Barbara June Elices

We are not alone this day, we all have lost loved ones as well… no loss is easy. But, by holding on to memories and sharing those memories, our loved ones will live on and shape us and those we love. We must make time to listen, as my mother often did with many of us. By listening and sharing, she gave love and was loved and showed this love often throughout her life.

My mom was born on the first day of spring, March 21, 1932 to Thelma Eloise Moore (grandma Telma as we liked to call her) and Emmett Ardell Sullivan in Oakland California

Her biological father was not in the picture for very long and she moved a lot when they were younger. She was not close to her step-father Robert Smiley and I am sure these circumstances, shaped her and through her experiences shaped our family.

She attended Oakland Tech High School and Santa Rosa High her freshman year and during her sophomore year moved to Mountain View where she met her future husband, my dad. She was an athletic and vibrant young lady in high school, playing multiple sports, volleyball and basketball as well as participating in the journalism club. She graduated in 1950 and my mom and dad were later married on May 19th 1951 and she gave birth to my older brother Ron in February 1952 at Camp Stoneman, while my dad was in the Air Force during the Korean War. My mom showed her strength those first years being a new mother, while dad was stationed in Japan.

They moved to Cabrillo Avenue in Santa Clara in 1954, and began their busy life of raising 3 boys, Mom’s duties included, refereeing our many brotherly love taps and wrestling matches, … little league snack shack …PTA meetings, or just shooting hoops with us in the front yard. I was always amazed when she would bank a 2 handed set shot and then just walk into the house, with a little strut and big smile on her face.

She was always encouraging the boy’s pursuits, whether it was gardening and horticulture with Ron or car mechanics with David and tennis with me. We celebrated birthdays, with little fan-fare, other than the Birthday Boy got his choice of dinner and desert, my favorite was her Pasties (a meat pie) and her pineapple upside-down cake-these are good memories for me.

Her great joys were her grandchildren –When Lisa and I had our daughter, Simone; she selflessly helped with day care and spent countless hours walking Simone to parks, pushing her on swings and taking her to visit neighbors, especially Nancy Amelia and Margaret Guernsey to see Brownie her dog and spoiling her with way too many Beanie-Babies. She cherished her trips to Southern California to drive down the coast and to see her grandsons, Zachary and Jacob and loved to hear about their latest adventures in Cub Scouts all the way to Eagling out (Jacob…we are waiting) or little league and later Jacobs’s animal husbandry, Zach’s tennis and our annual camping and back pack trips. Those were very special times for her, I think in some ways a fulfillment of her life, to see the continuation of families, with good children, making good memories.

She loved to spend time with her late brother and sister-in-law Don and Agnes Bettencourt. The four of them would head to Tahoe/Reno for the weekends and also went on numerous cruises together with our Tita Carmen. The joy of her time with them; sharing so much laughter, are good memories as well.

She loved to just take a drive; to Carmel for lunch with my dad. She also enjoyed the outdoors, heading on the annual family camping trip to the remote North Fork of the Tuolumne River near Yosemite in June every year after the kids were out of school. Somehow my dad convinced her that going to a place where there were no bathrooms was a good thing- but she didn’t complain.

Life was a challenge for her these past years, not getting out and about as much as she would like; but she didn’t complain too much and when neighbors or friends would visit, she would enjoy their time together. A special thank you to her good friend and neighbor Margaret Guernsey, who though has her own struggles would drop by with her daughter Ginger often to visit.

So it is good to reflect, to look at old photos to remember a time, when life was easier for my mother, a time when she could breathe and could move with ease. It was good for me to remember those times, to remember that these past years are not who she was, this is not who her essence was, but these are only a part of who she became, as her body failed her and as her mind began to fail her, they do not define her life.

The Elices family had escaped the reaches of death for quite some time; but my brother David succumbed after a long struggle with alcohol addiction, last year in September. He wished for no tribute, no memorial and we abided, but I think his struggles and passing hard on all of us, but hardest on my mother, and perhaps this hastened her fall. I think she in some ways, unfortunately, blamed herself. As she put it one day, “her David was not protected enough by her.” Her maternal drive there even in her 80’s.

We are not a deeply religious family, but we are a spiritual one, we believe in respecting others thoughts and beliefs and I think this comes a lot from my mother. Perhaps partly because she came from a broken home, and didn’t really know her real father. I am sure this left a lasting impression on her as she became a faithful wife of 64 years and devoted mother. She chose a different path than her father and was there for the family throughout.

Her life, though torturous at the end, with her back pain and COPD for so many years, complain she did little of.

Withdraw from life she did, much to our chagrin and frustration, not understanding it, she did recoil from that which gave her the most pleasure, missing out on some of life’s joys and special events, but looking back, I can only imagine her pain, both physical and emotional of not being able to participate.

She beamed, when talking of her grandchildren; she smiled deeply, with pride of her grandchildren’s accomplishments and you could see it in her eyes and heart that was filled with joy and love when she spoke with them; and of them. Even at the end, when Mom was in the hospital, Simone shared a few moments with her on the phone, talking about her new puppy, Kolby and her life in Fort Worth. You could see the joy and pride in her eyes as she struggled to talk.

And she smiled as well of the memories of her childhood, summers on her grandparent’s ranch in Santa Rosa with her cousins sharing their experiences of growing up.

Her cousin Gaye though unable to attend today; wrote of her memories of my mom as she says,

“I have lots of fond memories of her growing up. I remember most living in Santa Rosa with her. She and Janice hitch-hiking in to town, when Thelma thought they were walking. They got me into trouble lots! ….She helped me through the teen years, growing up. I could talk to her about anything”.

