Chapter 12

Every Day is Like Christmas

Judy’s beautiful love of life, for me and all of our family, and for serving God’s holy people were manifest in every day and every aspect of her life. Our family grew to include animals and children and extended new family relationships that I will share here. It is not possible to share all of the special moments of almost 29 years with Judy in this volume. But being with Judy made every day feel like Christmas, so I will share some of those special days, including Christmas memories.

Judy loved Christmas, first as a celebration of God incarnate, Christ’s birthday, and a high holy day of the Church and then for the opportunities to give to all who needed a gift of love. In the words of one of her favorite spiritual writers, Henri M. Nouwen in his reflection “Being Present in the Present” in Mornings with Henri Nouwen “….We can only celebrate if there is something present that can be celebrated. We cannot celebrate Christmas when there is nothing new born here and now….” She believed that something within us should be born anew each Christmas. We were not celebrating an archaic historical event, but the birth of Christ was to become our own rebirth again and again. Love was to be reborn at Christmas, and indeed, every day.

Our first Christmas together was in 1989. We celebrated the miracle of God’s love manifest in God’s entering humanity as a tiny baby, and the miracle of guiding us to find each other. We felt the miracle of God’s love and the miracle of our love as we knelt together and welcomed the Light of the world into our midst. We attended Midnight Mass at St. Thomas the Apostle in West Hartford and Christmas morning Mass at St. Michael in Hartford. St. Michael was located on the grounds of My Sisters’ Place Shelter (MSP) for homeless women and children. As noted in Chapter 10, MSP was located in a former convent and Judy was both Director and “chief cook and bottle washer” though those jobs were shared by other staff. St. Michael, a mostly African-American and Hispanic church in a low-income North end neighborhood, was our chosen parish though we lived closest to St. Thomas. Judy was so happy to share her faith with me and I was so happy to find a church, St. Michael that reminded me of the church of my youth in Brooklyn, New York, where all races and cultures and social classes met to worship together. From the music and the liturgy of St. Thomas’s “higher” Mass to the Gospel Choir of St. Michael and the homilies of compassion and service given by St. Michael Pastor, Fr. Al Jaenicke, a real people’s priest who sometimes even used words, God was drawing us into life and service, to a life of service, together.

By our second Christmas we went to Maryland to visit my closest Cousin Jackie and her husband Mike and their daughter Melissa, and Jackie’s mother Charlotte and celebrated Christmas with them as a family. They loved Judy right away. So did my Aunt Edie and all the family as we visited in Long Island. Soon after, we would go to Chicago and celebrate with Judy’s sister, Jill

and her family including Jill’s husband Bill and Jenny, her young adult niece, and Jenny’s two younger brothers Chris and Mark. (The two other Bergner nieces and nephews, Kurt and Julie were already married and living out of the area). Christmas was a good time to find our way together into each other’s families.

By 1990 we were teaching CCD (Sunday school) for the younger teenagers at St. Michael. While I was good at engaging the “inner-city” teens and families, Judy was wonderful at finding activities to open their worlds-and mine. That Christmas, at Judy’s suggestion, we literally took the kids to “the stable”. We squeezed into her old station wagon and went to Regina Laudis Abbey, a historic Benedictine Contemplative Religious women’s convent, church and farm in Bethlehem, Connecticut. The teens stood in amazement when the Christmas story came to life as they saw a huge Nativity scene in a stable building where there were farm animals all around. The Sisters, dressed in black habits made their own products and welcomed their young visitors with warmth. (The old Movie Come to the Stable with Loretta Young had been filmed there). Perdita asked Judy if she had worn a habit like these Sisters and the kids giggled as she said she did. Sharon asked if she liked wearing it. She thoughtfully told them that she did in the beginning because she was happy to become a Sister but later she felt restricted by it. She said that she was so happy when her Sisters changed to street clothes. As the kids moved on to visit the animals, I asked Judy if she ever longed for her life as a Sister, or convent life. She said that she was very happy now and that she would always love her Benedictine Sisters of Chicago and singing the prayers and chant but she was “never much of a contemplative”. She longed always to be active and doing. The “work and prayer” life of these Benedictines was wonderful but she was more satisfied with the work than the contemplative praying. Even when she cleaned the floors and stairs at St. Scholastica convent on her knees she felt good and it was a type of prayerful offering. But she was happiest in her peace witness and justice work in the community. She was happy actively serving God’s people at My Sisters’ Place and as we were doing now. Her quiet joy at serving was infectious.

