I’m going to begin with a simple, undisputed truth:  Maureen was the strongest and most beautiful person I’ll ever know.  She’s in a good place now though.  “She’s free,” as John said the other day.  There’s no more pain.  Now it’s time to remember her, for those who knew her, or to learn about her, for those who didn’t know her.  She was…Moe.  I don’t know if there’s a better way to put it.  You know?  … Laid back, selfless, thoughtful - the life of the party.  A poet once wrote, “The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.”  I was looking at some of the pictures of Maureen that have been around the house and no matter how many people are in the pictures with Moe, it’s always her smile that becomes the focal point.  She could be off to the far right wearing a hat and holding a kid in front of her and still there she is smiling and it’s the first thing you notice.  Picture after picture it draws your attention before anything else.  There’s one where Carolyn’s hair comes close, but in the end it’s Moe’s smile, making the picture.

             I never knew the early Moe.  When I first met her, she was just another one of the dozen or so sisters my buddy John Strong had.  I truly envy those of you who’ve known her all her life.  I came to know her the last eight years; right around the time she became a mom.  And though I can’t claim to have known her her whole life, I don’t believe there was anything else she was better at her whole life than being Connor and Christopher’s mom.  And, with John, she’s done an amazing job.  Her love for Chris and Connor is what gave her the strength, that unrelenting, logic-defying strength of hers, to fight for so long.  She wanted to put the foundations in place for two young men who would be every bit as wonderful and fun and charming and intelligent as their mom.  Her mind, her faith and her body all worked together so that she could be with her children and watch them grow.  I remember her telling a story about when she first knew she liked being a mom.  It was shortly after Connor was born and Moe and John had just moved into the house and she found herself, on a Friday night, at Home Depot, when just a few years before, on a Friday she would have been at Abar’s, or Greenjean’s, or Habana, and here she was at Home Depot, in her pajamas with Connor and she realizes she smells like baby puke.  It was in her hair.  Dried, she said.  Couple hours old.  And she said she knew right then and there that she loved being a mom because it didn’t matter to her in the slightest.   She was glad there was puke in her hair because now that she was a mom it was her kids that mattered.  Not what they might spit up on you. 

             I don’t do the story justice. Moe was a fantastic storyteller.  She was someone who could tell a “you had to be there” story without having to end it by saying “you had to be there.”  Like the smile in those pictures, her stories drew you in whether or not you were familiar wit the principles of the story.  She genuinely loved talking to people, in person, on the phone.  Which is why people loved talking with her so much. If you went to her with any kind of problem, which I’m sure many of you have been urged to “Talk to Moe” and one time or another, it was her wisdom, her grace and her wit that would always make you see there was really nothing to worry about at all.  She was a master of putting things in perspective, at helping to find a solution to the problem.

             A consummate hostess, she welcomed many people into her home over the years and always made them feel like they were at home.  When she was having a good time, she was having a good time making sure YOU were having a good time.   It’s funny, as adored as John was, as much as he affected everyone around him so positively, and how truly easy it was to like him, I think Moe had him beat.  She gave every bit of herself to those around her, and never complained, not even when she put aside the magnitude of her own circumstances to grieve the loss of her brother. 

             My heart goes out to Barry and Sharon.   We all know it doesn’t follow the natural order when a parent outlives their child and here they are, having to go through it all again. It’s not right.  My heart goes out to Moe’s brothers and sisters, who have all shown their own selflessness by returning to Connecticut again and again over the years, despite knowing she was just going to give them jobs to do around the house as soon as they arrived, organizer that she was. It’s not even June yet and if you flip through the calendar in the kitchen at the house, Moe’s got the rest of the year taken care of, reminding us of important dates, field trips for the boys, appointments that she wanted kept.  My heart goes out to John who has been a rock for his wife for so long and who now has to become a rock for her boys.  And to those boys, Chris and Connor, you guys are my brothers, you’re my best friends, and I want you to know that you’ve got a lot of people who love you as much as they love your mom.  And because of that, it’s going to be all right.  We’ll all be here to help you remember how beautiful a person you mom was. 

             There is plenty of time to be sad for losing Moe. And we’ve all been sad for a long time now, knowing that we would be losing her.  Right now, though, we should be celebrating the life she lived, the life she loved living.  We should be telling good stories about her, even if we don’t tell them quite as well as she could.  I implore all of you to remember all these things about her that helped to make her…Moe.

James Gegeny