An Obituary

... for Janice Ann (Caddigan) Terlizzi

Janice Ann Caddigan was born on Monday, November 27, 1950.  Nov. 27^th wasn’t Thanksgiving Day in the year 1950, but some years it does fall on Thanksgiving.  So, if you want to remember Janice on her birthday it’s 11/27, but if that’s hard to remember then just remember her on Thanksgiving, it will be pretty close.

Janice was born to Joseph Paul Caddigan, and Jean Katherine (Langley) Caddigan.  Joseph was a Navy veteran, who retired from the phone company after many decades of service.  As for Jean, well, Janice was her second child, Jody was the oldest.  Jean spent most of her time raising a total of nine children in Arlington, MA.; and right down the street from her twin sister and her family of nine children… Jean’s sister Joan Sullivan is the lone surviving sibling of their generation (Rita, Robert, and Edward have passed, as well as Jean).  Their mother was Gertrude Langley, a tiny Gold-Star Widow that lived on the same street as Joan and Jean, and their families.  The Caddigan children were as follows: Jody, Janice, Tommy, Jeannie, Mary, Jimmy, Billy, Joannie, and John.

Janice Caddigan eventually became Janice Terlizzi after marrying my father, Frank Terlizzi.  I was a product of their relationship, and when it was confirmed that Janice was pregnant, they married to try to build a good foundation/family, which I respect them both for trying.  Their relationship didn’t survive some of the stressors that the young couple would face, and, so, for most of her life, Janice was a single mother to an overly curious and fearless boy named Chris, who was born a week before the big Woodstock concert.  Janice spent many years keeping Chris from hurting himself too badly, and getting into too much trouble.  She also had great difficulty providing physiological necessities for herself and her son for many years.  Janice tried several types of jobs over the years, and probably made the most money when she was an executive secretary at a couple of companies, carpal-tunnel syndrome eventually forced her from that line of work which she excelled at.

Janice survived a bout with cancer, and passed away as a cancer survivor.  It's not ‘polite’ to talk about some things, but I think it’s appropriate to say that Janice had experienced seasons of depression, as well as some behavioral and anti-social conditions as categorized in the DSM-5.  As some of these psycho-physiological challenges grew later in life, she began to alienate herself, and could be difficult to deal with.  Janice relocated down to Sandwich, MA around 1993, and then to MA’s North shore approximately twenty years ago.  Janice Terlizzi renewed her priority for God around twenty years ago.  Janice spent much of her time socializing and helping folks from various churches and charities until she couldn’t help much anymore.

Janice’s last residence was Danvers, MA, at the Brentwood nursing home, until she moved to the Caplan House hospice down the street for the last week or so before she passed.  She endured the COVID-19 bio-weapon attack on humanity while she was cared for at Brentwood.  She was vaccinated, boosted, still caught the virus but was a-symptomatic, and was boosted again after catching the bug, and managed to survive all of that medical negligence, including the negligence of lock-downs and isolation from family, all during her last year of life.  Janice  succumbed to infection that spread to bones, and there isn’t much in current therapies for that sort of thing.  The doctors said that she would spend a minimum of three months in an ICU type of environment receiving IV-antibiotics, and even that wouldn’t fix her, she would not be healed by medicine.  She had legal instructions that she did not wish to be resuscitated, that she didn’t want to be kept alive by machines and tubes, so she spent her remaining days at the hospice in Danvers.

Janice Terlizzi would succumb to the infection around 4:pm on Mother’s Day, 2022 (May 8).  She transitioned with her brother Billy on one side, and her son Chris on her other side.  We pulled her bed up to the doors to the beautiful courtyard, and with the both of us holding her hands, she eventually stopped breathing as Billy and I were chatting away about who knows what.  Janice transitioned in a comfortable environment, with loved ones by her side, and I would say that it was the most peaceful way that you would hope for a loved-one to transition to what-ever awaits our souls.  May 8 isn’t always on Mother’s Day, but it was in 2022, so even if you don’t remember Janice on May 8, just remember her on Mother’s Day, it’s pretty close.

