don’t think she ever wished another person ill or ever hurt another person intentionally. In fact, she did everything in her power to do good by them, and then some.

Mom had great emotional depth. She was a deep, soulful, and sensitive woman. This allowed her to empathize with others, but it also meant that she experienced things intensely. She felt joy and pain to their fullest. She also had a very sharp, inquisitive, and penetrating mind. She used these gifts to understand the world and to help others. 

She was always humble, never pretentious, arrogant, or off-putting. She never erected artificial barriers between herself and others. Never did she act like or think that she was better than anyone else. 

Mom was a caretaker, a listener, and a talker. If you ever wanted anyone to know something without telling them directly, all you had to do was tell her, as we sometimes joked. You know, telegraph, telephone, tell-an-Audrey—an advance in technology. But I’ll never forget the many times I went to her for advice, for counsel, for encouragement. And she always gave it. I know she did the same for everyone, for my brothers and sisters and their spouses and children and friends. All you had to do was ask.

She cared about other people, so much so that a few times it made me jealous, to be frank. At times, I wanted her to myself—but only because she was so great to talk to. Yet, her generosity was too large to be contained. She welcomed everyone who was introduced into her life with a warm embrace, an acceptance that others can only hope to emulate.

Regarding others, including those she might have disagreed with, she would say, “to each his own.” By that she meant “live and let live” and that she didn’t judge. 

Mom avoided negativity like the plague. Positive language was second nature to her. She would say things like, “I’m proud of you,” and “that’s great,” and “Aw, I really appreciate that, and “thanks, that means a lot to me.”

She was grateful for every good fortune that came her way and was happy with what she had. She taught us that gratitude is the secret to contentment. She also bore disappointment without bitterness or complaint. 

Most importantly, her faith was so unwavering that I sometimes envied her. How can you believe in God through all this, I would think? If you asked whether she was worried about something or someone, she’d usually say, I don’t worry; I pray. She planted the seeds of that faith in all of us and nurtured them as well. For some, like me, the seeds took time to sprout, but she never gave up on believing that they would. She never chided me for my grievous doubts. She just kept praying.  

***

Calvin Coolidge was President when Audrey Becker was born. She was the first of four children. Although they were both alcoholics, her mother and father were warm, loving parents. She told me that her mother sang and played in piano bars for glasses of beer, which patrons lined up on the piano in appreciation. Mom’s father was an optometrist. She told me what a proud man he was. He always wore a pressed shirt and suit to work, no matter how much he’d had the night before. 

So, Audrey took on the role of caretaker from an early age. The family moved a lot, especially when the rent became overdue. Under these tough circumstances, she managed to overcome the Great Depression. Audrey had to leave school around the eighth grade. 

She was raised a strict Catholic and became a member of Young Ladies’ Sodality, a Catholic church society for young women. The society had four components: religion, purity and virtue, charity, and social. These were in fact the marks of mom’s character for life. 

Audrey was married to my father and became Mrs. Audrey Rectenwald in 1943. Robert Rectenwald was a paratrooper and mom worked in a munitions plant. Then she learned she was pregnant with the couple’s first child, Janet, born in 1944. After living in an apartment in the city, and after dad returned from the service, the family moved to the country, where they lived for the first few months without running water in a house my father remodeled. Robert Jr. was soon born, in 1946, then Linda in 1948, and Judy in 1954. 

Janet recalls the early family days, when dad was always working, and mom often felt isolated living at the end of old bumpy Panno Drive. These years were times of struggle, but Janet says she never heard her parents argue. 

Five more children were to come: Tom, Jerry, me, Nancy, and Art. That’s nine in case you’ve lost count. We moved into the city, to Waldorf Street on Pittsburgh’s Northside, in 1963, when I was four. 

I’ll jump ahead to the late sixties, where my memories begin to sharpen most. Mom handled these tumultuous times with poise and grace, always taking the best, and leaving the rest. I remember riding home in her car from a shopping center on McKnight Road one summer day. I was around nine or ten years old. The radio was on, and she sang along with the tune as she drove home: “He ain’t heavy; he’s my brother.” She had a great voice and sang beautifully, having kept it well-exercised at Nativity Church. But she not only sang the words; she lived them. 

Mom was anything but self-indulgent through the seventies, although some of us children were. There are so many stories and scenes from this period that I can’t recount them all here. Suffice it to say that things could get a little raucous. But once, when I came back for a weekend from my leisurely college resort and criticized the frenetic pace of life at home, she answered: We’re struggling in the rat race so you can go to college. She made the same kind of sacrifices for all of us.

I remember how enterprising and hardworking she was. She loved to paint—paint walls, that is, as she reminded us recently. But even more than that, I remember her genuine, full-bodied laughter, her unquenchable love for life, her inextinguishable energy and joy. 

