RIP: Virginia Bernadette Saunig-Roche (1-31-39 to 8-24-2011)
Virginia B. Saunig
One of my fondest memories of my mother was getting up early before school to find her at the kitchen table drinking her morning coffee with several newspapers scattered in front of her. My mother prepared for me Tea & Toast and sometimes two soft boiled eggs, if I desired them. When I asked my mother why she read several newspapers instead of just her favorite one, my high school educated mother stated rather emphatically “you have to get some different perspectives on what is happening in the world.” To this day, as I attempt to analyze and write about the world around me and my experiences in it, the lesson she taught me so early on is what keeps me evolving as a human being and as a citizen. She instilled in me the idea that there was always another layer to what you might accept as your own personal truth.
As the years passed, and I graduated from Sheepshead Bay High School, no matter how far I advanced my High School educated mom always had some wisdom, experience or perspective that would often make me stop literally in my tracks and wonder why all that time at Boston University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School had given me so many intellectual blind spots. She would joke that she got an advanced degree at the ‘School of Hard Knocks’ and boy did she ever. She often rather humbly joked that I was the educated one and that all she really had was common sense; the type which was necessary to survive in a complicated world.
Years later after a horrible break up with a woman I hoped to marry left me shattered, confused and lost, my mom asked me two simple questions. ”Christopher, after you get done crying, what are you going to do?” I looked at her in a bewildered fashion. Was she really that heartless? And then she probed further and stated in a somewhat hesitant fashion “You know that girl seems to have everything she needs in life and you keep giving her more and yet she is still not happy. Did you ever stop to consider that maybe it is not your job in life to make her happy?” I sat alone in my stepfather’s den looking at the ceiling literally stupified how she seemed to say so little but change the whole trajectory of how I looked at the world.
Again a few years later, when I found myself distraught and dispirited after a business failure in the post 9/11 economy, I called her for assistance as I felt ready just to give up. This time I was not crying but by the tone of my voice I might as well have been. Again, she asked, “when you get done feeling bad for yourself, what are you going to do? You still have two arms, two legs, you are healthy, strong and educated, do you realize how lucky you are relative to all the other folks who have fallen down and may never get back up?” I said well mom, I may lose my residence. You are all the way in Florida. I may end up homeless. What would I do? ”I guess you would go to a Homeless Shelter, get a job, start saving your money again and when you have enough get a small place or an apartment share.” To this day, I love her more for not giving me an easy out when deep down I knew she wanted to.
Out of the blue a friend, my former Pilates instructor offered me a deal in exchange to help her with some personal matters ironically enough close by to where my mom grew up in Chelsea. I could have use of her spare bedroom until I got back on my feet. When I was finally getting back on my feet, I asked her how do I repay you? I do not have the resources to do much. She said, some day someone will reach out to you when you are in a similar position to me. Don’t turn away from them. If you have food, a shoulder or a space for them to lay down on and rest their weary bones, you will know what to do. I sat there with my Tea & Toast contemplating the synergy of feminine wisdom that had infused my life and reinvigorated my passion for getting beyond life’s challenges. Throughout my life in some troubling moments, select strong women have appeared randomly, people who my mother would likely have enjoyed meeting, and served as reminders of what is possible so I might no longer consider them impossible.
When I visited with my mother for an extended stay recently, my mom’s grace was self evident even while her time on this earth was clearly coming to a close. She seemed more worried by those around her who she thought were making too much of a fuss and too many sacrifices for her. She was always more worried about someone else more than herself.
The Son of A Heroic Woman
Most of my life I know that I have been somewhat of a character, one that my family nevertheless found charming because I took ‘the road less traveled’. They, especially my mom, never bothered to remind me that maybe I ended up on that road by default because of my own imperfections and failings as a man. Nobody likes an old Peter Pan. My father’s demise helped me turn one corner in terms of emotional maturation. Yet, I was never really sure whether I had my mother’s respect because I had not built significantly on what she aspired for me. In many respects she believed in me more than I believed in myself. Her parting gift to me was subtle. My oldest brother reminded me shortly after I left her side in Florida that “Chris had grown up and become a good man, and she did not realize how good until she saw me again,” As a man all you ever want is the woman you most admire to think you are a good man. Isn’t that what we live for? Whether I have achieved that status or not, my responsibility now is to be the type of man that honors the investment that my mother made in me. And if I do that all praise by to god and my mother. I am no hero but I am the son of one.
