You would have loved today…there was a soft rain, then cool breeze. The sun came out and two very beautiful blue butterflies flew by! Miss you. Love you. 💕🦋🦋

Happy Birthday, Gloria! Best Mother ever!  🌸❤️💕🌸

Happy Birthday, my beautiful Mom! I love this picture of you. You told me you were pregnant with me in this picture. I made sure and had some cheesecake and key lime pie to celebrate what would have been your 81st birthday! I sure do miss you. Remember when we would take you to Denny’s for the free breakfast? That was always fun. I love you and miss you, forever and a day! Narcissa 

Mom, we had to say good-bye to our little Picasso today. 😢🦮🐾💕 RIP I’m so glad we got to spend what time we had with him. He was the sweetest dog ever! I’m so glad you rescued him so we could love him and have him fill our hearts with so much love. 

Thinking of you, Mom! Happy Valentines Day, your favorite day to celebrate love and hearts! Miss you!!!♥️🌸💖😘

Happy 80th Birthday, Mom! 🥳💜💐😘 

The whole gang misses you! 🐶XOXO, I 💜 U Forever and a Day! There’s beautiful flowers and candles all around for you. Made  some food you’d like and there’s plenty of vanilla ice cream and cake! 🎁Thanks for the fireflies and for the beautiful spring day! 🧚🏾
Narcissa 

Well, the rain exploded with a mighty crash As we fell into the sun And the first one said to the second one there “I hope you’re having fun!”…….Happy Mother’s Day, Mom! I miss you very much. I miss hanging out with you. Listening to music, making food, creating art, playing with the animals, walking in the garden, watching movies and sports. Even the hard times. Thank you for sharing joy and love with me! I have not forgotten what it feels like to hug you! I give you a squeeze everyday!  ~I love you, Forever and a Day! Oh, and remember when either one of us would say, “I love you?” and then we’d say, “I love you more!”  You played that game with me all my life and I’m so grateful for that. ♥️ Narcissa 

I love you Mom, Forever and A Day~I miss you very much. I keep posting poems you would enjoy~ one on your birthday and one today.  Today’s poem is by e e cummings, i carry your heart. I wish I could hug you and hear your laugh. Until we meet again! Picasso, Lupita, Biscuit, Abby and Brownie send their love! Arf! Arf! 

My Mother’s dear friend, Sylvia Ann Manning wrote this beautiful poem for my mother in November, 2019. I am so grateful for my mother’s friends. True to their own Spirit like my mom independent, fierce, intelligent and passionate. 

“Before we can forgive one another, we have to understand one another.“
~Emma Goldman
Thank you Sylvia, for understanding my mother, Gloria Martinez Caballero. 

Friday, 4 September 2020
un poème pour mon amie, Gloria Caballero, qui est partie

Photogenicity?  Photogeneity?
           (for Gloria Caballero)

With a thousand words I’d still not say
how beautiful you were on the ferry that day
we made our way back from Staten Island 
(and why had we gone?  Can you recall?)

Past the lady de libertád in upper corner there
in that photograph you keep near your chair:
you in your long red coat with your short hair
as black at 67 as back in 1957 when we sat

In 6th grade country school desks next to each other.  What if we’d guessed that one day sixty years later, before dark,
we’d be ferrying back to Battery Park?

We’d have wiggled with giggles, been sent to stand in the hall.  Out of hearing, then, you’d be free to teach me new words.
Luciérnaga, maybe, or Photogénica
(meaning, sometimes, to make or emit light, as well as how we use it for such as you
who know to let the lens have you,
the life in you, the light you harbor,
the torch you carry, your liberty to love
what photographer with camera can do – 
and thus all of us who will ever see you.)

These ten years since that day,
have they been a dark hallway?
Is it easier to bear if you sit in that chair
in the good light to see, as you lean over the rail,
nearing Manhattan, how long your striking beauty
has found Liberty, its photogenic proof?           

