Nanette Belie Celebration of Life Speech-Todd Belie

One of the quotes discussed while teaching students in China came from Hemingway. He said that, “Every man has two deaths, when he is buried in the ground and the last time someone says his name.”

That is why we are gathered today. To celebrate Nanette. To say her name.

Before he died, the great Vin Scully reflected on his decades as the voice of Dodgers baseball. In that speech he said that, “God gave us memories so that we can have roses in December.’

Nanette loved pansies and shamrocks, but for someone who was beautiful and fragile and a bit thorny at times, a rose is a fitting comparison.

That is why we are gathered today.

To celebrate our rose, now, and in all the Decembers of our lives yet to come.

***

Planning around death can be complicated. Operation Hope Not was the title of the plan for Winston Churchill’s funeral. It began some twelve years before his death and came out to 415 pages in length….The... Read more base operations order for the entire invasion of Normandy was only 14 pages long. In such complicated times, there are certainly a lot of questions to be answered and decisions to be made. What funeral home to use? What cemetery? What songs should be sung?

But as to where to have a Celebration of Life service was never in doubt for us. This place isn’t just some place. It has been part of our family’s life for nearly as long as Moorpark has been our home. This is where Mike and Debbie were married. This place was a big part of mom’s life, to be sure. As you step outside today you’ll see the landscaping and the results of all the plants she helped put into the ground so many years ago. As you join us for the reception next door, you won’t see her signature, but it’s there on the inner wooden framework of the building. We listened to Dave serenade us with his banjo as we all signed the unfinished walls with mom when the building was under construction

And as you look around, you’ll see the faces of the friends and family who were so dear to mom...many of them she met in this small town, on this very hill. Some she met before there was even a church here and this hill was just a hill. In fact, Dave’s wife, Miss Carol, was my very first teacher, back when I wasn’t even sure what school was.

So this is a very fitting place to gather and to remember Nanette.

***

Every man has two deaths.

We buried mom yesterday, and today we are here to delay the second half of Hemingway’s sentiment for as long as we are able.

That is why we are gathered today.

Death is a part of life. Around the world, 67 million people died last year. 8,000 people die each day in this country alone. And a few Wednesdays ago, on January 4, mom was one of them.

This world is a strange mix of beauty and brutality, and so many lives end alone and in pain. But it is comforting to me, and I hope to you as well, to know that mom was not in pain and she was not alone.

Lies are often told to spare the grieving from further grief, but in this case, she truly was not in pain and we were with her, holding her hand throughout the night.

Lies are also often told to give false hope and optimism, but thankfully the doctors were direct and timely with their assessment of the situation, and this allowed Mike enough time to make it up and be by her side as well.

She passed in a quiet room just before seven on that Wednesday morning, surrounded by family, asleep, and not in pain.

It’s not pleasant. The unavoidable things never seem to be. It’s not pleasant, but death is certain. But if it were somehow a game show and as a contestant I could choose to live into my 70s with my wits about me, be married for more than half a century, have children and beaming grandchildren, and then to go out in my sleep, not in pain, surrounded by family...I wouldn’t even bother wondering what option might be behind door number two. I’d gladly take the first option.

Roses, even the December roses of our memories, have their thorns. If you knew mom you knew she absolutely despised hospitals and doctors. In so many cartoons there’s one character holding another back by the collar as they frantically try to run away.

That was mom...Either trying the leave the hospital or “tussle” with the staff. We certainly had to hold her back at times. She spent the better part of adult life in and out of hospitals and would have hated the idea of being hooked up to tubes and machines in one for any amount of time.

It’s not pleasant, but thankfully her final trip to the hospital was a brief one. The sun was down when she went in and she passed before it rose again. And knowing mom’s feelings for all things medical, this is a small blessing and brings me some degree of comfort.

As we left the hospital, one of the details that stood out to me was the gardeners going about their business with their leaf blowers blaring. And as we returned home that morning, we encountered more gardeners doing the same thing along our street. In this world of beauty and brutality, life goes on.

