Don's eulogy to honor Brenda English-Yovicsin

Don’s eulogy for:

Brenda English-Yovicsin

May 3, 1962 - Feb.27, 2012

Brenda asked me several months ago to properly honor her with a eulogy and she also added please make them laugh too.

Later that night I got thinking... eulogy, eulogy, I can’t even spell it!?!

So I asked the smartest person I know – Wonder Boy my son Jake and he then spells it out for me; E-U-L-O-G-Y and he adds I think there is an app for writing them too.

Scroll a smart phone ... not yet!

So I go back to Jake telling him that there is no app for writing eulogies and Jake sagely says  

... dad, dad, dad...

just… open with a joke,

close with a joke

and tell a story from the heart in the middle.

I married my best friend here in this church in November of 1989 almost 23 years ago. Brenda was a stunning bride! So stunning she took my breath away!

I married way outside of my league.

I met Brenda while I was working downtown Boston at the Parker House and she asked me out on our first date. Soon after, we were married and lived in Brookline in a place that I had chosen only because it was next to a basketball court at Dean Park and I could easily walk to the Circle Cinema and Pino’s Pizza. It wasn’t until after our son John Michael Yovicsin or Jake was born that I really understood the true virtues of living in Brookline.

*The awesome school system

*It’s proximity to Boston

*being adjacent to the finest hospitals in the world

*and 2 Anna’s Taquerias

As I said earlier, I married my best friend and like best friends we had our differences;

* she saw rainbows and I saw black & white

* she liked still life and I like abstract

* she liked Sarah McLaghlan and I like Springsteen

* she preferred Presto Pizza and I preferred Pino’s

We foolishly let silly things get between us, divide and separate us. But, we never compromised our shared parental responsibilities as Jake was always our life’s priority. Sadly and the irony of her disease is that it brought us back together and then cruelly separated us again.

 Brenda, there is no ex in love!

Brenda wasn’t a saint. But, she was the most loving, selfless person I’ve ever met. Her life was always Jake and others centric as there was never an I or a me involved. She lived for others, always ready to lend a hand, a smile, a word of encouragement, a prayer, or even just a simple hug. She was always willing to give. If she knew someone was in need, she would be the first to offer help. If it was going to make another happy, she did it without thinking twice.

Brenda only had 2 things on her bucket list and she realized both of them;

* seeing our son Jake graduate from Brookline High

* and seeing Jake off to college this past September

Brenda was a fun loving, free spirit and an artist with painting with oils and watercolors as her true gift and passion. Brenda was never a career driven person and her only true desire was to be a mother and to have a son. She gave birth to our son Jake - July of 1992 at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston just up the street from Brookline.

Brenda had her son and she couldn’t have been happier and then she used every color on her life’s palette to create and illustrate a masterful piece of brilliant art of dazzling perfection - our son Jake. Brenda used beautiful brush strokes of love and nurturing to make Jake the awesome man he is today.

Brenda, you succeeded brilliantly!!!

Brenda’s legacy is sitting in front of me in the front row. Brenda’s legacy is our awesome son Jake. Brenda used all of her creative and life energies and motherly love and created an exquisite work of living art!

Thank you so much Brenda!

Unfortunately, sometimes even the good lord deals a shitty hand. Brenda’s body betrayed her and her life taken away from us way to early by metastasized lung cancer. Cancer is a diagnosis that attacks an entire family and is an equal opportunity offender. The throes of cancer are miserable, dastardly and unrelenting. Cancer shatters promises, dreams, hopes and aspirations. So it is our responsibility to fight the cancer fight collectively. We all have been touched by cancer, some of us assaulted and some of us today are survivors. Please, do whatever you can do to join the battle against cancer.

I would also like to mention a special Brookline project that Brenda, Jake and I have all embraced - the Brookline Teen Center project. Brenda has requested any/all memorial monies to be donated to Brooklineteencenter.com.

I was born in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania just 3 hours due west of Asbury Park, NJ so maybe that explains my love for Bruce Springsteen’s music. I had a grand plan to check off one of my bucket list items by performing Brenda’s favorite Bruce Springsteen song to properly honor her today. But, the church said no to my request so I will now read you the lyrics to;

Bruce Springsteen’s

If I Should Fall Behind

We said we'd walk together - baby come what may
That come the twilight - should we lose our way
If as we're walkin - a hand should slip free
I'll wait for you
Should I fall behind
Wait for me

We swore we'd travel- darlin' side by side
We'd help each other - stay in stride
But each lover's steps fall- so differently
I'll wait for you
Should I fall behind
Wait for me

Now everyone dreams of a love - lasting and true
But you and I know what this world can do
So let's make our steps clear - so the other may see

I'll wait for you
Should I fall behind
Wait for me

There's a beautiful river - in the valley ahead
There 'neath the oak's bough - soon we will wed
Should we lose each other - in the shadow of the evening trees
I'll wait for you
Should I fall behind
Wait for me

I'll wait for you

Should I fall behind
Wait for me

I have much emotional scar tissue. I have a gaping hole in my heart that I am filling with awesome memories of Brenda. I love and miss you, Brenda, but I know that you're still very close to us in spirit and that you've gone on to your very much deserved Heavenly Reward.

In the end, life is not measured by the breaths that we take but by the moments that take our breath away.

Brenda, thank you so much for taking my breath away all those years!

Brenda, when I count my blessings - I count you twice!