She loved simply visiting with people and talking, we would drive to my aunts and uncles homes or friends on weekends, just to visit with them. She loved the neighborhood we grew up in. Loved the neighbors, and as one of the original families of Cabrillo Avenue, I think she felt a certain loss at knowing…, that time had passed, lost are the many parents of The Cabrillo Families, The Amelias, The Ledgers, The Folvens, The Woodcocks, The Oxfords and others, either left the area or time has taken.

When I was young, my mother’s strength in character, taught me to show up. Not by her words but by her actions. Reflections these past weeks for me, helped me to recall these times, better times for my mother, remembering the essence of who she was.

While in Junior High, I was talked into sharing a huge paper route; so big it took 2 of us to deliver them on time. While a short while into the job, my partner (the one that talked me into it, who by the way was much smarter than me) quit; quit with Sunday papers to be delivered the next day. Back when Sunday papers were actually 2 extremely large papers. Who woke up at 4am to help her distressed son deliver papers….my mother, I can still see her with me sitting on the sidewalk, on the dimly lit street corner that cold morning, folding papers and stuffing the route bag….I can still see her riding the little stingray through the dark quiet streets…, weaving from the weight of papers on the handle bars, smiling, as she tossed a paper or two. I see her at the doughnut shop smiling after showing up. She seemed to always show up for me when most needed.

Her incredible patients was evidenced while enduring the incessant banging of my tennis balls on the garage door as I practiced on the drive way at home in the summers, too lazy to go to the courts. I still can’t figure out how she did that without earplugs or head phones.

Her understanding, and compassion to let me just talk when I was younger, helped me through tough times… she was there, when to my horror of finding out I had bad eye site and was wearing black horned rim glasses in junior high ….She was there, when being crushed by High School crushes…, or playing bad tennis with too, too many losses…in college. She was there to help pick up the pieces of my shattered dreams and loss of confidence, she was the one to get me back in the saddle and back at it, she was there. Always there.

She encouraged my pursuit into reading poetry of Walt Whitman, and my love of Ray Bradbury. She was a good listener, never judging and simply allowed me to become…allowed me to evolve.

My love of old movies comes from watching them with her on summer nights as a kid; nothing better than to have Marco Polo spaghetti and watch an old Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis movie in black and white; even today it is like comfort food for me, taking the stress of life away.

As I reflected on more joyous times for her, I remembered how she loved to laugh and how I loved to make her laugh. Doing impressions as I did when I was younger, around 19…. I can still remember one Halloween Party I went as John Wayne, I used a prop – …riding a kids pony stick with just a horse head on a broom stick and dressed of course as a cowboy; adorned with a cowboy hat, toy cap six shooter and holster, doing Big John’s voice, riding that pony stick in our living room, tears of laughter streaming down her cheeks. This helps me now with her passing, knowing…She can breathe again; she can laugh again with ease.

As my cousin Jere Schaffer wrote, unfortunately unable to attend having to deal with her own health issues…”The best gift your mom gave me was laughter, a genuine love…

With this celebration of my Mother’s life, I had but one hope, to convey at least in some small way to you all and especially her grandchildren, some sense of the very kind and vibrant person my mother was. Grandchildren typically only see the old person, the out of touch person the person that time has become unkind to. See her now as she truly was.

I wrote a poem for her, as I recall for her birthday, I can’t quite remember the exact year or the occasion – likely when I was in my early teens around 1973, she saved it and my father found it while going through photos and memorabilia, I would like to share it with you now – I think it is the best and simplest tribute I can give her:

My Mother:

A rose and Poem…

For my mother my own…

She may ramble at times…

But, that’s o.k…. everything is fine…

For don’t you know …that Mother of mine…

Is always there… when things aren’t fine…

So I’ll keep this mother…

Won’t change her for another…

Cause she is a better mother…

Than any other…

She left me with a lasting gift. She smiled at me toward the end, in her final hours unable to speak, squeezing my hand, love in her eyes she said good-by without speaking. And then with death at the doorstep, she leaned forward from the hospital bed and grabbed my dad’s hand and they kissed for the final time. Let us all hope we have the strength and courage to smile as my mother did, when it is our time.

Thus it begins now, life without our mother, grandmother, wife or friend. She is at peace, we must now be at peace, her suffering has ended and only the good shall remain in our memories.

We miss you mom, we love you!

Reading by Simone Elices:

Walt Whitman – Darest Thou now, O Soul

DAREST thou now, O Soul,

Walk out with me toward the Unknown Region,

Where neither ground is for the feet, nor any path to follow?

2

No map, there, nor guide,

Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand, 5

Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land.

3

I know it not, O Soul;

Nor dost thou—all is a blank before us;

All waits, undream’d of, in that region—that inaccessible land.

4

Till, when the ties loosen, 10

All but the ties eternal, Time and Space,

Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds, bound us.

5

Then we burst forth—we float,

In Time and Space, O Soul—prepared for them;

Equal, equipt at last—(O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil, O Soul.

Thank you all for coming, thank you to all that have written or expressed your thoughts and love. Your kindness is greatly appreciated.

Walt Whitman – The Day O Soul

This day, O Soul, I give you a wondrous mirror;

Long in the dark, in tarnish and cloud it lay--But the cloud has pass'd, and the tarnish gone;

... Behold, O Soul! It is now a clean and bright mirror,

Faithfully showing you all the things of the world.