Claudia Stellato died at 56. We worked together at the Public Defender’s Office in Rutland. Much too young to die.
Found out about her death in an e-mail from Carol Beaudoin, the Administrative Secretary in Middlebury with whom I also worked. She inquired if I had heard about Claudia’s “passing.” Like anyone from my five years in the PD’s office would have me on their call list. “No. People just ask me if I am still around; they don’t include me in the loop. Whatever I have is catching.”
The last time Claudia and I spoke was after I heard about her illness. She told me that she was going to do everything she could to stay alive. She wasn’t sure she wanted her picture taken after she had received some treatment. Too bad. I would have liked to see her and make a photo of someone living real.
Battle! When someone dies, the funeral directors who use death notices as a cash cow here in VT, sometimes call it a battle. I guess if extending your time is the goal of the conflict, then its a battle. To me, a battle is an engagement where one side tries to defeat the other. Since there ain’t no defeating the “big C” as my Mother would have called it, I don’t use the word battle to describe the end game where malignant carcinomas are involved. To me, the best thing you can do if you come down with cancer is live with it. And, hopefully, they give you good dope to smoke to deal with the nausea and discomfort of the treatment.
Always a watcher of death notices, I looked at Sunday’s entries in the NYT, including one about a celebration for E. Donald Shapiro, former Dean of New York Law School and a former friend. Some deaths noticed in the paid ads adjacent to the authored ones of the more important announce that the dead person had died peacefully. That’s for me, though from what I have read, I cannot be sure that’s what happens unless you are executed, and that isn’t always painless. Some died after a long illness. Not sure I can do a long sickness. I have trouble with headaches. Some fought valiantly; others fought bravely. Not words ever associated with me. I have always been crushed. My ex-wife, who died of breast cancer, called it a struggle. That word was there, too, in the notices. Much too physical for my aching joints to put up a struggle. I want my wife, Sharon, to be free as soon as possible so she can get over grieving and get her life back together. No struggle or battle for me; get it over with.
But you never know if those are the wishful words of the living or an accurate reflection of how the condemned dealt with the sentence. Some stay alive because they think that’s what the living want. Notice how some happily married old people die right after one another. No reason to live. It’s your life. Do it or get it over with.
Claudia, they say was courageous. Just hard to imagine being resolute, stalwart, tenacious, tough and strong in the face of sure death. What does that word mean, here or anywhere when someone dies? She didn’t cry or shed tears? She didn’t feel sorry for herself? Fuck that. Claudia had some tough times which she endured. She deserved some time to enjoy life. “Damn,” I would have said were I to have been her, “now look what happened to me. I am just so sad I could cry.”
Courageous is how I denote getting old when you don’t know what’s going to fail next. I would have liked to ask her. And passing, another one of my and George Carlin’s favorite words. Must be a religious thing, though I don’t remember Claudia being observant. Some people don’t like the word died. Well, call it whatever; your heart stops and your soul leaves. Life be over. And, I don’t tell anyone what word to use or how to describe the moment it happens.
But, alas, I had been told by someone in-charge a few years ago that she was not too fond of me and wouldn’t work with me, so we didn’t have anything to do with one another except where office business was concerned after I transferred to Middlebury. I remember bringing her on a run to the new house and giving her a carpet that didn’t fit in our decorating plans.
If I had to guess, knowing the Carol I knew, she probably looked and talked strong until the very end, but kept a lot to herself. Who knows? People have opportunities to change all the time, if they be breathing. Her death at such an early hour should remind us all to keep on trucking, be kind and live it up while we can.
Well put!