***

There’s the old joke with an actor asking, “But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”

Other than that, that final Tuesday was a perfect run of the mill day. Mom made coffee in the morning. Then she enjoyed the weekly pilgrimage for Taco Tuesdays and shrimp quesadillas. In the afternoon she helped me pack for Chile.

That evening I came to the kitchen to top off my coffee and noticed that her calendars were still showing December. Within seconds of pointing this out, she had a stack of new calendars all ready to go. Whether it be paper towels, napkins, matchbooks, or anything else, “just one” was not a phrase mom was familiar with. She had a calendar in almost every room. By herself she couldn’t physically replace the old ones with the new, she couldn’t verbally articulate where they all should go, but she could point with her cane. So we spent a good part of that evening together swapping out the numerous old calendars with new ones. She always found a way to adapt, because she had to, because life goes on.

Dad likes to tell the story of his encounter with a neurologist at UCLA Medical. The doctor thought mom was imagining things. After reviewing her brain scans, he couldn’t believe that she HADN’T spent her life in a care facility, let alone her stating that she had graduated college in three years while working, and then went on to raise four boys.

She wasn’t imagining things. She just always found a way to adapt.

In the days that followed her passing, there was obviously much grief. But we were also able to sit around the kitchen table and share in some laughter as well. If you don’t know the game, Cards Against Humanity, you might want to look it up later. If you do know of the game, and can imagine playing with Doctor Gary Belie, and can think of the hilariously inappropriate phrases to come out of his mouth, then you can see where the source of our laughter came from.

There is grief, and there is laughter, and there are leaf blowers. Life goes on.

Her list of medications took up an entire sheet of paper. For most of her adult life she was never in good health, but she was strong-willed, stubborn, and somehow found a way to adapt, carry on, and raise four boys.

My Japanese university students in Yokohama shared a joke with me that reflects the stress and health issues related to their country’s demanding workplace environment. You simply bow your head, and with the utmost politeness say, “Thank you for dying for our company.”

Fortunately for mom and dad, they didn’t have to deal with any of the normal stresses and demands associated with parenthood.

In fact, mom was very blessed and very lucky to have four perfect boys. We never made cardboard sleds to race down the stairs, we never played on the roof, never jumped out of second-story windows, never wrestled indoors...surrounded by captivated crowds of expensive and fragile figurines, we never snuck outside to bury unwanted burritos in the backyard, we never used the space between front and back tires of neighborhood cars as makeshift hockey goal posts, we never got earrings or tongue rings, we never taunted each other ruthlessly over video game defeats, and we never added rules to board games that dictated each game should end with the board being flipped over to make room for a fight.

She was very LUCKY that we never did any of that.

We were good kids and as good kids we were rewarded...rewarded with music from the Carpenters. EVERY SINGLE CAR RIDE. EVERYWHERE. NONSTOP.

Mercifully, after about four hours into rides on the long trips up to San Francisco, even mom and dad would eventually tire of hearing, “We’ve Only Just Begun” for the millionth time. At this point they would swap cassettes and put on other music…..like Barry Manilow SINGING SHOW TUNES.

There’s a reason it’s called “drawn AND quartered...” as the best tortures, like the Carpenters and Barry Manilow together, are often multifaceted.

I’m not saying we received medals and parades for the auditory torture we endured......we should, I’m just saying we haven’t.

But suffering through appalling tastes in music is a small price to pay for having such wonderful parents.
...

My first few days living in China had some confusing moments. Everyone kept asking, “Have you eaten?” “Have you eaten?” It turns out it’s a common expression that simply means “How are you doing?” But it really does sum up how our lives and well-being are so intertwined with food.

I don’t remember mom’s lasagna, but dad swears by it. I can, however, vouch for her cornbread, chili, and her Russian tea cakes around the holidays.

As for her eating habits…whether it be bacon double cheeseburgers, grilled steaks, or buffalo wings...you name it and there wasn’t a food she WOULD eat.

She was never much of an eater but when she did, her food choices were very selective and a bit quirky.

After her stomach surgery a few years back, she wasn’t able to properly digest much food without pain and discomfort.

