Betina's Wedding

This video was taken at Betina's wedding on Saturday October 20th, only two weeks before my mother's surgery. My mother had a wonderful time at the wedding. The video captures my mother's joyful spirit quite well.



Song ("Man You Make Me") composed and performed by Betina Hershey.
Video by 15 Minutes of Frame.

Memorial

The memorial was held at 10:30am on Saturday, November 17th, at Church in the Gardens, 50 Ascan ave, Forest Hills, NY.

The Program:

• Sonata in A: Composed and played by Joe Gresock
  
• Welcome: Reverend Reuben Cideno
• Welcome: Shawn Hershey
• Call to Celebration: Reverend Reuben Cideno
• Sonata: Brass Chamber group
• Fancy a 6: Brass Chamber group
• Thoughts and Remembrances: Lynn Hershey
• Reverie: Oboe String & String Quartet led by Norman Weiss
• Original Poem: Neha Yellurkar
• Eulogy: Anne Gresock (sister)
• Blueberry Rain: written by Betina and Carol and played by Betina and Joey
• Beautiful, Beautiful day: written by Betina and Carol and sang by the Garden Players. Denver Casado rehearsed the Garden Players and played piano.
  
• Thoughts and Remembrances: Susie Schweitzer (sister)
• Thoughts and Rememberances: John Clippinger (brother)
• Summertime: John Clippinger
• For My MTB: Nick Russo joined by Anita Quinto and Paul Beaudry
• Thoughts and Remembrances: Lori Lustig
• Carol's Thoughts on "The Messiah": Tom Schweitzer
• Thoughts and Remembrances: Shawn Hershey
• Trumpet Duets: Written by Carol and played by Lowell and Shawn
• Red River Valley: All
• Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee: All
• Scriptures: Reverend Reuben Cideno
• Just a Closer Walk with Thee: Arranged by Jack Gale and played by the Brass Chamber Group
• Prayer/Benediction: Reverend Reuben Cideno

Following the memorial service, those in attendance went to the lounge in the church to talk and to view about 25 of Carol's paintings that were brought to the church. On one of the tables Anne left this poem.

Trumpet Duets

I believe my Mother composed these for my father and I after he composed a few duets for the two of us. This is a recording we made a week after the memorial in our living room in Queens so that I could put something on the website while we're waiting for the video.

The Shirt

My sister and I have always been pretty bad at buying gifts for one another. We tend to wait until the last minute and then frantically run around to find something we think the other will like. One year, maybe in high school, Betina bought me a shirt that had the words "15 Reasons Why A Beer is Better than a Woman" followed by 15 reasons why a beer is supposedly better than a woman. There was no way I would be caught dead wearing this shirt. My Mom asked if I would wear it if she painted over it (this was her solution to many things) and I said that I would. Here's what she made:



I still wear it to this day.

Jazz Ballads

On two occasions I got a recording of my mom and myself playing jazz tunes. The first time was when I had recently learned the tune "Soul Eyes". I enjoyed giving my mom jazz lessons. I think the lesson I gave her was to help her provide clear rhythms while accompanying. I got her providing a clear downbeat as well as playing straight 8ths and triplets. The product was so pretty I thought it would be fun to record it and play it back to show how much of a difference it made. I stop us in the middle because she kept forgetting to go to the second ending because she was concentrating on the exercise. Also, at the end you can hear my Mom exclaim "One time I didn't play *anything* on the first beat."

Soul Eyes

The second time was when I recorded myself playing "Here's That Rainy Day" (inspired by Freddy Hubbard) for Amanda when she was out of town. I originally recorded the bass and piano part myself but eventually asked my mom to replace the piano part with one of her own since my playing is a lot weaker than hers.

