Mary Catherine Calisto
[Donna, Mary Anne, Julia, Pat, and MCC]
Julia, her siblings, and her cousins (only some of whom are shown in the photo above) have just for the first time suffered the loss of a member of their generation of the extended Morelli, Calisto, Ryan, Kennedy, Efros, etc., etc., Italian clan. Mary Catherine died this week after a long bout with cancer, but saying “a long bout with cancer” doesn’t nearly describe the last four years of her life. When she was diagnosed, the best guess from the medical community was that she had a matter of a few months to live. Over the next four years she simply refused to stop living. Her pattern was simple – plan a trip (Africa, Italy, the fjords, etc.), take the trip, plan another trip, take the trip, plan another trip, etc. She kept setting goals and living for them, and I consider her “death journey” to be a model for how it should be done – as Dylan Thomas said, “do not go gently into that good night.” Last week, days before she slipped away, she was planning a trip to Florida, which, given the weather here this weekend, is a pretty smart thing for any Bostonian to do at this time of year.
Watching the cousins support and be part of MCC’s death journey over the past four years has set me thinking of a film that I like very much – The Pope of Greenwich Village. I won’t bore you with the details of the plot, but at one point two Irish guys are talking about two Italian guys with whom they have been doing some “business.” Reflecting about how close the Italians may be to one another, one of the Irish guys says to the other, “they’re not that close – they’re just cousins.” The other Irish guy replies, “you don’t understand – an Italian cousin is like an Irish twin brother.”
I’ve seen that at work through Mary Catherine’s illness – she basically has had half a dozen or so twin sisters taking care of her. Coming, as I do, from an English/Scots/Irish family, the seamlessness and selflessness of their care and love has been revelatory and inspiring. Mary Catherine is, in body, gone. It is difficult to avoid the feeling of loss – paraphrasing John Donne, every person’s death diminishes the ones who are left behind. But the bond among the Italian twin sisters is not diminished. It continues to inspire me, and to make me realize how lucky I’ve been to have been taken in by them as an Irish twin brother.