As such, her diet lately consisted of crackers, chicken nuggets, and shrimp quesadillas. Much to our consternation, some days she could hardly stomach anything, but she would still proudly boast that she ate five crackers.

One day, our Chinese Director of Studies treated the foreign teachers to a picnic and brought along his favorite local foods from his life in Dalian. He shared a piece of his life with us and in that one act we gained a better appreciation of who he was as a person.

Although mom didn’t eat much in recent years, she did have her favorites. And we have prepared some of them next door for the reception afterward. If you haven’t tried hot Dr Pepper with a twist of lemon, well it’s a thing, and for a time it was one of mom’s go-to drinks. Mike and his family all made some of mom’s Russian tea cakes.

Sharing in the foods mom loved over her lifetime is a great way to celebrate and remember her life…especially considering the alternative is to sit around and listen to Carpenters’ records.

Whenever the Belie boys get together, we tend to drone on and on about everything from the state of the world, to aviation, or computer programming. But whenever we babbled on for too long and reached a point where she couldn’t take anymore, she’d interject with her classic exclamation, “WHOOP-DE-DO!”

I can imagine her rolling her eyes and uttering a “whoop-de-do” about now, so I’ll wrap things up.

For a good portion of her life, mom was not able to eat properly, not able to communicate clearly, and was not able to move with ease, yet she somehow found a way to adapt and continue on...not just for a day, or weeks, or months, but for years. She adapted and always found a way.

She was a fighter. At 4-10 and less than a hundred pounds, she slept with a baseball bat and an iron fire poker by her side. I’m not sure how much she could have done to fend off an intruder, but she was never one to shy away from a challenge. Her whole life was a challenge and she always found a way to adapt.

Life goes on, the leaf blowers still blare, and now in our grief we must do what mom was so good at. We must find a way to adapt and carry on without her here with us.

Life goes on. Fortunately, we have many roses for our long Decembers. And while there’s nothing we can do about the first death, we can do something to delay the second.

That is why we are here today. To remember mom. To remember Nanette. Read less

Nanette Belie Celebration of Life Speech-Todd Belie

One of the quotes discussed while teaching students in China came from Hemingway. He said that, “Every man has two deaths, when he is buried in the ground and the last time someone says his name.”

That is why we are gathered today. To celebrate Nanette. To say her name.

Before he died, the great Vin Scully reflected on his decades as the voice of Dodgers baseball. In that speech he said that, “God gave us memories so that we can have roses... Read more in December.’

Nanette loved pansies and shamrocks, but for someone who was beautiful and fragile and a bit thorny at times, a rose is a fitting comparison.

That is why we are gathered today.

To celebrate our rose, now, and in all the Decembers of our lives yet to come.

***

Planning around death can be complicated. Operation Hope Not was the title of the plan for Winston Churchill’s funeral. It began some twelve years before his death and came out to 415 pages in length….The base operations order for the entire invasion of Normandy was only 14 pages long. In such complicated times, there are certainly a lot of questions to be answered and decisions to be made. What funeral home to use? What cemetery? What songs should be sung?

But as to where to have a Celebration of Life service was never in doubt for us. This place isn’t just some place. It has been part of our family’s life for nearly as long as Moorpark has been our home. This is where Mike and Debbie were married. This place was a big part of mom’s life, to be sure. As you step outside today you’ll see the landscaping and the results of all the plants she helped put into the ground so many years ago. As you join us for the reception next door, you won’t see her signature, but it’s there on the inner wooden framework of the building. We listened to Dave serenade us with his banjo as we all signed the unfinished walls with mom when the building was under construction

And as you look around, you’ll see the faces of the friends and family who were so dear to mom...many of them she met in this small town, on this very hill. Some she met before there was even a church here and this hill was just a hill. In fact, Dave’s wife, Miss Carol, was my very first teacher, back when I wasn’t even sure what school was.

So this is a very fitting place to gather and to remember Nanette.

***

Every man has two deaths.

We buried mom yesterday, and today we are here to delay the second half of Hemingway’s sentiment for as long as we are able.