We made sure that each of our teens and each of their families had a good Christmas and that each of the women and children at My Sisters’ Place shelter did as well. We had formed a group of “graduates” from My Sister’s Place Shelter and enjoyed visiting their homes for our Christmas group meetings. They called themselves The Successful Women’s group. The mostly young black mothers welcomed us as “Other Mothers” and extended family. Judy loved opening the world for these young people and their children, and we’d also go on trips to pumpkin farms for Thanksgiving, attend protests for fair housing in Hartford and in Washington DC, and take them and their children to the Winter Wonderland, a winter attraction in Hartford. We also took trips up Avon Mountain where they could look into the nearby three states. The giving of Christmas extended to all year long and we loved our ministry together.

Building our Family

By 1991 the mother of one of the young teenage girls in the CCD class asked our help. She was fleeing an abusive relationship and needed help with child care and counsel as well as housing. The two younger siblings of Perdita, our class member, had already reached out to us and were included in some of our trips and events. We cared for the 13 year old Perdita and later the two younger siblings, Marley, 10 and Chanel 6, as “legal guardians” as their Mom, Cyrillia, got her life back on track. When MSP II, a transitional living facility with apartments for homeless families was ready, largely as a result of Judy’s hard work with grant writing and meeting with community representatives as noted in Chapter 10, the family was reunited as Cyrillia became a Resident Counselor. Yet one child or another, sometimes two, would remain with us full time or on weekends for the next few years.

We saw this as a gracious, if challenging, act of Providence. In the previous year Judy had suggested that we develop our family now consisting of two cats and a puppy, by fostering two children she knew well and cared about and whose parents had lost parental rights. We agreed that it would be good to share our love with children as a family. However, when we looked into the status of these children they had already been placed in a pre-adoptive home. We also learned that even the progressive State of Connecticut would not approve two women to foster or adopt together. It may be possible if one of us wanted to try on her own, but this was not true to our relationship. So we let that go and went on with our lives.

We were amazed and thankful when we were asked to help care for the M. children from our church. Once again, we saw God open doors that seemed quite shut. While we became legal guardians, the “open arrangement” in which the children sometimes went home on weekends and holidays and yet remained with us for school and some special trips in and out of State, helped the endeavor to succeed as both of our jobs were demanding. While not always a smooth transition, this approach worked for our two families. We became a fluid type of extended family for the children. There were times when the children were with us that were total joy and other times that made us realize how difficult it is to be a mother of any sort. Yet we prayed often and got the strength to continue. For us, it was part of putting God first and giving our lives away to others. When I was frustrated and depleted Judy helped me to live up to the tasks we had taken on. Despite her grueling schedule she had enough love for all of us and more.

We brainstormed with the children and humorously combined our names- we informally called our family the “Leemontwells.” Perdita, who lived with us for her first year of Northwest Catholic High School, was a creative somewhat depressed girl who loved to write poetry. She also wrote plays and she and her siblings and friends would act these out. We were the audience. They were usually very funny and one had great civil rights content. She loved the pool and going on our outings with her friends and sibs invited. She made a good start at Northwest High

though she only liked English and tried not to deal with her other subjects. I helped her to structure her study time and Judy helped her with the Math and she did pass. She and her Mom had their difficult struggles and she was closest to her younger brother Marley. She was happiest when he visited us. She missed him and the happy chaos of a house full of kids. We could only have this on weekends.

Marley and Chanel asked to live with us the next year and Perdita went home though she continued to visit. We were a bit worried about Chanel coming as she was so young, eight, and also emotionally immature. She cried and begged her mother to let her come. Her mother wanted this and we decided to give it a trial period. They came the summer before the fourth grade for her. This was a wonderful and happy summer full of fun for the four of us. Chanel loved arts and crafts and swimming and we did those things almost every day. We also visited Judy’s family in Chicago with them and visited others of our friends on the way there and back by car. Marley became friends with Mark and Chris and all anticipated Jill’s visits with them to West Hartford.