The letter below was written and mailed to Janice during the middle of the covid-era, they weren’t having visitors come to the nursing home where she resided, and I didn’t have a car at the time even if I could visit her.  So that’s when I started writing to her more often… here’s one of them, it’s give’s a bit of insight into part of Janice’s legacy… her kid, daughter-in-law (Laura), and grand-kids:

10-02-21

Hello Grammy/Mama,

There are more covid-19 related cases that have been reported by Brentwood, so far the cases were from employees, not patients/residents, they say that testing has been no residents, only a few employees here and there, not too many fortunately.  I think about you often, even though we don’t talk a whole lot on the phone very much.  Lately I think of you in a different perspective, I think of you going back to the year 1987 and you being a parent, it’s the year that I graduated high school in May and then enlisted in the Army in September… I don’t think I have ever thought about me heading off to the Army from your perspective before—from a parent’s perspective--at the time all I knew was that joining the Army was something that I wanted to do, and so I did it… well on September *** Laura, Hannah, Sarah and I dropped Josiah off at the Marine’s recruiting office, and the next day Josiah flew off to Parris Island, South Carolina for boot camp the next day… Josiah had told us last year that he wanted to join the Marines, and we took care of all of the legal paperwork once we knew it’s what he wanted, but then on Sept ^*** is when we started to realize that our 18 year old son had left the house for boot camp and we don’t know if he will ever be back home to stay again.  I never tried to imagine what being a parent was like when your son goes off to the military, but I got to understand that perspective now… psychologists call that parental experience ‘grieving’, the psychologists say that there are five steps/aspects to ‘grieving a loss’, and they say that there aren’t many exceptions to the rule that many people experience some sort of grieving process when there is a separation or a loss, and that’s what seems to be going on with some of the feelings that we’ve been experiencing since we dropped Josiah off with the recruiter… like I said, I never thought about what your experience was like back in 1987 when I joined the Army, but I sure have a better understanding of it now, I definitely had some moments of tears and thinking about our relationship and some good memories, those are some of the ‘grieving’ things that happen to folks that I never considered before.  So after I finish this letter to you I will be writing a letter to Josiah, we have his official address now so we can start writing letters to him, he isn’t far into training yet but he has already been through a lot in the short time that he has been away, we have a general ‘training outline’ that tells us basically what steps his platoon is doing and it’s pretty cool as a parent to understand how far through the process he is… I am both nervous and happy for him, and can’t wait to see him again, he might have some time off for Christmas and New Year’s holidays but we don’t know for sure yet. Sarah has a good High school schedule for this year, she is a Junior now and has a few more classes that she was able to choose from than she did last year, she got high honor grades last year so she takes school seriously and is pretty smart too, she will take Driver’s education this winter too, she turned 16 on September *** so she can legally begin driving in New Hampshire as long as Laura or I are in the car with her.  Hannah has begun her second year of college, she is going to school part-time and working part-time so she has been taking college classes for a couple of years already and is now taking some really good and hard classes, she is smart too and will do well, last year when they had to do remote-learning classes she had a really hard time, so she is happy that they could return to regular classroom and lab settings.  Laura is enjoying her job at ***, she is the teacher for ‘toddlers’, she either works *** or *** Monday thru Friday, she has some tough kids that have tough family backgrounds and some others that also have some learning difficulties, so some days are harder for her than others, and being the Mother of a Marine in training is difficult as you might expect, but she seems to like her job and she is very good with kids that age. I am keeping myself busy around the house and am ‘self-employed’ which just means that people pay me to help them with projects that they need help with, and I have to report my own taxes, I put in an air conditioner for one guy that own’s a local store last week.  I always have some sort of projects to do around the house or something to fix, and that’s how I mostly keep myself busy, I’m pretty much like a taxi-driver dropping Sarah and the neighbors off to school and Laura at work and then picking them all up again in the afternoon, I am also writing a few books/novels right now and hope to finish my first decent one by the end of this year, I’ll bring you a copy when it’s fully done but I’ll also bring you an advance copy once it’s edited and more presentable.  I don’t know what else to really say, other than I love you and I hope to see you soon, now that I have a better idea of my schedule since school started back up again I will schedule another visit soon.  In the mean-time, please remember that God is with you, and he hears you, and he loves you.

