Many years ago I remember working all day at my office in Los Angeles, then flying all night to New York City, where I had meetings throughout the day -- one tough negotiation following another. This was followed by a long business dinner, a few hours sleep, and then a 7 o'clock breakfast -- remember, that's 4 in the morning Los Angeles time -- and from there I went to another all-day series of meetings, sales calls and contract negotiations, riding in dirty cabs that were fighting the traffic and congestion, and finally making my flight home. To save money, I had booked a one-stop flight, in Minneapolis, and on that particular night, it was starting to snow as we landed in Minneapolis. The snow continued and our flight was delayed for four hours. When we finally arrived in Los Angeles, it was 7 in the morning, so I decided to go straight to work.
As I dragged myself into the office, feeling battle-weary and war-torn, the first person who greeted me was a fresh-faced receptionist, who asked, with a big smile, "Good morning, Rick, how was your vacation?"
Of course, I was ready to jump out of my skin. But instead, I thought of my mother, and replied, "Oh fine, thank you."
There is nothing worse than to work as hard as you can and not be appreciated for it.
And no one worked harder than my mother, with such a generosity of spirit and love ... and we are here today to tell her how much we appreciate it.
Her typical day started at 5:30 or 6 in the morning, when she would make coffee and set the table for breakfast ... initially for two, then four, then six, then eight, then 10 ... and depending on how many friends we had over ... some days it seemed like breakfast for 20.
She would go to 7 o'clock Mass, then hurry home to help create calm amidst total chaos ... Leo had to catch the 8:10 train, the kids had to get to school before 8:30, and there was serious bedlam as the kitchen filled up: Ray was cramming for a biology test, I was on the phone, Robert was reviewing math problems, Jerry and Doug were fighting, each blaming the other for starting it, Mary Ann and John were asking for last-minute help with their school projects, and Margo was climbing the walls, literally.
Once the bedlam subsided, my mother would help clean the kitchen and then make a few phone calls, usually on behalf of a charity, school, hospital or church that she had volunteered to work for.
When I was 14 I went to Quigley Seminary, where I met Joe Novak who is here today -- a lifelong friend. He is here with his wife Cris, and I am here with my wife Carole, so obviously we did not become priests, but at Quigley they didn't trust us to stay home on Friday nights, so they had classes on Saturday ... and instead of getting the weekend off, we got Thursdays and Sundays off. On those Thursdays I remember getting close to my mother because I could really observe her work schedule. I was not an adult, but I was old enough to be impressed by how energetic she was, and by how her workday never ended.
She loved to exercise, and later in life became a walker with my father -- six miles a day was nothing. My own grown children, Sara and Jack, to this day ask the question, "Do you mean real blocks or Newcombe blocks?" The origin of the phrase "Newcombe blocks" was that after a breakfast at the Pancake House, my parents asked them if they wanted to walk home, a distance of several miles, and they asked, how far is it? and were told, "oh, just a couple of blocks ..."
In those days my mother loved to swim, particularly because she suffered from lower back pain and, having so many babies one after the other, she found swimming a great relief. So we would go to the Playdium in Glenview to swim, then stop at the A&P. My parents had a wood-paneled station wagon, and we'd put down all the seats so that fifty bags of groceries fit nicely. As I was carrying them into the house, two at a time, I asked her how she did this when I wasn't there, and she just smiled. Hard work was a given.
Then she helped prepare lunch for my brothers and sisters who came home from Faith Hope, followed by clean-up and then a brief catnap. Then more house cleaning or phone calls for her volunteer work, followed by driving the kids to lessons, sports events and other activities. She drove from pillar to post. One of her favorite bumper stickers at the time was, "If a woman's place is in the kitchen, why am I always in the car?"
This brings up the question of women's rights and the so-called liberation movement of the 1960s and 70s. She wasn't crazy about it, let's put it that way, because very often people would say to her, "why don't you work?"
Aahhhh!!! No one worked harder than Ann Newcombe, and she did it with enthusiasm, faith, love and kindness.
She and my father insisted on dinner in the dining room with all of us at the table, and very often the conversations involved politics and world events. She was so proud of her famous cousin, "Billy," who the rest of the world knew as William F. Buckley Jr.
She had a number of favorite phrases, and my brothers and sisters and I traded emails trying to re-capture some of them. They all reflect her deep-seated convictions.
She was grateful for Leo, grateful for her children, grateful for her grandchildren and cousins and nieces and nephews, grateful for Faith Hope, grateful for everything, and she would say, with a big smile, "My cup runneth over." She even put that one on our Christmas cards.
When it came to parenting, she led by example -- she did not drink or smoke, she was loving and even-tempered, she prayed constantly, she took care of herself and everyone around her with a pleasant disposition -- and her philosophy was, "more is caught than taught."
She had a great sense of humor and loved to laugh. For instance, she'd say, "Horses sweat, men perspire and women glow."
No one was better at making lemonade out of lemons -- another of her favorite expressions -- and she redefined happiness and success for the whole world. She would say, "It is better to want what you get ... than to get what you want." Think about that for a minute ... success is getting what you want. That's nice, but it is nowhere near as important as happiness, or wanting what you get.
Appreciating life, appreciating the Catholic faith, appreciating Jesus Christ as her Lord and savior, appreciating the Blessed Mother, appreciating Leo, the best husband and father in the world, appreciating her children and grandchildren and her many relatives, and appreciating heaven.
We know she went straight there. Her purgatory was her last six years with the dreaded Alzheimer's Disease. She always was a saint, but now it is official. She is looking down on all of us, with her gentle and loving smile, knowing that we appreciate more than we can say how much she did for us.
She
made this world a better place, and we are eternally grateful to her -- for her
tireless work and efforts on our behalf, and her warm and loving spirit ...
which is living in all of us today.