The whole Maxwell family, including Mom Cyrillia and their visiting grandmother and little sisters and Step-father would come for pool parties and everyone enjoyed them. Chanel began the fourth grade in the nearby Catholic School. At first she loved it but the pressure of school expectations made her anxious and she did anything to avoid them including hiding the assignment book and crying when this was discovered with calls from her teacher. She had lots of fun on Halloween and other weekends. We had joint Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations at our home with all her family. Judy’s patient and gentle ways were calming for her. Yet it became increasingly apparent that separation and attachment were deep issues for her. She would not want to leave either home (ours or her Mom’s) when she was in it, and she also gravitated much too easily to strangers as children do with attachment disorders. We felt that it was not good for her to shuttle back and forth and so she remained home with her mother and two little siblings for the fifth grade and thereafter. Yet she was not happy. She visited us on weekends and holidays until we left for Florida at the end of her seventh grade. These weekends were happy times for her. After we left she was sad and wrote to us frequently. She failed the eighth grade and had increased difficulties with her Mom. So she came for respite and to re- do the eighth grade with us here in Florida. Once again this had a great start, but the emotional and behavioral issues continued. She was successful at school and was also confirmed at Our Lady of Light along with Nana Cudjoe. She went home to Hartford after the eighth grade.

I was happily amazed when Chanel came to Judy’s Memorial Service in February of 2018 driving down to Florida from North Carolina. She lived there after her tours in the US Army although she experienced some serious mental health problems after that as well. She brought a huge wooden cross that she painted and crafted, labeled as a “Loving Memorial” to Judy noting Judy’s faith, hope and love. It was a beautiful piece of work and a testimony of her love for Judy. She also brought a smaller piece of craft work entitled “The Leemontwells Exist”. Cyrillia was there working with another of our church members, Kathy Roddy, to cater the dinner we had after the Memorial Service. Perdita was there with her two teenage children and Marley was

there with wife, Jen and his family. His recently born third child was named Matthew Jude and this naming was a very special living memorial to her, a testimony of his love.

Marley was an active, often at motion, happy and intellectually curious pre-teen who loved animals and the pool and yard, the basketball hoop and having his own room. And he also loved us. He was completing the Catholic grade school in Hartford and Judy dropped him off each day on her way to my Sisters’ Place. He learned to take the bus home. He made friends in our neighborhood. He accepted the homework structure and got his work done and then was free to play. He enjoyed doing Math problems with Judy and researching reports with me. One day after a visit to his family he told us about a mother cat and five small kittens living in an alley. We agreed to look for them and so we added Minnie and her kittens to our family. He was in heaven. One kitten, Tortoise, was designated as his own. He got all A’s and wanted to be a Veterinarian when he grew up. He continued to like going to Church and also made his Confirmation with genuine understanding. This brought great joy to us. He was quite torn but decided to go home to attend Northwest High School with Perdita who very much wanted his return. The summer after the Freshman high school year he returned to us again. Sadly the “North end” neighborhood kids had introduced him to the many problems of young men living where drugs and violence were the rule. He stayed through the first semester and began to do well in school again. His reward was our trip to Disney for him and Perdita and Chanel. This was a most exciting trip for all of them. There was also a trip to Washington D.C. where we met up with Judy’s brother Ed and his wife, Joanie and family of three girls. My cousin Jackie and Melissa also met us as we toured D.C. and Melissa became friends with Chanel who also enjoyed their visits to West Hartford. By the second semester, their mother had gotten family life together and all went home. Yet, Marley and Chanel continued to visit on weekends and vacation breaks for several years to come.

We, in effect, became parents, both full time and part time, “other mothers” as it is sometimes called in the black culture, and our time together with the children was often a joy sometimes a challenge, but always a precious time. For Christmas day, after worshipping together at the church we’d invite the whole family to dinner and gift opening. There was a step-Dad and two little ones, Felice and Maya, and we were God- Mothers. Judy developed a very special relationship with Felice, and as Felice grew they had many special times together. Sometimes one other family with children would be invited and we would all have a festive meal and gift opening under the tree. This family included the mother, Nancy, a former MSW student from Puerto Rico that I taught at UCONN and her twin girls. We would have a Christmas fiesta. The Maxwell children, now grown with their own families where we are called “Grandma”, remember these days with joy, especially the Christmas and winter celebrations.

At first good snowfall Judy initiated a trip to a nearby hill and we’d sleigh down the hill one or two on a sled. This was a new thrill for the three Caribbean born kids. We can all still see Judy flying down the hill laughing as she sat upright on the sled and held onto the rope from the steering bar for dear life, her wool scarf blowing like a flag and her big green velvet cap flying

off of her thick dark hair. She was game for anything! The kids loved swimming and our above ground pool was closed for the winter but we took them to the town’s indoor pool. They initially complained that it was too cold to leave after swimming and with Judy’s wool jacket flying open she would grab their hands and race toward the car. Soon it was never too cold anymore.

