BEHIND THE MIKE

The 17th century poet John Doone wrote “No man is an island entire to himself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main… Any man’s death diminishes me because I am a part of mankind. And therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

The bell has tolled for Rita Mary Thiel, a gracious and classy woman of the Greatest Generation. For nearly seven decades, she carried on a devoted love affair with her husband Paul… indeed the ultimate of many losses over her life.

Rita was a loving mother to Paula, Christine, Julie, Bruce, Janet, Kevin, Kurt and Susan, and grandmother to twelve and great grandmother to 18… and my mother-in-law of almost five decades. I knew her longer than I knew my own mother.

As a young registered nurse, Rita earned a Bachelor diploma from St. Francis Hospital College in Peoria, Illinois. She and Paul made a loving life with one another that spanned nearly seven decades.

I look around and I see footprints… footprints that led many of her progeny not only become college graduates, but some earned post-graduate degrees.

Rita Thiel was the bravest, most courageous and affectionate woman I have ever known. As life unfolds, you learn that love is that intense feeling you have for your mate, a desire to always be next to him or her and a reason for living. Rita had that love for Paul.

I observed with sadness as she buried a husband, two children and a grandchild. No parent or grandparent should ever have to inter their progeny. She dealt with it all with a stiff upper lip, the same way the prodigious women of her greatest generation always confronted tragedy, calamity, misfortune and heartbreak.

For over two years, I was a witness to her hands-on, around-the-clock-care to comfort her daughter Julie, who fought and lost a long-spirited battle with cancer.

The God we worship has a plan, so faith teaches us. Life is full of catastrophes, turmoil, confusion and chaos. It seemed like Rita had more than her fair share. She dauntlessly fought a recurring battle with cancer, only to fall prey to it at the age of

91.

I observed the valor and fearlessness that it took to transplant the fibula from her leg into a bone that became part of her new jaw. Doctors removed half her face so that she might renew her struggle with the deadly and noxious disease of cancer.

Rita never lost hope. She was a beacon of inspiration to everyone who knew her. Like St. Rita herself, she sensed that nothing was impossible. It was what made her life imaginable and full of promise.

As a typical mother of a characteristic Catholic family, she managed a career between 8 pregnancies and multiple tragedies. She fought and won a battle with breast cancer. But bravery prevailed.

She interred an infant grandchild Mark, whom God called home before he even had a chance at life itself. A few short years later, she buried her daughter, Julie and a son Kurt who fell prey to heart failure.

Through it all, she bravely faced each heartache with the chivalry, grace, charm and a boldness that only a mother or grandmother could muster. Indeed, like my own mother she would say… “Sing no sad songs for me.”

She was what I often called a lionhearted “shero,” dauntless and unafraid of dying, or more importantly, of living.

God Bless you Rita Mary Thiel… you will be forever missed but never forgotten.