A Life Well Lived

By Sal Panicci

Memories are our greatest treasures. We all have them in abundance, and like gold or silver, they only have value when shared. Through the years, we experience the loss of friends, relatives, acquaintances, family pets, and we reminisce. The greatest loss for a parent is the loss of their child, but the loss of a parent is also devastating. The feeling of loss is the same at age fifty-six as it is at age eight. This is a remembrance of my mom, Tina. She delighted in her memories. They were her treasure. She loved sharing them, and as difficult as some of these life experiences may have been, she came through with grace, humor, understanding, and compassion.

I hope you enjoy reading about Tina as much as I enjoyed having her as my mom.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781639032709

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A Life Well Lived

Sal Panicci

Copyright © 2021 by Sal Panicci

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

You Didn’t Have to Do It Alone

Overview

Through the years, I have experienced the death of friends, relatives, acquaintances, coworkers, and family pets. They walked among us, and then, they did not. I do think about each of them every now and then. If I’m at mass, I’ll pray for them on occasion. If I see an old movie, eat at a restaurant, go to the shore, or see someone that reminds me of one of them, I may smile or frown. I have even called someone by a deceased’s name because they reminded me so much of the person that has passed on.

When my mom passed away unexpectedly, the feeling of loss was not the same as when these other friends and family members passed away. She was our family’s rock—its clairvoyant, its path to right and wrong, its conscience. She was my mom. Like Cher, Elizabeth, Debbie, Dolly or any memorable character having one name—she was Tina.

Maybe because I didn’t realize she was going to pass on, I felt her loss so much more. Maybe it’s the guilt I feel for not spending more time with her during those final days or the fact that no one from our family was there when she did pass.

Whatever the reasons—and Sylvia Brown, the spiritualist, knew what they were—Tina deserves to be remembered more than just every now and then. She deserves more than just the tears shed at her funeral or a sentimental phrase carved on her gravestone. She led a full, exciting, and a somewhat unusual life for a very usual person. The following pages are my recollections of Tina.

You Didn’t Have to Do It Alone

There I was, in the first phew of the church—my brother and sister-in-law on my left, my sister on my right, my aunt and uncle at the left end, and my nieces and nephew behind me. It was all so surreal. Mom was gone three weeks before her seventy-eighth birthday. She was such a force of nature while alive. She passed so quickly and on her own terms. No one got a chance to say goodbye. But she said goodbye to each of us in her own way during that four-week period she was in the hospital and rehab center—only we didn’t know it was goodbye.

What would I have done differently? What could I have done differently? Was I at her bedside enough? Did I ask the right questions to the doctors and nurses? All her vitals were fine right up to that afternoon she passed away. I had fed her a little soup at around 1:00 p.m., and she died at 4:20 p.m. She was just so tired. I even spoke to the nurse on duty before I left, and she did not even give a hint that her time was nearing. She was sent to the rehab center because the hospital couldn’t