In time we included our new neighbor children, Tran and Wendy in our Christmas celebrations. They were Vietnamese refugees and their mother would send them over with special foods for us. They sat by the fireplace near the tree and played with our dogs and kittens as they opened Christmas presents. They reminded me of my years in the Lee family and they reminded Judy of the years she settled refugees in Chicago. At first the children were characteristically shy then they eagerly joined in games and swimming and having fun with the older children who visited, and with us. Our lives in West Hartford and Hartford were full of children and joy. While Judy’s job (and mine) was demanding and tiring we made time for Christmas with the children and loved it-and our lives together.

Each Christmas throughout our nearly 29 years together we celebrated at Church and in our home with children and families, and other friends, then quietly alone with each other. These rituals helped us to be reborn with Christ’s birth at Christmas and enabled us to help others in their faith journeys. As noted above, for our second year in Fort Myers, Florida the youngest child we raised in Connecticut, Chanel, came to live with us. While this was not an easy year, she became part of the Mission church with us and also the neighborhood parish. She made friends with Nana and Efe Cudjoe, girls from an African (Ghana- ian) family and we would share holidays with them. (Dr. Joe Cudjoe also taught with me at Florida Gulf Coast University. He was in Sociology, an allied discipline). The Cudjoe family later became core members of our Good Shepherd Inclusive Catholic Community in Fort Myers and Efe became our dedicated youth leader before she left for Brown University then FSU Medical School). What wonderful international Christmases we had as we also taught CCD at the Mission Church and worked mainly with Guatemalan children and families and would invite them to our home or visit their homes at Christmas. We also continued to visit Nancy, our friend from Puerto Rico with her twin girls and her mother, Miriam, who now lived in Tampa. One Christmas Eve, Nancy had a Buena Noche celebration and we loved the singing and story- telling and special food of that night. Though barely fifty, Nancy sadly lost her life to complications of diabetes a few years later. We enjoyed the communal worship and the loving friendship with this family.

When we developed Church in the Park in 2007 and later (from 2008 through 2016) had Good Shepherd Inclusive Catholic Community church in the house we bought to use as a church and as a temporary and transitional shelter for homeless folks (Chapter 14) we would have an early Christmas Mass and hot meal and gift giving time together. Each one, young or old, from 7 months to 70 years or more, would get a gift. And some would exchange gifts with one another and with us. Our Deacon, Hank Tessandori would play Santa Claus after our Christmas Pageants were enacted by our church teens and kids. Christmas was a very special time in our

Good Shepherd Inclusive Catholic Community. It seemed to symbolize so well the love we had for one another as the Body of Christ serving the homeless, formerly homeless and poor as well as a range of other folks in Fort Myers.

Yet each Christmas from the beginning of our lives together until to the end, we would have our own special time, just the two of us and our sweet animal family. In 2010 we had little Cody with us, the sweetest little white Maltese dog we rescued from a homeless man who left him in an abandoned building and could not care for him. Judy loved our Rafie and Beau and now Cody. We got Rafie as an active little mini poodle puppy in 1990 and Beau in ‘94 as the sweetest older Bichon Frise with diabetes who would have been euthanized but the Vet gave him to us as Judy could give him the shots. She had learned this with caring for her sister Joy. They were now passed on but little Cody and Judy just loved one another. He’d sleep on her lap as we exchanged presents. In this quiet and beautiful time we would exchange gifts and share a special meal. We would sit and remember the year gone by and give thanks for all of it- the wonderful and the difficult, and always we gave thanks for our love, and for God’s love expressed at Christmas. We would attend church before or after our special time and in later years would end Christmas Eve with watching the Pope’s Midnight Mass and begin our Christmas day with our own worship and celebration. Even as we ended the year with welcoming Christ at Christmas, Judy’s loving and self-less service and surprise permeated every day of the year.

Our First Christmas 1989

Judy and Beau Our First Christmas in Florida 1998

The “Leemontwells” 1993

Judy, her sister Jill, Nephews Mark and Chris and Marley and Chanel at our home in West Hartford 1994

Judy jokes as Marley and Chanel Celebrate her Birthday 1993 (Below)

Judy and Felice and Maya Rismay

Our Good Shepherd Christmas with Pastor Judy B. celebrating the Eucharist and Santa’s visit.

