Helen M. Zielinski

Do not lose that direction.

Do not let sorrow forget its errand.

Sorrow is the deepest honor that joy can bring.

Harry Martinson

(trans. Joy Smith and Leif Sjoberg)

One stormy night in 1932, a child was born near Cross Village, Michigan, very close to Lake Michigan. When the storm subsided and the sun appeared, the child’s parents saw the blue-green with diamonds of sunlight colors of the Great Lake matched the color of their newly born child’s eyes. Beauty comes after a tempest and the parents named the child Helen.

Helen grew to four years old living on a farm in Northern Michigan. Her time there was spent learning to walk and to speak, and she walked the paths of farm and field with her father and mother and she learned to love what is natural in the world. Helen shared the farm, and later the family home in Detroit, with several brothers and sisters.

At four years, her father moved the family to Detroit, Michigan, to take advantage of well-paying jobs in the automobile industry. Moving from field to factory, Helen took with her the love she felt from her times in the fields and by the Great Lake, and she carried this love with great tenderness through the remainder of her life.

Helen attended Our Lady of Help Christian School, and graduated from Catholic Central High School. During this time, she met the love of her life, Richard Zielinski, and they married in 1950 with great fanfare and all of the expectations of the “greatest generation. Many of these expectations were met, and especially with the birth of five children: Kathi, Rick, Doreen, Laureen and Sharlene. Helen and Richard enjoyed great success in their child rearing, as none of their children ever did hard time. Indeed, they all went on to professional careers and married: Mike, Amy, Tom, Scott and Dave, respectively. Helen especially appreciated her sons-in-law as not one of them could defeat her in a game of high stakes gin rummy.

Richard was the bread winner in the family and Helen greatly supplemented the family income employed in several service industries over her lifetime. Helen and Richard provided a comfortable living for the family. Helen worked extra hard as a co-bread winner and a full time Mom and housewife. As the children grew, Helen welcomed, in occasional frustration, a parade of courting boyfriends and girlfriends into her home. She once answered her front door to find Scott, who had come to pick Lauree up for a date, standing on her front porch. “Don’t ever come to my front door again!,” Helen huffed. After a lengthy pause, Helen then said “you are family now, so from now on you come to the side door and just walk in.”

After the many trials and tribulations of working and raising children, Helen and Richard retired comfortably, and began to welcome a cascade of grandchildren (14) and grandchildren (10!)

into their home. Despite advancing age and advancing numbers, Helen never forgot a grandchild or great grandchild’s name or birthday and she attended more soccer and baseball games, dance recitals, graduations and such than could be counted on all of her grandchildren’s fingers and toes multiplied in the exponential. Helen was a very busy mom, grandmom and great grandmom.

In this setting, there was no greater celebration in the Zielinski family than the holy celebration of Christmas. The celebration began with anticipation after Halloween. A magnificent (trust me, dear reader) Thanksgiving feast kicked off the real festivities and from that date forward the excitement mounted until the grand crescendo of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

The presentation and breaking of the Oplotki wafer before Christmas supper and the giving of good wishes for the new year was the apex of the celebration. Then a grand Christmas supper was had by the family. After supper it was Grandma Helen’s time to present each grandchild and great grandchild with her or his Christmas gift, one at a time. Each child would rise and come to Grandma Helen to accept their gift. The child would give thanks to Grandma. These rituals became the meaning of Christmastime in the Zielinski family. This was the sacred ritual celebration that became embodied in Helen.

Richard and Helen had saved for retirement wisely, which allowed them to travel after the children (at last!) left the house. Bora Bora, Hawaii, Las Vegas, cruises, you name it, they did it all, and they had great times together. Then came the sadness of Richard’s illness and passing. By then Richard and Helen had moved to a comfortable ranch home on a quiet street in Madison Heights, Michigan. Helen lived after Richard’s death for seventeen years, her time spent travelling, meeting with friends and enjoying her grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Helen’s own illness (COPD) began to advance three years ago, just before the pandemic cast its shadow across the land. It was a misfortunate confluence, but this led the Zielinski family from bonding together all the closer. Lauree, Shar, Doreen and Rick joined together and every month created a calendar to ensure that one of them was present with Mom for late afternoon, supper and to help her to bed. As Helen’s illness advanced further, their time spent with Mom increased and when Helen could no longer drive, all appointments were attended with one of the four children. This band of loving kids continued to give care and to bond with Mom and with each other until Helen peacefully passed on July 11, 2022.

This writer will say it was a remarkable display of love, just pure love, and with this power the Zielinski children were able to fulfill Helen’s wish that she live and die at home. Helen’s final days were a vigil of the children and children-in-law, along with grandchildren and great grandchildren, and visitors from all over, who stopped by to express their love for Helen. Food of epic portions was delivered to feed the vigil, and family members were gatherd at the end to wish Helen on her journey to the stars. Helen was never in pain, and knew only love, again and again.

Bringing this writing full circle and referring to Mr. Martinson’s poem above, “Do not lose that direction.”

The Zielinski family would like to express their gratitude and love to Father Chateau for his visits and comforts, to Jeannie and Susan for their exceptional professional caregiving, to nurse Dana and the rest of the staff from Hospice, and, if you have had the wherewithal to read on this far, to you, dear reader, for your friendship, your caring, and your place in Helen’s life.

After Richard’s death, Helen enjoyed the company of people at Cancer Survivor Gilda’s Club where Helen learned how to quilt. Donations in Helen’s honor may be sent to this non-profit at Gilda’sClub@Detroit.com.

Helen asks you to remember one thing above all: Love never dies. It doesn’t. Truly.

Peace,

The Zielinski Family