(Somewhere I have the photo this poem refers to, but for now I post the photo of Gloria in Québec on the grounds of the Museum of Fine Arts) ~SAM





In honor of my Beloved Mother and friend, Gloria M. Caballero. With Love “Forever and A Day”, your daughter, Narcissa Edna Nelson 

Desiderata
GO PLACIDLY amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

By Max Ehrmann © 1927
Original text

I will miss my sister Gloria so much. She was so loving and giving to me, my husband and my daughters, and to the children of my daughters. Gloria would always pay keen attention to the needs of others, and sought to somehow fill that need. I remember when she moved to Seguin, one of her neighbors had many small children, that would run around seemingly uncared for. She started making cupcakes for them, and buying pasta and spaghetti,  and buying other food items that she thought could be easily prepared. I think the children and their parents looked on Gloria as a grandmotherly angel. She also put out cat food for all the stray cats in the neighborhood. Gloria was also an avid listener, and learned from the conversations of her elders. Like our mother, she was a source of knowledge of all familial history, and local New Braunfels lore. Also like our mother, Gloria would also easily make life long friends wherever she lived. From an early age, say 6 or 7 years of age, Gloria, by closely watching our mother sew, learned to sew like a champ by the time she was 11 or 12, winning blue ribbons at 4H county fairground displays. She used that talent throughout her life. For me she sewed my wedding dress, all my bridesmaids dresses, upholstered my first couch as a young married woman, kept my two daughters clothed in beautiful homemade outfits up until they were in 3rd or 4th grades, sewed elaborate  Halloween costumes for my daughters and anyone else that asked, and many many other sewing projects. She gave so much and asked for so little in return, I don't think I ever told her how much I appreciated and loved her. That is something that I will regret all my life.

Gloria came of age during a free-spirited, non-conformist time-- the 1960's. I have never met anyone who fit in so well to this period than she did.  To borrow from Bob Dylan, she was an artist and she did not look back.  She was non-judgmental and flexible.  She befriended everybody she met. She struck up friendships with teens struggling to fit in and with the old geezers who went to the donut shops breakfast fast food places. She loved to create things out of nothing.  She could repurpose an old dress from the Goodwill, restore a discarded piece of furniture from the thrift shop, refurbish car seat covers, or create Halloween costumes for the kids out of surplus bolts of fabric.  Perhaps her most favorite pastime  was finding hidden treasures at garage sales and the thrift shops.

For my Aunt Gloria
I have so many memories of Gloria from a very young age. I loved going to her apartment. She and Ida lived upstairs in an old Victorian style house in San Jose. They had many interesting things to look at and touch. She taught me how to play cards in that apartment. Go Fish, and War.
Gloria was an adventurer at heart. She moved from Texas and lived in Alaska, Hawaii, and California for a long time before moving back to Texas.
Gloria was crafty and artistic, a master seamstress. She and my grandma made my wedding dress and all the bridesmaid dresses.
Gloria was a collector of stuff, but sometimes she would part with her treasures and in fact I still have many of the gifts she gave me. 
Gloria found and made friends easily everywhere she went. People were drawn to her. She was kind and always wanted to help.
Things I remember: Her cat Erica. Did she stuff her in a bag and carry her on the plane? I think yes.
I remember when Grandma Lupe told me about the time when Gloria (as a child) cut out a dress pattern on the bed. The pattern was great, the cuts were good. But the quilt on the bed was cut to shreds.
The story my mom would tell us of she and her siblings filling buckets of water and having water fights in the house! Grandma would come home and say how nice they were to clean the house.
The time Gloria visited me in my first owned townhouse. She sat on my new blue foam chair and flipped right over! No one was laughing harder than Gloria.
When her kids were young and joined the Blue Devils Drum and Bugle Corps, she gave all her skills, attention, and opened her home in supporting them and the entire organization.
The time she ran a marathon in New Orleans. She trained for it, ran/walked it, and finished it.
The decisions she made took her down many different roads which she handled with a fierce determination to be independent and live life her way.
I will miss her spirit. I hope she has found peace. Every exit is an entry somewhere else.  