Deacon Hank Tessandori is Santa and we are joyful as Dee applauds-2015

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December 25, 2018 was our last Christmas together-at least with both of us bodily present. Judy was dying. She had fought so valiantly against the devastating effects of AML Leukemia pushing herself beyond all realistic expectations to go for blood transfusions but she was succumbing in the last two weeks of December. Her beloved sister Jill had been with us for weeks but we had no idea of the trajectory of this illness given her fighting spirit and Jill left for England to celebrate Christmas with her husband Bill and her daughter Julie and her family. Remarkably, two weeks before Christmas Julie came to see Judy from England and Jenny and Chris came from Chicago, three of Jill’s children and Judy’s beloved family. On another day Judy’s brother’s daughter Kristen and her husband and two small children, also from England, visited Judy in the hospital bringing her much joy. Ed and his wife Joanie had been there for several days in November. On December 10th, Judy made it to her eightieth birthday and Jill and myself and her friend from the Benedictine’s, Sister Patsy Crowley and one of our church leaders, Judy Alves, celebrated Mass and her birthday with her in the hospital. When Judy got to go home this time we decided to have home hospice and Jill stayed with us until just before Christmas. Unknown to me, Judy asked Jill to go online with her and pick out gifts for me. This included five big cat trees for our kitties that were delivered near Christmas and some beautiful and thoughtful little gifts. These were things she heard me mention at some point, and Judy picked them all out herself with Jill’s I- Phone help.

We watched most of Midnight Mass together and as usual Judy commented on the beauty of this Mass, and of the tiny tree with birds and little lights on it that I placed on the dresser where she lay. She quietly drifted off to sleep with the music she loved from the Midnight Mass. She ate a very small breakfast, a few sips, a few bites, and slept again until afternoon. Then she asked me to help her get up and go into the living room and sit in the comfortable recliner chair that her dear brother Ed, gave her. We did this with some difficulty wrapping her in a blanket, and she watched the bubble lights on our Christmas tree and hugged Timothy our three legged cat who was her partner in fighting cancer, with a smile. We played Carols from the rich sounding little music box that the Cudjoe family had given us a few years back. It was amazing altogether that she made it to the chair. But she wanted so much to do this. She asked me to open my presents and we also admired the five cat trees that a neighbor had kindly assembled. She noted where each one might go. She was upset that the silver tear drop earrings she bought me to replace those I lost had been misplaced. I promised her that I would find and wear them or a similar pair. She was pleased. I gave her some gifts from a friend and she laughed gently at a new housecoat. I said I could wear it and she was pleased. I opened and put a little lip balm on her dry lips and she liked that gift. But we both knew this Christmas was for me. She wanted to give me one last Christmas. I was so moved and amazed at this and choked back tears as l told her how thankful I was for these gifts, but much more for her and our life together, how much I loved her and that is forever for both of us. She nodded and said she loved me forever adding that she was so happy that Jill helped her and she was able to get the gifts and have our Christmas. She told me to thank Ed for the soft chair again. We agreed this was the best and most special Christmas. She knew that she was close to going home to our God, to Love, and yet she took her precious energy and time to share her love with me one last time. That is who she is, was and ever will be, the one who thinks about someone else, who shares love, no matter what and no matter how hard it may be. She asked to return to bed and this was her final herculean effort. I let Jill know by phone that Judy’s time was near. Jill returned quickly from England and Judy was so happy to have us both near as the end approached. Her new birth this Christmas would be her transition to being with her loving God forever.

During this holy and still week Christmas carols and Te Deum: Chants of Praise by the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, Pennsylvania sometimes played quietly in the background at her request. Pearl and Efe Cudjoe, and Pastor Marina Teresa Sanchez Mejia, RCWP originally from Colombia, and, on another day, Dr. Terry Sutton our Vet and friend, visited. On both occasions Judy amazingly roused herself, engaged them, raised her hand in priestly blessing and gave them each a beautiful personalized blessing. Then there was the long quiet of several days until she literally expressed her last breath. It was a very hard end for us, but for her it was her beginning with God in eternal life where she was whole and well and alive forever. Her new beginning came one week after this special Christmas, in the morning of the first day of the New Year 2018. That is another chapter. Merry Christmas in glory with the Prince of Peace beloved Judy, you are our angel and saint. You died as you lived-giving yourself away.

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