Here's That Rainy Day

Lori's Thoughts

Carol

Carol was the nicest person I knew. Over the past ten years, we spent Tuesday and Thursday evenings walking. Where I had my limits, under 20 degrees was too cold and a steady drizzle was too wet or 10 o’clock was too late, Carol never turned down the opportunity for a walk, “I’ll put on an extra layer,” or I’ll take the umbrella” or “we’ll walk where it is well lit” was always her reply when I looked for a reason for an out. And in all those years of walking once around the larger park and twice around the smaller one, we talked and talked and talked and talked.
It occurred to me last week upon hearing of Carol’s passing, that she never in all those hundreds of hours of conversation, had anything negative to say of anyone. Carol had listened to me complain about bosses and daughter’s bad boyfriends, and whatever political figure was ticking me off at the moment, She heard me rant against the unfairness of the universe when l perceived things to be not going my way, but she never complained, never had a single bad word to say about the hundreds of friends and family members who provided her with endless hours of conversation, never wasted a moment on negative thoughts. Even this past summer when we were discussing the possibility of a diagnosis of lung cancer, I asked her if she was greatly relieved, when one doctor had downplayed that option.
“No,” she answered, “ I’ve been pretty philosophical about life, everyone has a time to go, and if it’s my time, well- than I have to go sometime.”
Carol shared a world with me through endless cycles around Peck Park. She loved people. In her completely non-judgmental way she passed the hours filling me in on the adventures of her family as they passed through the trials and tribulations of life. I knew how “Mom” was progressing though the challenges of Alzheimer’s, how her siblings were navigating the difficult years of raising children and dealing with elderly parents, how long it took Lowell’s family to evacuate Houston at the threat of a hurricane. And where many people would have reported these stories with the despair and anger of the inequities of such challenges, Carol never saw the Redglassvase of life as being anything but nearly full.
When I asked Carol’s family if I could speak, I realized I could spend hours talking about Carol. She shared so much material about her life.. She loved to share stories of her piano students (who I admit at one time I was one). She loved to speak of her neighbors and friends who spanned six decades. She reported of her visits to Virginia and France to catch up with friends she made as a teenager. But most of all she loved to speak of her family. To say she was proud of Bettina’s and Shawn’s accomplishments in life would be a misrepresentation of her very essence. Carol was too non-judgmental to be “proud”. Carol was constantly impressed with the enthusiasm for which every new undertaking was afforded. She was filled with admiration for each accomplishment. Carol was delighted to share her life with such interesting, intelligent, loving people.
Where so many of us spend our married lives together negotiating and discussing the attributes of buying a new car, deciding whose family to spend the next holiday with, or the disappointment of the local sport team’s losing season, Carol always spoke of a loving marriage that was filled with jazz duets, adventures in lunches in the ethnic world of Queens and hours spent discussing Harry Potter in Spanish.

But I promised to keep this relatively short, so I will share one last conversation. I no longer have any recall of the preamble, but one night Carol spoke of a conversation she had had as young women. Someone had asked what she wanted to do when she grew up. Her response was she wanted a life where she could be a loving wife, a good mother and that she wanted to spend some hours of everyday painting and playing music. And at the time we had this conversation, Carol noted that she had gotten exactly that. So today though the pain is very great, two things bring me great comfort, one is the knowledge that Carol lived the life she wanted and the other is, my life is blessed to have shared it with her. Thank you.

Lynn's Thoughts

When I visited Lowell and Carol shortly after they married, I didn’t know exactly what to think of Carol other than she’s certainly different than anyone I’ve ever met. Now, thirty-eight years later, I have contemplated Carol and on some of the traits that made her such a special person from my perspective.

Her unique and spontaneous laugh seized your attention and was a testimony to her love of life. Descriptive words such as vibrant, energetic, enthusiastic, gentle, sweet, and caring came to mind and captured a few of Carols’ numerous desirable traits.

However for myself, it was Carol’s curiosity, keen interest in people, unpretentiousness and openness, frankness, and her bold and direct expression of opinions and searching questions (often posed to complete strangers) that defined her as the genuine person that she was.

I thought that for gender equality, the masculine words “frank” and “frankness” should have “carol” and “carolness” as their feminine equivalents. Carol was who she was, and she didn’t pretend to be anything other than who she was. I have considerable admiration and respect for that.

