HELEN MASSI EULOGY October 15, 2017

Who was Helen Beatrice Shesko Massi?

First of all, she was a New Yorker. That means she was a fighter. When she was mugged in New York City, she fought back. The mugger got her purse but he also got some bruises. Even after we brought her and her son Eddie up here to Boston. It didn’t change her. You can take the New Yorker out of New York but you can’t take New York out of the New Yorker.

She was a really hard worker all her life. People often asked her what was her secret of a long life, and she always answered: “Work your ass off.” And she did..in commercial laundries, as a superintendent, a waitress, a bus matron and a nanny.

She was strong and tough, in body and in will, tough to intimidate. She experienced a lot of pains and a lot of blows, but nothing ever turned her into a quitter. If she had been a man she would have been a world championship boxer.

She was generous to a fault. Even in the nursing home, reduced to a few token possessions, she always tried to give something away.

She was not a genius or an intellectual. She was a simple peasant, with all the peasant’s limitations and all the peasant’s strengths. She had rough edges. But she had a lot of “tough love” for the people in her family.

She was not subtle or delicate or sentimental. She was not quiet; she was loud. But God quieted her down in her old age. Or maybe my father in law Tony needed 30 years of rest before the poker games begin again in Heaven. I can almost see him now with her and Aunt Clara and Uncle Neil and Uncle Tony again, losing again (he always did) and her teasing him and cleaning out everybody else’s pockets and laughing together.

She always spoke from her heart, not from her head. That wasn’t always pretty, but it was always honest You always knew where she was coming from, and you always knew where you stood with her, and what you saw was always what you got, with no baloney and no bullshit.

She was a child, then a sister, then a wife, then a mother, then a grandmother then a great grandmother, then a great great grandmother...and the most dynamic mother-in-law I could ever wish for....

One of my favorite lines in literature about her is from Dylan Thomas, who said “Do not go gentle into that good-night; rage, rage against the dying of the light.” And she certainly did...for over 100 years through 2 world wars, the great depression, the roaring twenties, the Korean war, all the way up to the destruction of part of her beloved New York, the World Trade Center

Are there things she deeply loved besides her family? Certainly, her pet dogs that she overfed, her trips to Foxwoods, her love of cleaning stoves...anybody’s stoves, and her very stylish clothes. Are there things we need to forgive her for? Sure. She loved Liberace and worst of all, she was a Yankee fan.





When we meet her in Heaven after we and she have both passed through Heaven’s bathroom where we take a hot shower and get cleaned, and when we get as far as she is now, and see her dancing and cooking stuffed cabbage and cleaning the golden streets, we will see the rose without the thorns, the heart of gold under the tough skin, and we will say to her, “We have loved you for decades and will continue to love you forever, Mom.”