Carol Ann Porzio

We come together today to celebrate a life. A life lived with all the joy, love, success, failure, heartbreak and triumph that mark a life lived to the fullest Today we come together to celebrate Carol Ann Porzio. She was the precious only child of Donald Earl and Mary Jane Timmis. She entered this world to make her mark on June the 24th, 1940. She was a golden haired infant girl born on a golden summer’s day. Her loving parents raised her in Long Beach at 714 Freeman Ave. After attending Lincoln elementary school and Jefferson middle school, she came to Woodrow Wilson High School. There she met her one and only love Arthur Porzio. They were married young and started their life together in Long Beach while Art attended CSU Long Beach. They grew their family quickly and soon they had three young boys; Donald, Daniel and David. In 1962 their lives quite literally took off on the wings of Arthur’s naval aviator career. They would travel the U.S. from coast to coast with their young boys until landing in the Bay Area in the spring of 1965. They added the 4th and final addition of the Porzio boys, Richard, not long after touching down in November 1965. Art finished his active duty with the Navy and started his career with the airlines and in 1969 they moved into their dream home at 280 El Portal Way in San Jose. There Carol made a nest for her family raising 4 boys who have each found success in their lives. These boys, now men with families of their own provided Carol with her greatest joy, 12 incredible grandchildren, Robert, Melanie, Dominic, Michael, Bryan, Connor, Blake, Luca, Olivia, Matteo, Gabriella and Jonah. Carol was ultimately blessed with the coup de gras of a Nana’s joy and happiness, a great grandchild. Tana Lynn Cox truly completed her life. The family she dreamed of building had become her finest accomplishment. Carol was called by God and left this world happy and content. She met and conquered many challenges in her life. As I think of whom she was, the burdens she bore, the demons and personal tragedies she faced, I realize, we all should realize what an incredibly gallant and brave woman she was and will always be in our hearts. The quality that defined her throughout her life was her amazing courage.

As a young schoolgirl in Long Beach who was overweight, she told stories of how she endured the teasing and ridicule of other children. She never let the hurtful words that children often use to undermine her self-confidence or belief in herself. She was a beautiful child and she knew it. She courageously withstood these superficial attacks on her outward appearance knowing that what was inside of her; the depth of her soul gave her all the beauty she needed. She fought and conquered her childhood struggles with weight and entered high school as a confident and stunningly beautiful young woman.

Carol made many friends in High School and shared stories of the fun times she had while there. The event that would change her life forever was when she met and fell in love with Arthur Porzio while attending Woodrow Wilson HS. To this day she would tell the story of meeting Art at a high school football game. Art dressed in his car club leather jacket asking her “do you want the top up or down?” as they piled into his 1946 Ford convertible with their friends. She knew that moment he was the man for her. Years later Carol and Art have shared that story with whoever wanted to hear a romantic tale about love at first sight. Carol would joke with Art after some 50 years of marriage...”If I had known then what I know now I would have taken the bus home”. To which Art would coolly reply... “If I knew then what I know now, I would have told her to take the bus home”. All joking aside, Carol and Art did fall deeply in love with each other that night. It is no secret that Carol became pregnant while still in high school. At 17 she displayed the courage that would carry her through the rest of her life. She met this early challenge in her life with unimaginable courage, dignity and maturity for a young woman of just 17. She knew in her heart her love for Art. She was confident in herself that she would be a gentle, caring and kind mother. Convinced she could rise to this challenge, she courageously persevered through the admonishments and misgivings of the adults in her life to bring forth her incredible first son, Donald.

Now a young mother and wife she set about making a life for herself and her family. Art finished High School with dreams of flying airplanes. He joined the Navy, enrolled at CSU Long Beach, worked at McDonald Douglas and they made their first home at 2321 Termino Ave in Long Beach. Comfortable in her role as a wife and mother, Donald was soon followed by Daniel and then David over the next 4 years. Carol at the ripe young age of 22 was the mother to three boys under the age of 5 in a time well before “pampers”. To make her life even more arduous, Arthur was deployed to Pensacola Florida a month before David was to be born. Unflinchingly, she took on the responsibilities of being a military wife with young children displaying the fortitude and maturity of a woman ten years older. From 1962 to 1969 she would move her young family again and again. Nine times in the span of seven years she packed and unpacked establishing a warm and welcoming home at each new base and in each new homestead. On several of these “adventures in moving” it was her and the boys arriving with their home in boxes months after Arthur had been deployed. During these early years, she was ardently devoted to Art and his naval career and the rock of their family as they moved from Long Beach to Pensacola Florida then Milton Florida followed by Corpus Christi Texas. After that she hauled her young brood to San Diego California and from there it was on to Whidbey Island Washington. The Whidbey Island deployment starting in April 1964 was the most difficult. Carol was the solo parent for her young children. Art was stationed in the Philippines from August 1964 until February 1965 serving a tour of Duty in Vietnam; For 7 months, Carol, who was now all of 24 years old, raised three boys while pregnant with her fourth. She was on her own and 1000’s of miles from any family or support network. Throughout her months on Whidbey, which she always fondly remembered, she displayed an unwavering dedication to her family and found a resolute courage within herself to overcome those long months without Art, all the while not knowing if he would return. Art did come home from the Philippines In April 1965 only to help the family move yet again a few months later; although this time they would go as a family as they moved to Milpitas California for Art’s deployment at Moffet Field NAS. Carol would then give birth to her Whidbey Island baby; the fourth and final son, Richard, in November 1965. Their family was complete, and their military journey was coming to an end. The stability Art had worked so hard to give Carol and the 4 boys was in sight. Carol would pack up the moving boxes and vans once again for Sunnyvale California in 1967. Finally, with great fanfare and anticipation, in January 1969 Carol moved her clan for the very last time to what would become her home for the next 44 years; 280 El Portal Way in San Jose California.