When I lost my way and sank into a deep and terrifying depression in the early eighties, mom coached me through it daily, although she admitted that she didn’t quite understand. I didn’t either, which made it that much worse. But I do now.

I can’t discuss this period without recalling the tragic death of mom’s first three grandchildren, Janet’s first three children, the beloved Billy, Robin, and Brian, at ages 18, 17, and 15, respectively. The thirty-ninth anniversary was yesterday. Janet’s loss was immeasurable. The enormity of the tragedy was beyond normal human comprehension and endurance. Janet recalls being embraced by God immediately, and that only this enabled her to go on. The great loss left an indelible mark on all of us. It precipitated the embrace of faith by Nancy and her husband Buddy, and deepened the faith of mom, and most dramatically, of course, of Janet herself. 

Mom not only suffered their loss but also the pain that it caused her firstborn child. But she rallied the family and we soldiered through. A great consolation is knowing that she is now rejoined with them.

Then came the mid- and late eighties, and the nineties—decades when many of her younger children were either already married or getting married. I’m reminded of times when our children would relish time spent at Mom and Dad’s campsite at Moraine Camplands.

The twenty aughts could not outlast Audrey—not even after her beloved husband passed away. She grieved, yet lived on for many more years, courageously. 

She endured the passing of two younger siblings—our Aunt Anne and Aunt Claire, whom she loved and missed dearly, as do we. Her baby brother Fred is still with us. 

In the twenty-tens, she remained joyful and alert. She even learned to use an iPhone, which Tom kept having to replace. I remember the time mom, Janet and I went out to dinner at a restaurant in Cranberry, rejoicing in my newfound belief.

Only in the last couple years did she finally begin to decline significantly. But even then, she was always present in spirit. One day when I visited, we looked into each other’s eyes, seeing through time and circumstance, peering straight into each other’s very souls. She was full of wonder to the end. And I will never cease to feel wonder when I think of her.

I recall the unfiltered Audrey on Facetime visits. Once she took one look at me, my hair unkempt, and said, point blank, you look terrible. Another time she said I reminded her of my grandfather—I guess because I was sitting in my chair, puffing on a vape. 

During another visit in her last days, she wiped the table with a tissue in small circles, over and over, as if never ceasing to clean, never ceasing to work. 

The time before that, in the spring, when, after so many months of prohibited visitation, she was wheeled outside and greeted by much of her large and growing family in a happy reunion. 

Everyone who knew Audrey loved her, including all the people at Passavant Retirement, where she lived out the last two decades of her life. Whenever another resident would ask who you came to visit, and you told them, they would invariably gush, saying how much they loved Audrey Rectenwald. 

In short, Audrey was a loving and beloved daughter, sister, wife, mother, aunt, mother-in-law, grandmother, great grandmother, friend, and fellow traveler. She outspanned the twentieth century and beyond, all while taking care of those she loved. She gave birth to and raised nine children, children who went on to raise twenty-eight children, grandchildren who are raising her thirty-two great grandchildren, so far. She tended to them lovingly and so much else besides. Her buoyant personality filled every room she entered with warmth and gladness. She knew the secret of life and shared it selflessly. Her gratitude was simple yet profound. Her faith carried her and so many others over hills and valleys. And she prayed those she loved to where they are today. That, my family and friends, is some legacy.

***

I will end with a few words about our sorrow and our hope. I feel a profound sadness at our loss. We all do. How could we not? But if, after Audrey, we look to Him who underwent every indignity and pain imaginable, and more, we find our lesson and our consolation. When He was soon to face the agony of the Cross, Jesus did not say, it’s all good; I’ll be in heaven soon. No, He cried out to his Father: Father, if there is any other way, please let this cup pass. He was fully human and fully divine in one, and He suffered all the pains of human life. This made his sacrifice possible and gave it the significance that it has for us. Following Him is not to live without pain, without sorrow, without grief. It’s to be a fragile, mortal human being, as well as to be divinely ordained to share in eternity with Him. Both are true. We have the promise of a glorious reunion, but we grieve, nonetheless. We are bereft. Our loved one has left us, while we remain behind in this valley of tears and rain. This is the reality of life on earth, the profound meaning and reality of the Cross. Audrey knew this well. Yes, the Cross redeems our losses. But we must drink from this cup and pass through the Cross to get to where we’re going, to where Audrey is now. 

So, I will say it: I miss you, mom. I will miss you for the rest of my life. We’ll all miss you. We grieve the loss of you. But as we remember and celebrate your life today, we are grateful, just as you always reminded us to be. We are grateful to you and for you. We thank you for all that you were, and did, and gave to us. You are truly a saint now. God is pouring forth all His blessings on you, as you see Him face to face. And, just as you taught us to do, we pray. Thank you, Lord, for giving us such a wonderful human being. We thank you for such an enormous blessing. And we look forward to the day when we will meet her again, in everlasting life, amen.