The following is an excerpt from the eulogy Charley delivered today for his mother, Elena Bruns, who passed away on January 15, 2012, in a New York hospital after complications from heart surgery. By many standards, my mother was considered an ordinary woman. By some, she was considered extraordinary. To me, of course, she was a very special, unique person.
She was born into an ordinary middle class family in Cuba, and received a normal education for girls growing up there in the 1940s. She did not possess the kinds of special talent or skills that were in particular demand in return for a strong livelihood. Her jobs included being a clerk and a cashier. Despite her passion for pictures, she struggled with a digital camera, and never learned to use a computer.
But she was extraordinary in other ways. My mother’s father passed away when she was four years old, and she joined her mother in this country as a teenager, several years before the Cuban revolution forced thousands of her compatriots to flee the island. She settled in the Upper West Side of Manhattan along with some other Cubans from the Mambo Kings era. She certainly wasn’t wild and crazy – she never drank alcohol or smoked anything – but she sure could dance. After her divorce, I remember how she would practice dancing with new boyfriends in our apartment living room. If her boyfriend didn’t cut it on a dance floor, a second date was unlikely. That made Roy very special. He wasn’t a particularly nimble dancer, but they had a second date and then some.
My mom studied hard to learn English, insisting that my brother and I speak it at home so that we could all become fluent. And she succeeded to the point that, by the end of her life, I think she spoke it as well or better than Spanish, despite her strong accent.
My mom also had the extraordinary ability of squeezing 15 or 20 cents out of every dime she had. Growing up, we somehow managed to obtain everything we needed because she always got items at a steep discount or for free. Absolutely nothing, including food and clothes, was wasted in our home. Her way with money was a major reason why she and my dad were able to enjoy having two new houses built for them.
My mom was unique. She may not have seemed the warm, bubbly type of Cuban that my grandmother, my aunt, and other women I knew in the family while growing up appeared to be. But, I never doubted her love for me, or how special she made me feel. I will always remember when on her birthday, not mine, she took me, my big brother and her little brother to a baseball game at Yankee Stadium. She always managed to find the gifts I wanted most for Christmas, to get a good spot on Central Park West to watch the Thanksgiving Day parade, and buy some tickets to see the Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall.
She was very proud of delivering four children into this world. Her youngest child, and only daughter, was born while I was a sophomore in high school. My mom was beaming the day she left the hospital holding my sister. I remember my classmates asking me for weeks, “Hey Charley, was that your mother who just had a baby?” “Yeah,” I admitted, “that was my mom who just had a little girl.”
My mom was fortunate to learn how to cook traditional Cuban food from her mother. Our family could never figure out how she made her yellow rice and chicken look and taste perfect. She went through much trouble to get the right ingredients to cook with red beans. The taste of her black beans could not be beat although, fortunately for me, she was able to teach my wife how to prepare them just right.
After my grandmother passed away 20 years ago, my mom had a big void in her life. She missed her mother very much, and rarely went long without talking about her. Just recently she said to me, “Do you realize Belen would’ve been 100 years old this year?” Ironically, it was exactly 100 years ago today that her mom was born.
Now it’s my turn to have a big void in my life. But, just as my mom made sure I never forgot all the great qualities of her mom and the special times we shared together, I am determined to make sure my family, including my dad, my brothers, sister, children, nephews and niece, never forget her great qualities and the special times we shared together with her.