Carol experienced all life had to offer on El Portal way. She set about building a happy, stable life for herself, Art and the 4 boys now ages 11, 9, 7 and 4. Her beautiful family would fall on hard times in the early years on El Portal. Timing is truly everything in life and Art’s promising career with Pan America was quickly derailed with a furlough. A new position with TWA seemed to bring renewed hope but their dreams and financial security were once again dashed against the rocks of life with another furlough. These were difficult times. The anxiety and insecurity that she faced in her life and the life of her husband and family seemed much easier to endure with the numbing effects of alcohol. Over those first seven years she slipped deeper and deeper it what was clearly an addiction to everyone around her. Donald now a teenager and her other sons as well as Art implored her to find help but their pleas went unanswered. Then In 1976, by the Grace of God she summoned the courageous Carol from deep within; The Carol that had endured so much at such a young age and came face to face with her alcohol demon. She came to terms with herself and what she had become and bravely admitted her addiction to alcohol. With tremendous courage, she reached out to Donald, who had just graduated from High School, and asked him to take her for help; to take her to rehab. She sought and received forgiveness from those she had hurt during those troubled years and committed herself to a life of sobriety. In July 2013 Carol celebrated 37 years of sobriety! Besides her children, grandchildren and great grandchild, it would be her greatest legacy. The courageous spirit required for her to overcome this addiction was not just evident on that fateful day in 1976. She drew on each and every day for all of those 37 years.

A sober Carol embraced her new life and explored her entrepreneurial spirit. She educated herself with a marketing degree from San Jose City College. She ran a woman’s clothing boutique and she kept busy shuttling Daniel, David and Richard to boy scouts, band, football and baseball meetings, practices and games. She saw her 4 boys grow to become young men and leave her and Art at home in the empty nest, which brought a new set of life’s challenges. She continued to display an amazing ability to face whatever adversity came her way. She stood steadfast behind all of her children as they struggled to find their paths to happiness in the world. Never turning her back on them as they each struggled in their own ways she remained a steady, guiding and helping hand to them all. When her relationship with Art stumbled as a marriage inevitably does, she found the courage to overcome their differences and renew the love, devotion and commitment she had made to him and to each other. In the last ten years her love for Art had grown to its deepest depths. She enjoyed a closeness to him that would carry her through the years of her failing health. She would enjoy the fruits of her love for her husband and sons with the glorious birth of each new grandchild; pouring her seemingly boundless love into them all as their Nana.

In the last years of Carol’s triumphant story, she would face life’s greatest gauntlet; an aging and failing body. Carol did not let her declining health these past 10 years dampened her effervescent spirit. She took the opportunity to come to know God in a much deeper way than she ever had. Her faith in God helped her to meet the physically demanding challenges that she faced during this time with the same courage and tenacity she had used to overcome so many other hardships and tests to her indomitable spirit. When her legs and feet betrayed her she courageously pushed forward through countless hours of physical therapy and reveled with a youthful exuberance with each independent step she took. She endured her surgeries and hospitalizations with an unmovable positive attitude knowing God was at her side and had a place in heaven reserved just for her. She was not afraid of death which made her stronger and more fearless. When she became ill for the last time there were many who thought she would fight through one more time. Carol knew otherwise. She knew God was calling her at last. She knew she had loved a man as deeply and purely as woman could. That she had delivered four helpless infant boys into this world and with Art had shaped them into four handsome and strong men with her same limitless love. That she had experienced the joy and happiness that only grandchildren and great grandchildren can bring. She had made and kept many friends throughout her life and touched countless many during her 73 year journey to this, her final day with us, here on earth. Above all else, she faced her own personal trials as the imperfect and frail human being we all are and prevailed with humility, grace and yes, courage. When God asked her to come home on Friday November 29th, 2013, the courageous Carol took his hand, said I love you to us all and left her indelible mark on our lives forever.

Today we pay tribute to Carol Ann Porzio and the COURAGEOUS life she lead. May she rest in peace with God forever.