A Chelsea Girl Moves On
Today at 3 p.m. in Cape Coral, Florida, my mother Virginia Bernadette Saunig-Roche, who was born and raised in the Chelsea section of New York City, and the daughter of Phillip and Dorothy Saunig, Americans of Austrian, German and Northern Italian descent, passed on. Virginia attended St. Columba Catholic School which was part of the Roman Catholic Church of St. Columba on West 25th Street. She is survived by my step father James P. Roche and her four sons and two sisters. My mother had been residing in Cape Coral, Florida for more than a decade after living on Manhattan’s Upper East Side for more than fifteen years. At the time of her death, she was under excellent care at the Hope Hospice in Cape Coral, Florida. She passed while she was sleeping. Thanks to the humanistic work of folks at Hope Hospice my mom went on into the next world in a peaceful and dignified manner. May she Rest in Peace.
My mom was one who always wanted to learn something from every experience in life. Over Tea & Toast, she taught me how to learn and she taught me how to survive.
There is never a good time to lose a loved one, but there are better ways to go than others. My mother passed on while sleeping with her beloved husband and my stepfather, James P. Roche by her bedside at the Hope Hospice. Given her humble roots and her life’s dream to spend her golden years on the waterfront in Florida, I am pleased and relieved that she did not go in anything less than a loving environment in a dignified manner and with the love of the daughter she always wanted tending to her daily, her close friend Lorrie Robinson.
End Care in America: A Vital Concern
Masked in the Health Care debate is what we do about our aging population. End Care is a vital concern. Given the state of our country and the existing Health Care system, my rational fear is that many of our loved one will not leave this earth with the dignity that they deserve. A compassionate society must allow those who have contributed so much to sustaining it move on with honor. The Hospice Community deserves your attention and philanthropy. The Hospice community exists largely on the generosity of some of Society’s most significant philanthropists, many of whose names I perused over on the walls of the Hope Hospice in Cape Coral, Florida
While I am comforted that my mother will RIP thanks to the humanistic and yeoman work of the good folks at Hope Hospice, many others may not be so fortunate. The lesson for me is not just to honor my mother’s life, the lessons she taught that enable my own existence but to also use what I learned and what I observed in her last hours to implore those who may not be focused on end care for the aging, to consider making philanthropic contributions to end care facilities like Hope Hospice so that more of our citizens can move on with dignity and honor.
To the philanthropically inclined, I merely ask when you explore making philanthropic investments consider doing so in the local Hospice community whether you are in Cape Coral, Palm Beach, the East End of Long Island (see East End Hospice), New York City, Texas, California, New England or another part of this country.
Mothers Are Ordinary Heroes
My mother, Virginia was a woman who from her humble working class roots, equipped herself sufficiently to move her offspring forward to experiencing a greater view and understanding of the world. Many look for heroes or role models to follow in the popular culture, athletes, TV Stars et al etc. Perhaps if a few more of us recognized the glory of ordinary people who do extraordinary things, including in how they raise their children, we need look often no further than our mothers, fathers, teachers, firefighters, policeman, doctors and nurses etc.
I will find my peace in my mother’s dignified treatment in passing in the quiet of her sleep and my ability to celebrate the life of an ordinary American who had reverence for her god, a passionate patriotism for her country, an unrelenting commitment to her children, her husband, her sisters, a special love for god’s four legged creatures as well as consideration for those less fortunate even during her darkest hours.
To those who read this, I hope your loved ones and friends may find the same comfort when their time comes to pass on as my mother did at the Hope Hospice. Support the Hospice Community. If you love me and wonder what you can do for me or my family at this time and have loved ones yourself, find a Hospice to support. You may also make a donation in my mother’s name: Virginia Bernadette Saunig-Roche. The information you need is referenced below:
Hope Hospice
2430 Diplomat Parkway East
Cape Coral, FL 33909-5405
(239) 574-4888
web: http://www.hopehospice.org/
Contact: John Strickling, e-mail: john.strickling@hopehospice.org
God Bless you all. Peace.