Judi Suzanne Tamburello Patti: A Tribute

Judi Suzanne Tamburello Patti
October 18, 1943- July 23, 2004
A tribute from a brother to a sister on her birthday, originally written days after her death in 2004.

My sister took in a shallow breath and exhaled. Pockets of oxygen made faint crackling noises as they escaped from her lungs, life giving oxygen no longer pulsing through her blood vessels. Outside, a summer breeze rustled through the fully foliated trees. Birds, airplanes, the cars passing by in the street, all continued their daily passages. Inside the room, silence. Deep eerie silence. As water escapes through cupped hands, something physical was escaping the room. In one breath, my sister became an abstraction, a memory. Gone. Dead.

Hoping for recovery had not been a choice. The cancerous meningioma that grew in her skull, mouth, and neck was choking the life out of her. She couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk, couldn’t eat, couldn’t drink. She had been horribly disfigured by three massive cranial operations. She had run out of options.

“Under the surface,” as her doctor explained it, with the effects of pain killing morphine during her final days, she did the only thing she knew how to do, the thing she’d been doing since 1977 when she was told that she had a voracious fibrous tumor growing in her cranium, a tumor that could not be excised thoroughly, and would likely recur to bid for her life. She fought.

What kind of arsenal do you need to fight death? Hope, faith, and love for others help. When all else fails, you can even try denial.  Over the years, Judi tried them all. Above all else, she lived for others.

A writer of sympathy and congratulatory notes, a sender of flowers, an attendant at funerals and wakes, she had love to burn. As a justice of the peace, she married hundreds of couples. Her nuptial service was invariably personalized. She’d use a crystal of information she’d learned from the couple as she interviewed them before the ceremony then use her wedding ceremony as a setting in which to place it. She was, above all, a people person.  Ministering to people’s pain, acknowledging their joys, was a way of life for her. She wasn’t giving it up without a struggle.

Over 27 years, the tumor knocked three times. She slammed the door shut three times. It knocked again this spring, then shoved with a force that she couldn’t overcome. “The trajectory is certain,” her doctor said, “maybe 24 to 72 hours.” Against the grain of every life-affirming notion I’ve ever held, I shoved too. I wished she would die. Nothing in my life had ever made so much and so little sense.

Her two sons, care givers, several close friends and I witnessed her teeter on the edge of eternity several times before surrendering. We sped past Dr. Kubler-Ross’s five stages of dealing with death and invented our own. We told funny stories about my sister’s idiosyncrasies, joked about one of her oft used quotes, “I’m fine,” that she uttered whether after major surgery or major triumphs, and talked directly to her, remembering her doctor’s comment that although she was not conscious, she could likely hear what was going on around her. Our laughter, an antidote to sharing a room with the specter of mortality, helped us cope with our own inability to stay within the red zone of death for days at a time.

In an act of reverse midwifery at life’s end, we even cheered her along her labor of exit as she struggled to breathe and let go of her moorings to life. “Go see dad, he’ll be so glad to see you.” Encouraging your sister to die? There is no user’s manual for witnessing death.

Over a period of six days at my sister’s bedside, the polarities of humanity- life and death, joy and fear, the known and the unknown, converged toward a celestial destination. One lovely July afternoon, my sister crossed the ultimate latitude, leaving us behind, and joined others over the horizon. We waved goodbye with relief and acceptance. And certainty that she was in a better place.

The gift my sister gave us is that we discovered we could survive in those extreme zones of contradictory feelings and emotional anguish. We used what she had used during her years of being indentured to pain and uncertainty, the comfort of one another’s love. She would have liked that.

Photo: Judi marrying my dear friends Susaan Straus and Ricardo Ceriani in 1995.

Comments

[Christopher Huggins]

Paulie...
Your sister was such a wonderful, positive, engaging, and brave women. This story makes me miss her tremendously as I remember her warmth, and bravery. Her illness was such a challenge, and frankly, so awful. It's another example of "life's not fair".
And yes, there is no manual for what you and her sons had to experience. What a wonderful, loving brother you are to be there throughout the final days...so completely. And I can understand the why you cheered her on to peace from the pain.
I know she and her sons appreciated it.
Hugs,
The Hugger

[Susan Sullivan]

wonderful tribute, Paul. What a survivor. We all must pass through that door and bear witness to others journey's...love the picture of Susaan and Ricardo.

[Shelley Allison]

Thanks. She was very, very special and was lucky enough to have a wonderful, and wonderfully articulate, brother. This reminds me of so many things but mainly of Judi and her lovely service, filled with so many great stories about her, and also of our family’s vigil at my dad’s bedside during the last five days of his life. It’s an excruciating process, and yet very beautiful in many ways. You want it to be over as soon as possible because it’s so painful, but you want it to go on forever, because it’s ending means your loved one is gone forever. Tough stuff, but you’ve described it beautifully and her very lovingly.

[Barbara Widett]

Paul,
After all those years if hearing about your sister from you and Nona, I thank you for allowing me to get a glimpse of who she was. I regret not knowing her in person. Your tribute was moving and beautiful - words to be cherished and remembered.

[Tracy Grant]

Thank you, Paul. Thank you very much for putting this tribute into words and sharing.

[Jo-Ann Barbour]

Thanks PT. I think of Judi every Christmas as I hang her hand crafted ornament and remember many a conversation where we discussed your idiosyncrasies! She was a beautiful and special person.

[Kristen Eichleay]

Thank you, Paul. It’s a beautiful tribute!

[Sarah Cross Mills]

What a beautifully-written tribute! This one's a keeper for me. Thank you for sharing this very personal piece.

[Carolyn Liesy]

Susaan talked a lot about Judi so I have known her and her prognosis for a long time. Your eulogy is so beautiful Paul. I was very moved. Thank you.
Carolyn