Different Slants

Diana Leslie Gallai Weinstein Eulogy: Diana Leslie Weinstein, nee Gallai, 48, beloved mother of Zachary Weinstein; loving daughter of Adele Ballis, nee Warman, and the late Sieg Gallai; dear sister of Julie Gallai and Bruce Ballis.

(Note: I read the first half of this Eulogy to my cousin Diana, but was unable to read the rest. So Joyce, standing next to me, immediately continued to read the words. This happened often, and Joy was always there to fill the gap. My missing hero.)

What are the Chances for Happiness? © March 4, 2008

I think the odds are long.

It requires a person to make choices.

Should I love someone?

Should I take this job?

Should I risk traveling?

Should I have a child?

 And other choices.

 If you love someone, will they love you back?

What if your work loses meaning?

Maybe the trip will be dangerous…What if I get sick far from home?

What if my child disappoints me?

The pain of losing someone you love deeply, is the price you pay for caring so much. It is a price I dearly long to pay, because the deep pain in my heart reminds me I’m still alive, and still able to remember that love.

Your career can consume you, or else free you, to live a life filled with music and art with other people to share those experiences. If that is what you decide is important.  

It’s always a choice. 

See the world, soar over oceans and waterfalls, share kisses at sunset on an island…or…live in a brick box and take no risks.

But are you really alive?

A child, any child, is the ultimate challenge because you can fill them up with your time, your love, your experience, your wisdom and they can still make all the wrong choices, because they have the free will to do that.

What can you do?

You can forget your child, neglect your child, hand them over for others to raise and they can still end up brilliant and loving despite your blindness, because the capacity to be that way lies within them and nothing can quench that unbreakable spirit.

But maybe you are merely human and no matter what your good intentions are, mostly, you learn to be a parent by making mistakes.

There is no model and you make it up as you go along. Some children learn from you by watching you struggle to do the best for them, even if you fail. And all the love in the world can’t stop a young person from making a wrong turn, and then another, and then another.

Your child, if you wisely love them, is not your prisoner. The best you can offer them as they grow is your time, your heart, and your hopes.

**********

I loved Diana. 

I loved her as a soft-cheeked baby and as a woman.  I think of her now. I see her smile and it warms me. 

It wasn’t that she was an artist or a singer or a scientist or a person that made people gasp as she walked by.

Diana was lovable without trying.

Not everyone has that quality, no matter how great they think they are.

Some people–more than a few–and I’m one of them, accept the possibility that there is more to the world then we can see, or touch.

Some people think our brief lives are just one stage and others follow. How can we deny that it may be true?

Some people think that no matter how rough a person may have it–when some get ALL the breaks, and some get none–that there’s still more.

Maybe they follow us around and keep an eye on us, hoping we make good choices, hoping their tough lives make us seek better ones.

Maybe all they can do is love us from another place, as far away as a star, or sitting invisibly right next to us, and sometimes we can feel the warmth of that undying love without understanding why.

I surrender to it.  I love Diana, not in the past, but always and I believe she knows.

I hope to God she knows, because if there is one person who deserves everlasting love from anyone–anyone whoever knew her–it is Diana.

That sweet, soft girl deserves a break from all of us, because she’s never gotten one yet.

So people, let that time start right now.

She is only as far away from you as your imagination.

I love her and I believe……N0!  I KNOW!  …..that Diana knows.

God bless her.   

Amen.