Diarist's Note: A few readers here have followed diaries of mine talking about my wife and her illness, and they asked to be updated on her condition. Unfortunately, my beloved Lauren died this past Tuesday, at the age of 38. In addition to myself, she left behind three beautiful children, ages 8,3, and 1, and a host of loving family and friends. Below is the eulogy I read at her funeral on Saturday. I post it here in part to update the smattering of people who followed this story in various diaries of mine, and in part because I want to shout my love from the virtual rooftop
To everyone gathered here today, thank you: for being here with me on this sorrowful day, and for the amazing generosity you bestowed upon us as we suffered through the agonies of the past few weeks. Your thoughts and prayers and deeds of kindness and mercy gave me the courage to walk on during the many moments when I doubted I had the strength to take another step.
To Father Keith, thank you for opening your parish to a stranger in his hour of need. For close to a century now the Michele Family and their descendants have come to this church, to celebrate christenings and communions and weddings, and to mourn as they laid their loved ones to rest; it is a comfort for us to be here.
To Father Doyle, who has known me since I was a child, thank you for coming here today, in the midst of great physical pain, to share with us.
To my Godfather Dave, his wife Tina, and their daughter Catherine; thank you for being here for me today. After suffering your own great loss so recently, I know it must be difficult for you to be here.
To our dear friends, Brian and Deb, thank you. You married just three weeks before me and Lauren did, and for the past thirteen years you have walked alongside us, as our marriages and children grew together.
To my incomparable friend Dan: thank you, for dropping everything to stand by my side, hour after hour and day after day, through these painful weeks.
To Lauren’s dear friends from home, Sean, Vicki, and Boo: thank you for coming so far to be here with us, with Lauren, on this day. She loved and admired you deeply, and the way in which you embraced me and welcomed me as I made my way into the circle of her life meant the world to her.
To the beautiful family that stands behind me now: you have stood behind me my whole life, and I know you stand behind me always. Our love knows no bounds and it will sustain me.
To Lauren’s mother, Linda, and to her absent father, Granville: thank you for bringing Lauren into this world. Thank you for raising such a strong, beautiful, loving woman. You’d barely had time to get to know me when I married your daughter, and when I married her I was not much more than a young man with stars in my eyes and barely a dollar to my name; thank you for trusting her judgment and honoring her wishes; thank you for the storybook wedding day you gave us; thank you for sharing so much of yourselves, with us and with our children, during these past thirteen years.
And finally, to my beautiful and amazing son, Bailey: no child should have to endure this suffering, but you have shown so much courage and bravery; I know you’ve got the same lion’s heart that your mother did. I love you.
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Fifteen years ago, on an ordinary March night in an ordinary town, I opened the door to an ordinary pub and first laid eyes upon the extraordinary woman who would change my life forever. I’ll never, ever forget the first time I saw Lauren: those beautiful cornflower blue eyes and her long, curly auburn hair made my heart skip a beat, or maybe two, and a strange feeling came over me; a feeling that something important had just happened.
She happened to be sitting with some people I knew from school, so I sat down at the table, across from her, and it was then that I got to hear for the first time that lovely, lilting English accent. I felt smitten, and I proceeded to spend the next hour or two flirting shamelessly with her, trying to make her laugh, and sometimes even succeeding.
Over the next few months a deepening friendship developed between us. I noticed she had the gift of making others feel comfortable with themselves; she had an infectious and generous smile; she had a serenity about her. As the months passed and we drew closer, I found myself opening up to her more and more; I felt like I could tell her anything about myself, and she made me feel like whatever particularly unflattering detail I might reveal could never lower her opinion of me. Lauren had an innate understanding of the inevitability of imperfection and this allowed her to see past faults and to focus on the good side of people.
As that year drew to a close, Lauren neared the completion of her master’s degree, which meant that her student visa would soon expire and she’d have to return home to England. As her last couple of weeks here passed by, I felt sadness over her leaving, but the sadness puzzled me; I hadn’t yet realized I’d fallen in love with her.
Two nights before she was to head back home – Saturday, December 19th, 1992, for the record – in the deep, late night quiet of her living room, we finally both gave in and confessed our true feelings to each other.
