My Memorial Eulogy

Three days before she died, Bettina asked me to write her obituary. I said I would, but could not do the usual laundry list version. I came up with this remembrance instead and shared it as the eulogy. May she find blessing as she hovers over my keyboard.

I have two daughters. One has gone on to meet God. The other is striving to know God.

Bettina Maria Ortiz was born on September 22, 1961 to Juan Ramon and Eva Ortiz in Maracaibo, Venezuela. She had an older sister, Maira, a younger brother, Jose Maria and many, many relatives and friends.

The family immigrated to the United States when Bettina was ten years old. She learned English quickly and became an American citizen by the time she was seventeen. She was smart, quick and immensely talented.

We met her quite by chance fourteen or fifteen years ago through mutual friends. At the time she was about a third of the way along in her highly successful career at Household Retail Services—now HSBC (Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation). She was as hardworking and serious as she was upbeat. We took an instant liking to each other…all of us, Korin, Judy, Bettina and me. Korin and Bettina became close friends and slowly a family…like a photo emerging in the chemical bath. There were ups and downs, ins and outs, but we stayed together: a chosen family.

I’m not sure when she first referred to herself as my adopted daughter. It’s a little hazy because I didn’t really believe she meant it. I think we may have both been flirting with the idea…she needing a mom after losing her own in an auto accident; I always wanting another chance to put my mother skills to work after having practiced them on an only child. Her mother would have been about the same age as I when Tina and I met.

Except for the six months Bettina and Korin lived in Orlando, we lived in close proximity, at one point even living across the street from each other. Our lives intertwined a great deal—vacations, parties, dinners and plenty of problem solving. Then in 2006, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, just two months after my own diagnosis of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. We entered a new era of relationship and neither of us would ever be the same again.

She called me Kimosabe. We traveled through dark tunnels alongside each other. We were time travelers with passports, but hers had limitations. We all knew it, but did not look closely. When her cancer recurred for the third time last year, we asked her to come live with us so that we could take care of her. We thought that with her buoyancy and our care, she’d be the exception to the grim, ovarian cancer statistics.

Life went rolling on in hills and valleys last year as we cast our lots together through both pain and joy, and became a band of three as well as a family of four. I don’t quite remember when she first started calling me Mamacita, but I was ready to hear it. By the time of her fourth recurrence late last year, it was just Mama. By the second week of hospice the sound of it was sweet…

As of January 25^th there were just five weeks left to hear that word and I cherished every single time she affirmed my love and final role in her life with that form of address. We learned so much from each other: she to take counsel and I to respect her autonomy and right to die as she chose. We talked about death many times. We shared our thoughts and concerns for each other. There were times of tears and goodbyes, but we were always mindful of the responsible task it is to die well. It was my privilege to be the primary care giver and adopted mother, to see this child of God Home… And I did… and I do. I will never be the same. I gave her unconditional love. She gave me a chance to know, in a way I had not known before, my own God-given mothering self.

When I think of her in her last days, completely open and reflecting the face of God to one and all…when I think of the light she became at warp speed…I see that light blending perfectly with God-light and I am blessed and amazed. For I have walked with her to the doorway and I stand there sometimes in wonder, and just a little bit wanting to be there too.

I think this eighth century Sufi poem by Rubia, translated by Daniel Ladinsky tells Tina’s last story as I felt it and breathed it.

CHERISH MYSELF

 

I know how it will be when I die,

my beauty will be so extraordinary that God will worship me.

He will not worship me from a distance,

for our minds will have wed,

our souls will have flowed into each other.

How to say this: God and I

will forever cherish

Myself.

I have two daughters. One has become one with God. The other is striving to walk with God. I am blessed by both.

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