Marcia Suzanne Kemper-Cipollina January 30, 1949 - August 20, 2006

Nicholas, Marcia and Libby Cipollina

A memorial, according to Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, is a noun "anything, as a monument, intended to preserve the memory of a person or event." Then when we consider the definition of 'memory' - noun - the power, function, or act of reproducing and identifying what has been learned or experienced. So, my purpose here is a monument to the memory of Marcia Suzanne Kemper-Cipollina; identifying what we have learned and experienced from Marcia's extraordinary life.

The first thing is "love overcomes all" and that hope is rewarded. She loved her baby girl, born on June 10, 1966, and Marcia persisted in that love for baby Meri, as well as for her daughter Libby and son Nicholas for the rest of Marcia's life. Marcia's hope was that some day she would be reunited with her first child whom she gave birth to when she was little more than 17. Marcia's love for Meri was such that it informed her and compelled her to do the hard thing for the best interests of Meri. That Marcia as a teenage girl could not give the life and resources that Meri needed, that only a family with two mature adults could give this precious baby. God blessed Meri with a wonderful adopted father and mother, and adopted siblings who did provide for and loved Meri, and gave Meri what she needed, what a teenage Marcia would not do. So as a corollary to overriding love is self-sacrifice - Marcia knew her child would benefit more from the adoption, than being raised by a teenage girl. Although this was extremely painful and hard on Marcia, the most difficult thing she had to do in her young life, she chose not the easy path for her. Not the "feel-good" emotional choice which would have put a burden on her parents who already had 9 children of their own. Marcia chose the hard, best interests - which was to bear the burden of giving up her baby.

The hope was miraculously rewarded when God blessed Marcia and Meri, when Meri found Marcia in 2005. The reunion was wonderful, now Meri knows Marcia, her mother, and Marcia saw that her Meri was well provided for and raised well by her adopted father, - whom she also met; and saw that her daughter had married a wonderful man, Mark. Our children, Elizabeth "Libby," and Nicholas also now know their sister Meri and Meri knows them. We have all gained, because Marcia did the right thing and she had faith in God's Hope, which God's good grace rewarded. And that is the next lesson from Marcia's life-Faith.

Marcia did not just have Hope, she had Faith, in God and through God in her children, in me, and in herself. Marcia, when others did not believe that she could do something, had the Faith in God's blessings to her that she could fullfil her goal. She showed this right away when as a young respiratory therapist she moved to Boston from Indianapolis, and got a job at the prestigious Massachusetts General Hospital. She went further and qualified for a special new Harvard University - Mass. General program teaching academic health related subjects to respiratory therapists who did not have a B.A. She astounded all when she completed the program at the top of her class with honors. This gave her the courage to go back to college where she graduated from Bunker Hill Community College with a high enough G.P.A., to allow her to win admission to Harvard's Radcliffe and to Brandeis University. Brandeis also awarded her a scholarship So she went to Brandeis and that is where I met her in the library stacks. Marcia before she met me had also used her God-given blessings of beauty to be a model in Boston, but she always said that it was ironic that she could make more as a model than as a respiratory therapist, which was an occupation that helped people. When the time came, Marcia chose the path that would help others, rather than the path that would bring her financial rewards. This sense of duty was also Marcia, a duty to help others and do what I have always called God's work. So the next lesson from Marcia was her duty to others, even at her own expense, to help others.

Marcia's sense of duty was formidable and resolute. She had an incredible sense of work ethic - she would go to work no matter what. Once when she had literally broken her arm above her wrist, - she kept working for a few more days until her nausea at the hospital where she was doing God's work, got the better of her and she told one of her colleagues that she had hurt her arm a few days before. The x-rays showed a break!

When I met Marcia, some-how I knew that she was a Hoosier - I do not know how I knew that, but I blurted it out and astounded her that a person whom she had just met would see through the 14 or so years she had spent in Boston and could not disguise her being from Indiana. I never had met anyone from Indiana before, and except for my Dad going to Purdue in 1941, I knew of no other connection in my life to Indiana. The other thing I blurted out some weeks later, was my awkward proposal for marriage -- "Marry me and I will give ya bambinos" (The correct term should have been bambini, but I have never been good at language.) I do not know why I said that, but I do know that calling her a Hoosier and proposing marriage by linking it to "bambinos" must have been something of God's plan for us. Because I had never said anything like that before or since, and I could not know at the time, that offering children in a marriage was the most persuasive and seductive "close" on a proposal. that anyone could have made to Marcia. She was intrigued but skeptical, and it took from May of 1980 until September 4, 1982 when we were married at St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue in New York City, for the proposal to become real. But it took all the way until Sept. 14, 1988 (Primary day that year), for the baby to come along -- Libby was born after Marcia cast a vote. Then, on Election Day November 6, 1990, after casting her vote, she gave birth to Nicholas, and so fulfilling my proposal with two beautiful babies.

Marcia had a wonderful career as a cutting-edge metabolic medical researcher at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, producing 40 peer-reviewed articles in prestigious medical research journals. She went back to doing God's work at night to be able to spend the day time with our children from the time they were in school. Again sacrificing her own comfort to do her duty to her children. Doing God's work being a respiratory therapist on the night shift, for those who needed her the most - premature infants at Schneider's Children Hospital of Long Island Jewish Medical Center. She often had to ride in an ambulance at 2:00 a.m. to other hospitals from the tip of Long Island or to the Bronx, to transport a premature infant on a respirator back to Schneiders Hospital for their special resources. She did this hard thing, and was unable to get a decent day's sleep, for she also took care of our children in the day as they grew up in Garden City. She probably was exposed to some toxicity, or some radiation at the hospital that was eventually to rob us of Marcia.

Marcia also did God's work when she volunteered at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City. She baked cakes, and then started to head up the Bake-Sale Table at numerous events to raise money for the Cathedral's good works. She volunteered after ten or so years and loved every minute of it, for she loved the Cathedral and our fellow congregants at the Cathedral. Marcia was especially proud of Libby and Nick singing in the Chorus at the Cathedral. She was also proud of the kids receiving their First Holy Communions and Confirmations at the Cathedral, and of Nick's scouting activities at Troop 55 at the Cathedral.

At the end of the day what mattered most to Marcia was family. She was an incredible, hard working, dedicated mother, a loyal and fun-loving sister, a doting and affectionate auntie, a proud god-mother of Zachary, and a supportive, dutiful and beautiful wife. She loved her sisters and brothers, Gloria, Alizia, Patricia, Felicia, Morgen, Meredith, Robert and Trapnoul. She loved her in-laws as if they were blood to her - Walter, Steve, Ken, Mike, Broler, Steve Grannaun, Kathy, Larry, Diane, Rose, Nicholas, Virginia and Paul. She loved her surrogate sisters and brothers - Tina Buckingham, Collette, Carolene, Janet and Christus, and Joan and Michael Cassandra. She loved Joan's and Michael's daughters as if they were her daughtrers, and she loved Michelle and Walter Demenecbe, my surrogate sister and surrogate brother. She loved her Aunt Hatter and Uncle Dick and their children Steve and Rose and David.

Marcia loved them and she loved her church and God. At the very end, her children Meri, Libby and Nick as well as her brother Bob and sisters Patricia Gloria, Felicia, Morgen and Meredith were with her, easing her over to God's comforting embrace on the early morning of August 20 th, 2006. God Bless You Marcia, and God keep you and thank you God for you have blessed us with Marcia. Marcia, you have given much to many and have changed my life. I miss you terribly as do your family and friends. My eternal love - Art