New Hampshire Terlizzi’s Love You Too, Chris

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I don’t know how you remember Janice, or how your lives connected, or what experiences you shared with her.  But, as her only child, I’ll remember Janice as a single-mom who lived a life with many great memories and great challenges, who tried her best to raise me given the resources and circumstances that she was in.  I appreciate her taking on the challenge of raising a child instead of opting for the abortion choice that so many single-ladies at her age seemed to choose (I was born when she was still 18).

She would want me to tell you about the God that she served in her own way (the one that Jesus called ‘his Father’).  She would want me to tell you more about the historical person named Jesus (you know, the one from Nazareth a couple thousand years ago).  She would want me to tell anyone that will listen about the significance of Jesus, his words, his teachings, his actions, and his behavior.  She would want me to tell you that she began to understand the Love of God after she began to follow the mentorship of Jesus.  There are zillions of things that Janice would want me to tell you regarding this subject, but, I’m not going to.  Instead, I challenge the reader to seek our Creator yourself.  There isn’t much that a spiritually lazy person can do to understand much about God, so I’d rather not waste my time trying to explain anything, but I’ll explain this much to you… seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened… but YOU must seek; to ignore your Creator is to die ignorant.

Janice didn’t want much of a fan-fare, or an emotional/grieving ceremony to close this chapter of her life, she chose to be cremated, and her ashes scattered along ‘the beach’ that helped create many fond memories for her, a ‘happy place’.  Thank you Janice, for all that you did for me, and thank you God that her suffering is over.

In closing, I Thank you (the Reader), for your interest in Janice, and the time and memories that you shared with her, you probably contributed to many of the moments of joy, peace, and comfort during her 71 years of living on this most special speck in the sky.  God bless you.

Chris Terlizzi -- a guy who is proud to call Janice Ann Terlizzi my Mother

This picture was taken by ‘Uncle Harry’ (Harry Agritha), Christmas Eve 2016… it’s Janice, and two more generations that appreciate her:

Here’s a picture of Janice, and her mother Jean Caddigan, probably late 1970s to early 80s:

Here’s a picture of Janice that i don’t remember seeing before today, probably from the early to mid-1960s:

Here’s a picture of Janice and Chris, maybe late 1970s to early 1980s:

Adios vaya con Dios, Mama…

… Thanks again for reading — God bless, ct

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Here are some blog entries that i made around the time of Mom’s transition:

05-06-22:  i'm writing on borrowed-time, meaning that i took the ambien already, and once that baby kicks-in i'm about done... so, borrowed time... i spent the better part of today hanging out with my mom, she was transferred to a beautiful place where she'll spend her remaining days/hours... i have a ton of thoughts and memories and feelings and to-do items bouncing around my head today, much of it needs to digest for a few days (probably) before i can really begin to formulate/articulate/write anything worth passing on to my own off-spring, but it was a good day with my mom today... it's friday today, and other than end of life care/time it's a perfectly regular friday, i think... anyways, mom seems peaceful and comfortable, and that's all i really needed to write for tonight... i have much to write about, but i just have to live and appreciate the remaining hours with mom, until she moves on to the next stage of her life... the new (very used) car drives OK, it needs a bit of TLC/sweat/parts, but it'll do for now.  --  ct

05-08-22:  happy Mother's day... i'm in the middle of the weirdest one... saying good-bye to mom, the hospice venue is beautiful, she is relaxed, and i'm trying to spend some time each day with her... a mother can be a person's first real friend, it's hard saying good-bye to old friends, especially your first one...

