Exactly one month ago today, I took my mom in for heart valve replacement surgery. She didn't come home with us in the form we expected. This is the eulogy, I wrote for her and read at her memorial service yesterday, November 4, 2015.
I said I love you…and that’s forever. This I promise from the heart. I begin with a little thievery from Billy Joel, mom, one of your favorite songs, “Just the Way You Are”. I hope you are looking down and listening as I try my best to tell your story. I promise to be nice.
We are gathered here today to say our farewells and celebrate the life of Gloria Ann Zahra, affectionately known as “Cookie” by her family and friends. I am lucky enough to have called her mom, along with my brother. We met for the first time, eye to sparkling green eyes, in the delivery room of what was then called Mary’s Help Hospital in Daly City. My brother, Eric, having met her a few years earlier in this same fashion, in this same place. And so it was, we were blessed.
Sadly, as life has its way of circling around, my brother and I would also say our final goodbyes to our mother in the hospital. Though this time the hospital would be Queen of the Valley, in Napa, where Gloria Ann Zahra, our beautiful mother was not able to overcome the trauma of her open heart, valve replacement surgery.
Cookie received her moniker from her older brother Charley, when as children, he would often climb up to the cookie jar and offer a Nilla Wafer to his baby sister, arm outstretched, chanting cookie, cookie, want a cookie? And no name could have been more perfectly coined to describe this sweet soul that we all loved so dearly.
Mom was born August 25, 1943 in New York State. She came to San Francisco as a baby of just a year and half, so that her father, Gerald Bowker, could participate in the war effort working in the shipyards. Due to his poor eyesight, he was not eligible to join the service. Cookie was accompanied on this trek across country with her beloved mother Anna Cecilia Bowker, her older siblings Joyce, Marie and Charley as well as their Aunt Sissy. Yes, my mom was once the baby of the Bowker Family! Aunt Sissy joined the party to help her sister with the children, as they traveled by train to meet my grandfather, Jerry, who had arrived prior to establish a residence in which to welcome his family to their new life in San Francisco, which would begin in Hunter’s Point.
She is remembered as a child, by her older siblings as being joyful, cute and affectionate. Flitting along from lap to lap, and tagging along on movie dates, as she constantly tried to find her place among the group that began to form as their lives in SF took root. She was even lovingly referred to as the flea by her cousin Jimmy Fanelli.
Mom often recounted special memories of family outings to the Sutro Baths. She always loved the water and swimming. Though in the early years in SF, the Bowker Family did not have a car, I’m told that when they did have rides they enjoyed family days out to not only Sutro Baths, but Playland, and the zoo, as well as picnics at Ocean Beach. Mom, was always happy to be out enjoying life with her loved ones in the family friendly city that SF once was.
At the age of 12, my mom’s place in the family as the youngest changed to middle child, with the birth of her younger brother Steve followed by Linda a few years later. As the older kids were out and about living their teen lives and embarking on adulthood, mom often took care of Steve and Linda and in this way she developed strong bonds with the youngest of the Bowker Crew. Just as when she was the youngest, and accompanied her older brothers and sisters to movies, she now began this tradition with her little brother Steve. Something they still enjoyed doing together up until the time of her passing.
Mom married young, at just 19 to Rene Zahra, my father. They met as children in the city through mutual friends. It is told to me by my father that on a return trip from a picnic with her family he put his arm up on the back of the car’s seat, whereupon she sweetly rested her head on his shoulder. And so it began…it wasn’t a perfect love story, not the middle or ending she had envisioned, but it was hers and it began purely, so this is what she chose to keep in her heart. In all their years apart, if my parents could agree on anything it was that the greatest aspect of their union, was the gift of the children they shared.
Years later mom gave us the gift of being a grandma/nona to our children, Isabella, Julia, Sophia, Vincenzo and Giovanni. Her innate sense of play and spontaneity made her the perfect match for these wild things! She knew each of them individually, their strengths, talents, faults, and wit, taking any opportunity that presented itself to speak pridefully about these special little people she loved with all her heart.
I can’t put into words accurately the loving presence my mom provided us as children and adults. She always worked hard and sacrificed for us, welcomed us back home whenever the need arose and emotionally fed us until the our bellies protruded. She was strong, but open minded in faith, a great cook, had admirable work ethic having served in office work, grocery, chocolate making, bookkeeping, daycare and elderly care. She had a talent for drawing and decorating, enjoyed word puzzles (always intent on keeping her mind active), loved movies, swimming and meals out with family.
Phrases such as, so much fun, that smile, her sparking eyes, you had the cool mom, her laugh was infectious, she was so proud of you and Eric, and I remember when your mom and I …followed by a delicious story which guaranteed a laugh. All of these sentiments dance in my head as friends and family who hear of her passing remind us of the special person she was and how she touched their life in her unique way. I’m forever grateful to you mommy. I hope I can continue to hold your torch up, that your light will continue to shine through us, your children, and grandchildren. You will never be forgotten and so very sorely missed. Bless your soul sweet Cookie, sister, mother, aunt, grandmother and friend. May you rest in peace forever and always.