That is why we are gathered today.

Death is a part of life. Around the world, 67 million people died last year. 8,000 people die each day in this country alone. And a few Wednesdays ago, on January 4, mom was one of them.

This world is a strange mix of beauty and brutality, and so many lives end alone and in pain. But it is comforting to me, and I hope to you as well, to know that mom was not in pain and she was not alone.

Lies are often told to spare the grieving from further grief, but in this case, she truly was not in pain and we were with her, holding her hand throughout the night.

Lies are also often told to give false hope and optimism, but thankfully the doctors were direct and timely with their assessment of the situation, and this allowed Mike enough time to make it up and be by her side as well.

She passed in a quiet room just before seven on that Wednesday morning, surrounded by family, asleep, and not in pain.

It’s not pleasant. The unavoidable things never seem to be. It’s not pleasant, but death is certain. But if it were somehow a game show and as a contestant I could choose to live into my 70s with my wits about me, be married for more than half a century, have children and beaming grandchildren, and then to go out in my sleep, not in pain, surrounded by family...I wouldn’t even bother wondering what option might be behind door number two. I’d gladly take the first option.

Roses, even the December roses of our memories, have their thorns. If you knew mom you knew she absolutely despised hospitals and doctors. In so many cartoons there’s one character holding another back by the collar as they frantically try to run away.

That was mom...Either trying the leave the hospital or “tussle” with the staff. We certainly had to hold her back at times. She spent the better part of adult life in and out of hospitals and would have hated the idea of being hooked up to tubes and machines in one for any amount of time.

It’s not pleasant, but thankfully her final trip to the hospital was a brief one. The sun was down when she went in and she passed before it rose again. And knowing mom’s feelings for all things medical, this is a small blessing and brings me some degree of comfort.

As we left the hospital, one of the details that stood out to me was the gardeners going about their business with their leaf blowers blaring. And as we returned home that morning, we encountered more gardeners doing the same thing along our street. In this world of beauty and brutality, life goes on.

***

There’s the old joke with an actor asking, “But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”

Other than that, that final Tuesday was a perfect run of the mill day. Mom made coffee in the morning. Then she enjoyed the weekly pilgrimage for Taco Tuesdays and shrimp quesadillas. In the afternoon she helped me pack for Chile.

That evening I came to the kitchen to top off my coffee and noticed that her calendars were still showing December. Within seconds of pointing this out, she had a stack of new calendars all ready to go. Whether it be paper towels, napkins, matchbooks, or anything else, “just one” was not a phrase mom was familiar with. She had a calendar in almost every room. By herself she couldn’t physically replace the old ones with the new, she couldn’t verbally articulate where they all should go, but she could point with her cane. So we spent a good part of that evening together swapping out the numerous old calendars with new ones. She always found a way to adapt, because she had to, because life goes on.

Dad likes to tell the story of his encounter with a neurologist at UCLA Medical. The doctor thought mom was imagining things. After reviewing her brain scans, he couldn’t believe that she HADN’T spent her life in a care facility, let alone her stating that she had graduated college in three years while working, and then went on to raise four boys.

She wasn’t imagining things. She just always found a way to adapt.

In the days that followed her passing, there was obviously much grief. But we were also able to sit around the kitchen table and share in some laughter as well. If you don’t know the game, Cards Against Humanity, you might want to look it up later. If you do know of the game, and can imagine playing with Doctor Gary Belie, and can think of the hilariously inappropriate phrases to come out of his mouth, then you can see where the source of our laughter came from.

There is grief, and there is laughter, and there are leaf blowers. Life goes on.

Her list of medications took up an entire sheet of paper. For most of her adult life she was never in good health, but she was strong-willed, stubborn, and somehow found a way to adapt, carry on, and raise four boys.

My Japanese university students in Yokohama shared a joke with me that reflects the stress and health issues related to their country’s demanding workplace environment. You simply bow your head, and with the utmost politeness say, “Thank you for dying for our company.”

Fortunately for mom and dad, they didn’t have to deal with any of the normal stresses and demands associated with parenthood.