05-08-22 later: she passed... whatever it really is that really happens to folks after our physical life ends, yeah man, whatever that next thing it is, well that's what's going on with mom about now... it was comforting to me to know that she was comfortable during her last days and hours... i've shifted my attention and writing priority when i learned how ill mom really was, i have plenty of thoughts that i'll have to release over the next few weeks or so, but i have sort of a thought for a paper for mom, right now i call it 'braids', if you saw her these past few days you will know why i picked that particular word as a sort of book-marker/place-holder... people leave some sort of imprint on others based on experiences with that person, or even by their written words, to some degree; and then there are physical thing beyond our reputation, assets if you will, we also leave certain physical things behind when we pass -- the documentation plus the physical equates to some crude thing that i want to simplify by saying 'legacy'... we remember people the way that we are capable of understanding/remembering people, it's pleasant to remember people when they are in their prime, sometimes it's helpful to remember them that way; and then sometimes folks only have the capacity to remember the worse in folks, sucks to be you; and today i want to remember mom the way that i saw her, but saw her beyond the shell that her physical body had become, so it's 'braids'... i don't know who put mom's hair in the braids, but it was pretty, and so braids it is... i'm going to remember her pretty braid right now... tomorrow i have to get the last legal/financial matters regarding mom, but for now i'm just thinking about mom's braids, and her final peaceful moments... let me tell ya something, weirdest fvcking mother's day ever as far as i'm concerned, but one of the gifts that i got to have this mother's day was having a mother to celebrate for one more mother's day, i consider that one more gift from mom to me, i had one more mother's day with her... i know, pretty cool right... i thought today was really going to suck in a really bad way, but it turned out to be rather pleasant, mom was peaceful when she passed into whatever it really is that we pass into, i'm trying to take religion out of my description of today's events, and if i do so i would say that mom's passing was about as peaceful as you would hope your final moments to seem like, so today wasn't so shitty afterall... God speed Mama, good for you today, you had peace with your creator and that's all a son could hope for... braids.  -- ct

05-09-22: i don't know how much i'm going to write, or to which topic of interest to focus writing efforts at the moment, but i just started a paper that is centered around my Mom, for now i'm just calling the paper 'braids', i'm just calling it that because i sort of have this branded-in image of her braided hair, mom was a hair-stylist for many years, i think she would have appreciated the way that hair was braided for her last few days, she looked pretty... i appreciate the fact that i have a wife, and some kids that still live at home, so i have some physical/social support as i go through whatever grieving sort of thing that i'm still going to deal with... in my case most of the 'grieving' was done before she passed, so the desire to control sh1t that i have no business trying to control (mom's health and failing body) was the beginning of the grieving process, knowing that mom was beyond 'fixing', and that her body was too weak to survive, those things combined with knowing that there wasn't anything that i could do to 'help/fix' her condition, that aspect has always been a challenge for me in life, when you have empathy for someone or something that you wish you could change/heal/help, and you come to grips with the fact that it's beyond your desire to help, when you know that there wasn't much more than aggressive treatment which would might have extended her physical life by weeks to maybe a month, and that those treatments in themselves would have been traumatic to an already failing body... so most of my grieving probably already happened, but then again, sometimes you don't know when stuff like that hits the mind... but i appreciate the well-wishes already, your prayers were strong, mom's transition was peaceful with zero hint of suffering... so what more can i say, she made peace with our creator years ago, she tried to do right by God and by others once she restored a severed relationship to God when she learned a bit more about Jesus, and a sacrifice/substitute for punishment of shitty thoughts/words/actions, that's just the crude way of describing an aspect of our religious preference... and so it seemed as if Janice Ann Terlizzi had peace in her mind and her soul/spirit despite what was going on in her physical body... i don't know how a son could have wanted to change anything for mom's passing, she seemed responsive until around 3:30 to 4:00pm, and then from 4:00 to 4:30 she sort of dimmed/faded like an old light-bulb, so what can i say, and how would i complain of a thing, it was a peaceful closure and transition to whatever it is that she is experiencing now... i think of a body and mind that had been broken to some extent or another for many many years, and so somehow i have peace that that's not the case anymore... so, 'God speed' Mama, thanks for ensuring my life for so many years, i understand that everything that you achieved in life you had worked very hard for until you couldn't do it any longer, you transitioned as well as you could to many of the challenges that you faced in life, and overcame many obstacles and challenges that have killed some people, you beat double-lung failure a bunch of years back, you beat colon-cancer more recently, so i was almost shocked to learn that it was 'just going to be' infection that ended-up taking your physical life, and 'thank you' for making some of the more difficult decisions already, you made things as easy as you possibly could have for me, i trust that we did right by you, and you appreciated the way you finished this physical life... and see if they will let you sneak me a dream or something so i know what your next phase of life is like, see if they'll let you do that... love you Mom. -- ct

