My cousins Anthony, Mark, and Chris Cervasio asked me to deliver the eulogy for my Godmother and Aunt, Esther Cervasio. It was an honor to serve her with this trip down memory lane.
My hope is that each of you someday either have an Aunt Esther, or maybe you can learn from her life.
Enjoy.
ESTHER F. CERVASIO
Esther Ricigliano Cervasio was the youngest of six children born to Vincenzo and Margarita Ricigliano. She married my father Rocky’s younger brother, Anthony. Uncle Anthony and Aunt Esther became my Godparents.
I know Esther Cervasio as my Aunt and Godmother, but I also know her as my late mother’s friend. She and my mother Marietta were the two daughters-in-law and sisters-in-law of the family of Joseph and Donata Cervasio. Aunt Esther married the younger son who looked and sounded like an angel. My mother married the son who was also an angel … but with a dirty face. And the love and support between both of our families was genuine and without expectation of return. (It should be noted I never heard my parents use nicknames or shortened names for my Godparents, … it was always Esther and Anthony.) Our families traveled down similar paths. But when my mother left that path early in her life, Aunt Esther placed her hand in each of ours, helping her friend’s family like it were her own. She was a steady influence during the storms of life. Indeed, she was what a traditional Godmother was meant to be—even to those who were not her Godchildren.
The Ricigliano home on Clifton Avenue was rich with love, food, tradition, and people—lots of them. Sister Mary and Pat were downstairs; Aunt Esther and Uncle Anthony, the next floor; and Anthony Petrozzino and sister Jean were upstairs. Somehow I remember Grandpa and Grandma Ricigliano there, too, … but I don’t know how they fit; because there were cousins everywhere as well. There was also sister Faye, war hero brother Vic, and the handsome Joe, all who had moved on from the Clifton Avenue enclave.
I mention Aunt Esther’s family because they were part of the Cervasio family as well; so many wonderful memories of Friday night stay-overs in the middle of winter, ice skating in the park on Saturday with Anthony, Mark, and Chris—her boys, confession with Father Oats at the Cathedral, and then Saturday night dinner before Uncle Anthony would take us cousins back to the suburbs of Belleville. Her family of Riciglianos was our family. Those were the good old days.
The memories of Aunt Esther, however, will always be framed with her and Uncle Anthony as inseparable. Oh yes, she as the ultimate homemaker, but also the two of them horse-back riding, vacationing, skating, … doing things together as a couple and with their three boys that is still a great example for all of us now. She added her talents of painting, knitting, baking, crocheting, and sewing, as well as her interests as a voracious reader and listener … the products and benefits of which she shared with all of her family members, as her sons and daughters-in-law would attest. But of particular note, even to strangers, was her devotion to her children and grandchildren. A dance recital, church event, baseball game, graduation—she and the love of her life, Uncle Anthony, would have driven any distance to quietly sit, watch, and encourage the younger members of her family. So dutifully and consistently were they that a mutual friend of Fran, Anthony and me and Maria, himself to have lost both his parents before his teen years, never for his
children to know his parents, would observe: “I have never seen such sincerely dedicated and participative grandparents as Anthony and Esther Cervasio.”
When my daughter Corrine received her first Holy Communion, it was Aunt Esther who insisted on baking her cake, … more like a tiered wedding cake than something ordinary for a little girl—perhaps as a favor to her old friend, Marietta. At our homes, there is hardly a wall or shelf where an Aunt Esther creation does not dominate, whether it be a needlepoint picture of a tranquil, colorful country scene; or a painting of expressive clowns to bring a smile to a child’s face; or a painted candle. Painted candle? Yes, her last gift to my wife Maria is guarded like a family jewel. In the middle of Hurricane Sandy, I was reaching for any candle I could stumble upon. But when I stretched for this one on our kitchen shelf, my wife Maria grabbed it from me. “That’s the last gift Aunt Esther created for us,” she exclaimed. “ … don’t think you’re going to light that one.” She added, “ … those beautiful flowers were painted on by Aunt Esther herself.”
Esther Ricigliano Cervasio was a refuge all by herself. When you were with her alone her undying attention signaled you were home, no matter where you were. And her literal home was the ultimate refuge for each of us at different times of celebration, as well as trouble. For her brother-in-law Rocky, me, my sister Donna, and 12 year old Alan when our mother suddenly passed away—could we have ever made it through without the warm, colorful, and quiet home of our Aunt Esther and Uncle Anthony? And for her own children, they knew no matter how tough the times, she would be the ultimate mother to understand, counsel, and just listen.
I end with this: my most cherished gift from Aunt Esther is an artistic masterpiece that she sketched when she discovered I was researching a subject on the time of Christ. She inquired about it, I gave her some images and ideas, and then I waited. Several weeks later she and Uncle Anthony arrived to humbly present me with a unique collage which featured the face of Jesus Christ surrounded by the Apostles, less Judas. That was twelve complex and detailed interpretations of these first century icons. And when I beheld her work, I could not help but marvel. Remember, I said I had given her pictures of each character to copy, … unforgettable facial maps of legendary men who changed the world. And while she copied them, … she reversed all of their images! If the great fisherman Peter were facing right, she turned him to the left; if young, handsome John was seemingly gestering to the left, she demanded he now do the same, in the opposite direction; and if Jesus were looking up in the original picture, Aunt Esther Ricigliano Cervasio gently tilted the Christ’s gaze downward. She placed her master’s touch on a masterpiece. But why? I gave my Godmother a quote to inscript wherever she felt best on the massive portrait production. And when I dictated it to her, she quickly looked up in inquisitive fashion—she stared, she contemplated, she reflected. Yes, she would customize her pictures, because this quote was really all about her. It validated her, … she had never heard it before. It was by the incomparable American educator Horace Mann, a devout atheist. He said this: “I have never heard anything about the resolutions of the Apostles, but a great deal about their acts.”
When my Godmother, Aunt Esther, encountered her Creator most recently, I am sure He confirmed how fond He is of her, and then reminded her how much He appreciated that throughout her life, … her acts spoke louder than her words.
“Aunt Esther, job well done.”
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