I can still hear Carol’s “Well, that’s interesting.” or “Well! That’s interesting!” ringing in my ears. Although Carol was a very intelligent and multi-talented woman, I sometimes considered Carol to be wide-eyed, childlike, and even naïve but in a way that one might envy since growing cynicism often causes our own curiosity, enthusiasm and zeal to wane as we age.

All us who have known and loved Carol will miss her greatly; yet, we can all look back fondly and smile as we picture her beautiful unfettered life.

Susie's Thoughts

Annie said “It’s as if a leg of our table has broken.” But we both knew that Carol was more than one leg of our table. She was our rock, our treasure, our adventurer, our connection to cousins, our dancer, our painter, our musician, our encourager.

When we were young and all living at home, it was Carol who was the excellent student, the scholar. We would lie on our beds in our shared bedroom and I would ask Carol, who was an avid reader of any written material that came into the house, to read to me. She always did it, even when she would rather have been peacefully reading to herself. I was always bothering her, “pleeeessseeeee”, and she was always affectionately complying to my request.

In high school, Carol was brave enough to act in the plays and play piano in the talent shows. I have such strong memories of how proud I felt of my big sister up on the stage playing Moonlight Sonnata. At Brandeis, she played piano for the musical, and I remember watching her so patiently and fondly practicing with the lead, who totally sang off key. She would say “that’s good, just a little bit higher, ok, now a little lower… Perfect”, and then they would go on to the next phrase. She was truly able to enjoy the positive aspects of everyone she encountered.

Our dear mother has been heart broken by Carol’s departure. She came with us from Boston to New York last week, but was so devastated by being where Carol wasn’t, that she sent us as her representatives to this service. Carol and Johnny have made Mom’s life so rich. Carol would call Mom every day, and somehow she got our Mom to talk and listen. Her emails to us about her conversations would have us all laughing and happy that she gave Mom such pleasure.

This summer, Carol and Lowell went to Europe for a month. Carol packed one back pack for the whole month. To lighten her load, she cut out the non-essential pages of her travel book. They visited an old friend from her youth in France and were moved by the warmth and old memories. Then they were joined by her Annie and John in Italy, where she was able to use her newly learned Italian. Annie talks about how they traipsed up every small path, every set of winding stairs, looked at every store window. I’m so glad that Annie got to have this wonderful trip with her best friend.

I loved about Carol that she was so curious about the people around her. I loved that she soaked up and appreciated the good aspects of people around her, and how she didn’t let the negative get in the way of her engagement with the good qualities. She saw the positive where others saw the negative.

I loved the way in museums she would stand with her nose two inches from the painting, absorbed in the details of each section. She drove the museum guards crazy. I love that she was so brave. I love that she was so determined. I loved her crazy laugh. You always knew where Carol was sitting in the audience of Betina’s plays. I loved the way she talked fondly about the kids in the play. I love the way she and Lowell had their daily routine. They would read a few pages of Spanish, then a few pages of Italian. They would go through their chord progressions for a jazz tune, trying out every key. Then finally, they would practice a new dance step, so that they would be ready for the wedding. And they were so ready.

Joe's Piano Composition

This is a piece Joe Gresock (Carol's Nephew) composed. He played this at the beginning of hte memorial.
Sonata in A

Memorial Program

Amanda made the programs and chose a self portrait and one of my Mom's black and white drawings for the cover and back.

Neha's Thoughts

Carol

When Betina donned a white gown in October, I was not only in awe of the bride, but by her mother.

Carol skittered around the floor in crimson. Her delicate frame emblazoned by the most genuine of smiles.

As the seasons change, people come from far to watch the leaves in all their brilliance.

My eye caught a deep crimson leaf adorning the branch of a strong firm tree. I watched as this most beautiful and natural of ornaments dangled and swayed. Even in its most fragile of stages, it dazzled with vibrancy.

When this leaf descends into the earth and these colors fade, we bear the harshness and bitterness of the season to come, and we hold close a memory of the warmest and most vibrant of days.