I'm so sad to hear of my Prima Gloria's passing.  I have wonderful memories of her.  She was my madrina of confirmation...she even made us matching outfits for the event.  She visited Mom often, bringing her food and taking tortillas in return.  She would take us to resale shops.   The last time I saw her was shortly after Mom had gotten out of the hospital about 3 years ago.  She was there to visit.  I was lamenting that I didn't have a ride to San Antonio to catch the dollar bus to Houston.  Right away she said she would take me...I was so worried that she would have problems driving there and back.  Well, I shouldn't have worried, she knew San Antonio better than anyone else I knew!!  She was greatly loved by my family and will be missed.  My condolences to her children and all her family and friends.  Love you all.

The memories keep coming. I remember being held by her as a child. 

I remember her shuffle as she got older. 

The story of giving people directions while she was sweeping dIstracted working for BART, and swept up money without knowing it. The time when we were walking through the mall and she pushed me aside, walked right up in front of a ton of people, and picked up $10. She was kind of a money magnet in that way. She would find money in pockets of clothes from the goodwill. 

How she would take every single bit of chicken off the carcass to use in chicken salad sandwiches. 

The time, when I was sick and very little and my mom had to go to work. My mom took me to her house. I was probably 3 or 4. She asked if I wanted tomato soup. And I did. But she put a hard boiled egg in it. I was upset. But she convinced me to try it. And it was delicious. I loved it that way from then on. 

The time she kissed her husband and ended up with his gum and was so delighted with herself. 

She had her faults, we all do of course, but her love for me made it so those were easily overlooked — forgotten. All that remains...that will ever remain for me, was her devotional love. 

It’s what I will strive for in life. To be remembered for how I treated people. For how I loved them. 

Thank you Gloria, for giving me such life lessons and making me the person I am. 

My mother left Texas when she was very young. Marrying just to get out. Her older sister Gloria did the same and my mom and her ended up in California. I never knew a life without my aunt. Her and my mom were young, divorced single moms trying to make it on their own in the Bay Area. They were their support systems. They helped each other out all the time. I did not know a holiday without her up until my teens. My aunt Gloria was a huge hippie before there were even hippies. She was a supreme seamstress. And because of her my sister and I had almost all our clothes handmade when we were super young. All our Halloween costumes were amazing and nothing like the plastic ones our friends had. My aunt Gloria was my second mom. She did so much for me. She gave me a perspective so different from my own mom. They were close sisters who had many differences but a strong love for each other and their families. 

I am so sad for the loss of this beautiful  woman who made my childhood so wonderful. I am heartbroken for the pain my mother is feeling and the sadness that overwhelms her. 

I cannot stop thinking of all the times with her. Although I couldn’t really remember, it seems I do from hearing so many times how I hid in her coat while my mom frantically looked for me when I was supposed to be napping. How my mom and I almost gave her a heart attack when we played an April fools joke on her which totally backfired. 

I remember her laugh. 

Her haphazard housekeeping skills. How she sewed anything for me. I remember her apartment with her cousin Ida, all those little turtles of idas and elephants of Gloria’s. I remember her bedroom on 6th Ave in Concord. Going through her jewelry box and all the things in her bathroom. How she unabashedly walked around naked. Her love of donuts and coffee. 

I loved you Gloria. I know you knew that, but I wish I could have told you and hugged you one last time.


I will always remember miss Gloria.  She was very fun and i loved working for her. She was a beautiful lady and she will be missed.  To the family of miss Gloria i am so so sorry for your loss and pray you find comfort in the arms of Jesus at this difficult time.

OBITUARIO

Gloria Martinez Caballero

17 mayo, 1942 – 3 septiembre, 2020

Zoeller Funeral Home

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