05-09-22 later: i'm refraining from responding to an asshole, i gotta tell ya, it's pretty hard... but then again, who know's, maybe they need to be alerted that they are an asshole, sometimes we don't even know it... i'm resisting, but the day is still young... good grief. -- ct

05-09-22 more later: there were some occasions a couple two or three years ago where some cousins of mine helped a TON with my mom, and me too by default, and uncle and an aunt helped too, but the occasions were helping to thin-out my mom's apartment that she had for some years leading up until the time that she didn't come home from a nursing home/rehab place... that was a rambling sentence, but man, my cousin Lauren is still a fragile person in many respects, but what a work-horse she can be when it comes to caring for those that can't care for themselves, and she knows how to clean and organize like you wouldn't believe... she also survived the death of both parents who she was care-giver for, as well as her younger brother... she's got some kind of special gift to be able to serve others at the level that she has served others... anyways, i'll call her tomorrow for some practical advice and a degree of support, Louis is some kind of rock too, they are some kind of quiet and unassuming power-couple in some respect, i love that, their kids are awesome too... anyways... remembering going through my mom's possessions and apartment a couple of years ago, my cousin and her kids, and my other cousins too, they went back to mom's place on a few occasions when i had a hard time getting down to help her, and to a large extent i didn't even know how/what to do to help mom with her apartment full of things, if you've ever helped my mom move you know what i mean, but all of this is relevant today because i don't have an apartment full of things to go through and sort-out right now, it's already been done, on multiple occasions, and i appreciate the hard work that some of my relatives did in sorting through mom's possessions a few years ago... and then a year ago i cleared-out a small storage thing that mom had and already started to grieve a bit back then, so a year ago i did some of the things that would seem like a mountain right about now, those things have already been done, and so that made things a world easier for me in some respects, and i really appreciate the hard and selfless work that some of my cousins did a while back, i'd be seeing a bad one about now... yesterday was painful and beautiful and today wasn't very stressful knowing that so much of the hard work has already been done, i can just be alone with memories and not chores today, that cousin Lauren is a work-horse, you should see her in action clearing and cleaning, like a machine i tell ya... i just have to pay a bill or two right now, and then make some plans in the coming weeks, that's quite a blessing compared to some of the things that some families with assets end-up doing in the days following the passing of a parent... not only are folks being caring and helpful now, but they were years ago too, and i'm appreciating the love and support today as much as i did years ago. --  ct

05-22-22: ... i hope to write a bit today too, i've got a few chores to do, but hope to give an hour or two to a project that i'm working on... i had some great conversations with a few different folks on the phone yesterday, not sure what today will bring as far as conversations are concerned, but most of the family will be around too, so there is bound to be some good talks today, and probably some laughter too... also going through some of mom's things today, there is stuff to donate, and stuff to give to others for memories, and i still haven't found the mother-load of the photos yet, they are around here somewhere... i had some good conversations yesterday regarding end of life care, and ensuing arrangements, today i need to give some more consideration into yesterday's advice, and formulate some practical next steps... if you wonder how a guy can write about a parent's recent passing with clarity and ease it's because it happened after i experienced two of the shittiest years of my life, and i finally got my head back into healthy reality, so, that just means that much of the emotional responses that i've had were during some very sobering moments following my own existential crisis, so without dwelling on death/passing too much you have to realize that the only certainty with life is it's eventual transition/passing/changing, and to see a loved-one pass so peacefully and comfortably just sit's right within my soul, everyone's journey is different and unique, the journey is much easier when things sit well in your soul... i might try to do some religious type of thing too, today, maybe watch a church stream or something, it is sunday, so there ought to be plenty to find... enjoy your sunday  -- ct