Shawn's Thoughts

What I said at my Mom's memorial before I played her duets with my father:

Although I have Amanda prepared to be my designated speaker in the event of a breakdown, I'm hoping that because I have Testosterone poisoning (about half the world has this as my friend Rachel says) I'll manage not to cry reading these several sentences that I wrote last night. Because Suzy, Anne, Lori, and the others have already captured much of the wonderful essence of my Mother and there's no way I can express to you in this short time how important she was to me, I'm not going to say too much. As most of you who know her well can probably guess, she was a great mother. But, I want to say it anyway, so you can hear it directly from her children... she was the most perfect mother I could have imagined. She gave us complete and total security in her love of us, inspired us to be creative, was not overly protective despite her love, encouraged strength and independence, and was a vibrant and fun presence in our lives. I loved her as much as is possible and will miss her terribly. Dad, with the unexpected passing of Mom, seeing how precarious life is, I think it's also important to tell you now that you've been the best dad that I could imagine... even if, when someone calls me funny you say, "looks aren't everything".

Rather than talk more, my father and I are going to play a suite of trumpet duets that she wrote about 30 years ago. Throughout the years, when my dad and I would play them in our basement, she would open the door from upstairs and shout, "Was that one of mine?" And we'd shout back that it was and she'd say, "I was such a genius!" I'd like to ask one thing before we play. My mother was endlessly supportive and always thought I was a great musician no matter how many notes I missed or how out of tune I played. In her honor, I'd like you to do the same.

The Duets

Memorial Welcome

What I said at the beginning of my Mom's memorial:

From all of the family, I'd like to thank you all for coming. It means a lot to us and it honors my Mother, Carol Hershey's memory that you are all here to celebrate such a precious life. Throughout the service we'll be speaking of my Mom a lot, but for now I want to give thanks for all the support we got the past week from all of you here. The flowers, food, and, more importantly phone calls, visits, expressions of love, and friendship, have all made this more bearable for us, especially for my dad who lost his soul mate of 38 years. Having our extended family in our tiny house (16 or so of them) the weekend after my Mom died made a big difference and having them (and others) back in the house this weekend is great. Having so many people that remember Mom together almost makes her seem alive.

Though it will be impossible for us to put our grieving aside for a long time to come, we want this memorial to be more a celebration of her life and a token of appreciation for her wonderful presence in our lives. I would like to thank in advance all of our friends who will provide so much beautiful music throughout the service.

Your Witness

From Anne, Carol's sister:

Your Witness is a poem that Lissa wrote when she was 15 for her boyfriend who died. It expressed some very basic things that rang very true to me about losing Carol. I was going to read it but decided just to read my own words. Instead, I laid it out on the table for people to read.

Your Witness

I don’t want to imagine
A world without you in it.
How can things change so much
In just one passing minute?

Thoughts of you flood my mind,
As the tears pour down my face.
I miss you more than ever -
Your curiosity and cute kissable face.*

I am weighing my options -
Just how do I handle this?
I know I can’t bring you back,
But I can choose to be your witness.

So every sunset that I see,
I promise to see it for you.
I’ll remember what you’ve taught me,
And will think of what you would do.

I’ll share the flame of your candle
With all the people I know.
Your laugh and smile passed along,
And your light will forever glow.

Your strength still inspires me,
And although at times I’ll ache,
I know the bond between us
Is too strong for death to break.

Melissa Berry 1999
*Modified by Anne Gresock 2007

Anne's Eulogy

Anne, Mom's youngest sister gave the following eulogy at the memorial:

Carol was my best friend. Nothing I can think of to say can capture how much I will miss her. We shared every little turn in our lives. I just wish she were here now to share this one. She loved a party with her people, especially with great music. What I loved best about her was how easy she was to talk to. She was such an active listener, always asking the best questions to get you to open up. But she knew when not to press.

She knew how to inspire you come up with your own solutions. She was a genius with people, always finding and encouraging the best in them. She was VERY interested in other people, of any and all kinds and especially loved watching children. If she was curious, she would ask….or look it up on the internet.