So began a very long distance love affair, her in northern England and me in upstate New York. This was the early 90’s, remember; the days before email and cheap long distance. A couple of two to three hour phone calls every week, even if made during off-peak hours, could eat a big chunk out of your paycheck. So we’d write these long, long love letters to each other. Lauren would scent her letters with her perfumes, and oh, how my heart soared when I smelled the arrival of a new letter in the mail. I’d hold the letter up to my face to breathe in the perfume, and then I’d tear open the envelope and read the letter over and over and over again.
Four months into our affair, in April of 1993, she came out to see me for two weeks and those two weeks were, without a doubt, the best two weeks of my life to that point. And when those two weeks ended, I took her down to JFK to see her off, and after she walked away from me and through the doors marked passengers only, I sat down and cried my eyes out, because I knew, for certain, that I had found the one thing I truly wanted in life.
A year and three months after that painful goodbye at Kennedy, me and Lauren married, on July 23rd, 1994. A gorgeous and magical day on the shores on Lake Windermere – right out of a movie, my father always says – that set the tone for the next thirteen years. We honeymooned in the Lake District and then I had to come home and wait for Lauren to get her green card, and a long wait it was; nine months in fact, and she couldn’t travel here during that time, and I had just started a new job that I needed to keep to prove to the INS I could support her, so we did not see each other once during those nine months. When that wait finally ended, we treated ourselves to a second honeymoon, a week in Maine in April of 1995.
But truly, for me and Lauren, the honeymoon never ended. Our love for each other never stopped growing. During all the time we spent apart, we always used to say, in letters and over the phone, that ALL we wanted, ALL we cared about, was being together. And when the time came for us to be together, we savored it. We truly and deeply appreciated the gift of being present with each other.
The years seemed to melt happily together, and I knew that I’d found the one true calling of my life: as Lauren’s husband, soulmate, and father of her children. Sure, we had some down times along the way, but they were far outnumbered by the ups. We had close and loving family and friends and we shared countless good times with them: that trip to Toronto in ’96 with Brian and Deb; Lauren’s all-night 30th birthday bash; Ruthann’s infamous New Year’s Eve piñata party; the holidays spent at my parents’, at Deb & Joes, or Am & Greg’s; the Kentucky Derby parties; the summer hours spent sitting on the deck of Rosie’s camp as our beloved children played in the sand and splashed in the water; the trips back to England, Linda and Granville’s 40th anniversary party; the up-til-the-dawn beer and bull sessions in Am & Greg’s garage; Michele and Kevin’s wedding in the middle of the NYC blizzard of 2006; the 40th birthday weekend Lauren threw for me last summer. And at so many moments during these special times, as the conversation made its way around tables and rooms, I would pause, to slip my hand into Lauren’s, or to slip my arm around her shoulders, and I would look at her and think that I must be the luckiest man in the world to have the love of this woman, to have the life we had.
As much as I’ll miss those special occasions, in the end, I will miss the rhythm and cadence and magic of our everyday life even more. Driving home with Bailey, singing along to the radio; pulling up into the driveway, getting out of the car, coming in the back door, back into the house, back into the five of us, our family, together again; Evie and Riley squealing with delight as they saw me and Bailey come in the door, and then, finally, I’d see my beautiful love, my Lauren, and even fifteen years on, when I’d see her face again at the end of the day, my heart would still skip a beat like it did when I saw her for the first time. We’d read and sing to the kids, get them to bed, and then we’d sit down to share a meal, to share our thoughts on our day, and on anything else; we’d share words and the gestures of love and affection and then we’d go off to sleep together, grateful for having had another day together.
And now, sadly, that time together has ended. I stood here today hoping to utter words that would in some way illuminate how special a daughter, mother, wife, and friend Lauren was; I wanted to tell the world how much she meant to me, and how much joy she brought to so many people. I wanted to say something beautiful and poetic and majestic, because Lauren was beautiful and poetic and majestic. But I will end with simple words, words simple and true, words which she heard over and over from me and words she never tired of hearing:
I love you, Lauren.
I always will.