In fact, mom was very blessed and very lucky to have four perfect boys. We never made cardboard sleds to race down the stairs, we never played on the roof, never jumped out of second-story windows, never wrestled indoors...surrounded by captivated crowds of expensive and fragile figurines, we never snuck outside to bury unwanted burritos in the backyard, we never used the space between front and back tires of neighborhood cars as makeshift hockey goal posts, we never got earrings or tongue rings, we never taunted each other ruthlessly over video game defeats, and we never added rules to board games that dictated each game should end with the board being flipped over to make room for a fight.

She was very LUCKY that we never did any of that.

We were good kids and as good kids we were rewarded...rewarded with music from the Carpenters. EVERY SINGLE CAR RIDE. EVERYWHERE. NONSTOP.

Mercifully, after about four hours into rides on the long trips up to San Francisco, even mom and dad would eventually tire of hearing, “We’ve Only Just Begun” for the millionth time. At this point they would swap cassettes and put on other music…..like Barry Manilow SINGING SHOW TUNES.

There’s a reason it’s called “drawn AND quartered...” as the best tortures, like the Carpenters and Barry Manilow together, are often multifaceted.

I’m not saying we received medals and parades for the auditory torture we endured......we should, I’m just saying we haven’t.

But suffering through appalling tastes in music is a small price to pay for having such wonderful parents.
...

My first few days living in China had some confusing moments. Everyone kept asking, “Have you eaten?” “Have you eaten?” It turns out it’s a common expression that simply means “How are you doing?” But it really does sum up how our lives and well-being are so intertwined with food.

I don’t remember mom’s lasagna, but dad swears by it. I can, however, vouch for her cornbread, chili, and her Russian tea cakes around the holidays.

As for her eating habits…whether it be bacon double cheeseburgers, grilled steaks, or buffalo wings...you name it and there wasn’t a food she WOULD eat.

She was never much of an eater but when she did, her food choices were very selective and a bit quirky.

After her stomach surgery a few years back, she wasn’t able to properly digest much food without pain and discomfort.

As such, her diet lately consisted of crackers, chicken nuggets, and shrimp quesadillas. Much to our consternation, some days she could hardly stomach anything, but she would still proudly boast that she ate five crackers.

One day, our Chinese Director of Studies treated the foreign teachers to a picnic and brought along his favorite local foods from his life in Dalian. He shared a piece of his life with us and in that one act we gained a better appreciation of who he was as a person.

Although mom didn’t eat much in recent years, she did have her favorites. And we have prepared some of them next door for the reception afterward. If you haven’t tried hot Dr Pepper with a twist of lemon, well it’s a thing, and for a time it was one of mom’s go-to drinks. Mike and his family all made some of mom’s Russian tea cakes.

Sharing in the foods mom loved over her lifetime is a great way to celebrate and remember her life…especially considering the alternative is to sit around and listen to Carpenters’ records.

Whenever the Belie boys get together, we tend to drone on and on about everything from the state of the world, to aviation, or computer programming. But whenever we babbled on for too long and reached a point where she couldn’t take anymore, she’d interject with her classic exclamation, “WHOOP-DE-DO!”

I can imagine her rolling her eyes and uttering a “whoop-de-do” about now, so I’ll wrap things up.

For a good portion of her life, mom was not able to eat properly, not able to communicate clearly, and was not able to move with ease, yet she somehow found a way to adapt and continue on...not just for a day, or weeks, or months, but for years. She adapted and always found a way.

She was a fighter. At 4-10 and less than a hundred pounds, she slept with a baseball bat and an iron fire poker by her side. I’m not sure how much she could have done to fend off an intruder, but she was never one to shy away from a challenge. Her whole life was a challenge and she always found a way to adapt.

Life goes on, the leaf blowers still blare, and now in our grief we must do what mom was so good at. We must find a way to adapt and carry on without her here with us.

Life goes on. Fortunately, we have many roses for our long Decembers. And while there’s nothing we can do about the first death, we can do something to delay the second.

That is why we are here today. To remember mom. To remember Nanette. Read less