I loved her laugh. You could hear it across a park or a theater. It would jolt you from a conversation but then make you smile because you knew it was Carol.

A year ago, Carol, Lowell, John and I decided to take a vacation to Italy together. She started the investigating and studying right away and even got John and me to study Italian the whole year before: Always encouraging people to learn. We went this September, and it was the most fascinating vacation we had ever had. She was always so enthusiastic about the next adventure of the day. In our meanderings through the streets of the various cities and towns, she kept pulling us off the beaten path to see something she found beautiful. “ooh look!”, she’d say and we would dart off to study this object of her interest. We would joke that she kept getting distracted from our destination. We’d pretend to quote her with, “oh look! There’s a pony!”….Finally, she said, “This whole trip is a pony!”

She was the most disciplined person I ever met. When she decided to learn something or do something she would attack it with determination. Every single day, she painted, played piano, did her 15 minutes of language, played bridge, swing danced with Lowell, learned a whole new way to play jazz with the newest member of the family, Nick. And when she read, it was books like Proust, in French!. When she had a health challenge, she studied the best remedy and did whatever had to be done to fight it.

She was an incredible wife and mother, inspiring her wonderful kids to be self-sufficient, creative and loving. She LOVED Lowell and Betina and Shawn, intensely interested in all of their activities and challenges.

I was in total awe of how she participated in and inspired so much collaborative music in her family and the extended family.

Her art stuns me. At first glance, it seems so simple and child-like and then as you look more closely, it strikes you what a genius she was. Our mom, who likes things very traditional, would say, “Why don’t you paint something we recognize?” but more recently, even she was awed by Carol’s art.

All of us will miss her. She influenced us all in ways that we will never forget. Her curiosity, her love of people and art, her painting, her music, her joy were an inspiration. Those of us who knew and loved and experienced Carol are hoping that between us, we can try to keep some of her joy alive.

She was so tiny, but bigger than life.

I love you Carol

Blueberry Rain

Betina (Sister) and Carol (Mom) wrote this piece (lyrics, melody, and arrangement) together during Christmas of 2005. It's performed by Betina (vocal) and Carol (Piano):

Blueberry Rain

Drawing

One of my Mom's drawings:

The Messiah

Tom read an email that my Mom wrote. He introduced it as follows:

This is an e-mail from Carol sent early Christmas morning 2004. She wrote her family and friends many daily e-mails about her encounters. There are 100s and 100s of them. They capture her energetic and enthusiastic engagement with life. I call this one "cracked me up" because it cracked us all up and that's what Carol would say. It captures the humor and joy Carol and Lowell shared , their shared musical life, and how she could elicit and tell a story.

And then read the email:

The Messiah's on again. I know Lowell doesn't like to play trumpet in it because it's soooo long and there's sooo much waiting involved for the trumpet, so I asked him if he likes to listen to it when he doesn't have to play it. He said Once in a blue moon. I said I can take it as many times as they throw it at me. He said he thinks of how the trumpet player is sitting there depressed, knowing he's going to have to play a solo after a long time of silence, not warmed up, and everyone will say Oh look there's a trumpet player in it I wonder how he plays, and he's supposed to play like a genius and by the time the solo comes he will have forgotten how to play. And his butt is getting sore and he's trying to occupy his mind, by planning his retirement or whatever. I said How does it work out after that long time of silence, playing the solo - does it work out ok? He said Not for everybody. Some people leave the business. I said really? And he said Yeah, it's the kind of situation that can push a person over the edge. But I, not having gone through all that like he has, can go on enjoying it ad infinitum. He said sometimes you can talk the conductor into letting the trumpets be offstage, telling them it's more dramatic etc. That makes it easier.

Love, Mom

November, 2007

My mom died November 2007 from a heart attack following a week in the hospital for unrelated surgery. It was a complete and total shock to all of us. This website is intended to be a tribute to her art, music and beautiful spirit.