Nadine Zech Faro

***

Thank you all for coming. My mom was able to squeeze 1000 things into a day and thus I will do my best to fit as much into this tribute as possible.

UPBRINGING:

My mom's part-Manhattan, part-Pennsylvania family farm upbringing allowed her the ability to thrive anywhere. She could garden, can foods, cook and bake like a pro, sew Halloween costumes, remove stains from any piece of clothing (our baby clothes were so well-preserved that my kids wore the same outfits that Mike & I did as babies), hang drapes, navigate public transportation anywhere in the world and figure out ways to barter so that I could do something extra like take piano lessons. Many of these above-mentioned qualities came in quite handy when she helped me move 14 times between my college graduation and our settling in Madison. She was an expert at canvassing the curbs for decent pieces of furniture, painting rooms and even doing things like figuring out how to get my apartment in Moscow exterminated for roaches.

My mom was bright....skipping from the middle of 6th to the middle of 7th grade while being a December baby, which already made her the youngest person in her class. She was a top student, graduating high school at age 16, and she was accepted to Northwestern University...though as she noted, she wouldn't have been able to afford more than the trip out to the Midwest. She instead attended the Altoona School of Commerce, where she studied tax preparation, finance and accounting.

MOTHERHOOD:

My parents moved from Brooklyn to Bergenfield, NJ when I was three. Mike was born 5 months later and for the first four years there, she had no car, no close family or friends nearby and we weren't within walking distance of anything. Interestingly enough, she calls those years the best years of her life. I have terrific memories of her singing while she hung the wash on the clothesline, of teaching me how to do a cartwheel and of swimming in our above-ground pool. Mike & I always walked a half mile each way to eat lunch with her during grammar school. I can honestly say that there is nothing that I would change about my childhood, and I know my brother feels the same way.

WORK:

Aside from these several years, my mom always worked in some capacity until her move to Madison. This may surprise some of my friends here tonight, because I had always described her as a stay-at-home mom, probably because she was there for every last thing. In Brooklyn, she worked full-time for three years while my dad worked the overnight shift. Later on in NJ, my mom worked as a tax professional for H&R Block and as a bookkeeper at a local business. She loved the markets and was aware of everything from investing to CEO moves throughout her life.

My mom had her own successful catering business for years. She could cook and bake on a large scale; she ran the kitchen for our annual church bazaar for 10 years straight, outdoing herself each and every time. The year she Chaired the entire bazaar, the church raised over $40,00 in three days, which was a new record by a significant amount. She was very low-key and while others would go up on stage with their best outfit to take a bow, my mom gave a quick wave from the kitchen with her apron on. For my surprise Sweet 16 Party, she cooked, served, and cleaned up for over 200 people with no help whatsoever and she still managed to dance. Since her passing, numerous friends have told me that they would never miss one of her parties. She loved a good party, she loved a good tailgate, and she loved a good vacation.

My mom was different, though. Her idea of a good tailgate did not necessarily mean beer and hot dogs but rather stuffed grape leaves and baklava, the dessert for which she was well-known. In my senior year and Mike's freshman year of college, our schools played each other in football, and friends told me how she knocked on their Winnebago door at 8am, smiling and offering them coffee and homemade apple strudel. By the time I arrived in the parking lot, I saw literally hundreds of people surrounding my parents' car. As I approached, I overheard a classmate whom I didn't know too well saying, "You have to check out the Faros' tailgate...our whole class is there." Most of Mike's class wound up there too...

It was nothing for my mom to cook for 30-50 people on our patio. She didn't just cook Russian food either; she made everything...Italian, Greek, Middle Eastern. While other parents were going out on Saturday nights, my parents would instead have friends over and have Mike and I hang out with everyone. I have memories of some tremendous cooking projects when I was growing up. Why make 10 Easter Pascha breads when you could make 50? There was the time we made homemade macaroni....spinach, whole wheat, you name it...in every conceivable shape. We hung it over every piece of furniture and then up the stairs (on towels of course). Or there was the time we made hundreds of cannoli shells and had them laying on the floor throughout the house. My mom produced some of the most amazing meals in the smallest kitchen known to man. Recently, I was looking at some of her recipes and I could not stop laughing...300 beef stroganoff crepes, 450 pieces of spanakopita. I was commenting on them and my mom said, "That's nothing. I have recipes for 600 in there."

My mom was also ahead of her time...we never had a piece of white bread in the house, our peanut butter was always 100% all-natural and she cooked and baked without salt.

Education.....my mom was a huge advocate for our education. She made sure we had the best teachers every year, she managed to get the math curriculum advanced by a full year while I was in middle school, and the superintendent of schools would take her calls. That being said, she did have perspective.....I remember calling from the school pay phone in 10th grade, having a mini breakdown that I might have gotten a B on a pop quiz in chemistry. She said, "Wow, if a B in Chem 10 gets you this upset, it's going to be one long life."

THE SWIMMING YEARS:

Swimming was ridiculous before all sports became ridiculous, and Mike and I both swam till the end of college. You had practice three mornings a week before school, five days a week after school and on Saturday mornings, and the pools were a minimum of 20 minutes away. You had about two weeks off in April and three weeks off at the end of August...that was it. The meets would last for days on end, with trials in the morning and finals at night, meaning parents could easily be in the pool area for 9 or 10 hours a day, and in those days there were no cell phones, laptops or blackberries. Mike & I also were involved with everything...marching band, piano, Little League, wrestling, ping pong tournaments, church youth group. My mom and dad drove to all of it. My mom had an 8-year stretch of getting up between 3:30 and 4:15am three days a week. If she didn't drive the first shift, she was up preparing supper at 3:45am. She would take us from swimming to school and then go off to work. She would pick us up from school to drive us to afternoon practice and we would always have a home-cooked meal waiting for us in the car. I am not quite sure how she fit in laundry, volunteering at the church, taking courses in everything from auto mechanics to home improvement or even phoning her friends. I do remember bills and taxes being done during the marathon swim meets, so it seems that she learned to multi-task before the term was even invented. In the summer, she would drop by the swim club for a couple of hours in the afternoon to hang out with us, then say she was going to leave to make supper and throw in some laundry, and then come back with food for us and our friends. While my mom didn't own fancy clothes or accessories, she always took the time, unlike me, to make sure that her hair was dry and combed, and she always had on lipstick. On a complete side note, I remember her turning to me during her first chemo treatment and saying, "I can't believe you're wearing THOSE pants...and PLEASE, fix your hair. What is wrong with you?!"

SINGING:

My mom loved to sing. When she was a toddler and one of her uncles would visit while they were on military leave, they would all go down to the local saloon and prop my mom up on the bar. She would sing and sing and everyone would dance. She used to sing on the subway as a young child and strangers would walk over and hand her money. She was accepted to the High School of Performing Arts, but wasn't able to attend due to the distance. She performed as a soloist for a Russian singing group and for 23 years with the Troika Balalaika Orchestra, where we enjoyed performing together. As I mentioned in her obituary, she sang solos at St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Plaza Hotel, the Waldorf Astoria and the Russian Embassy.

MONEY MANAGEMENT:

My parents had a very modest household income, but my mom could stretch a dollar further than anyone I've ever seen. My mom hardly ever purchased clothes, shoes or pocketbooks for herself; she had a friend cut her hair for $5 (and even last year she was only paying $10); she had her first pedicure at the age of 61; she re-used aluminum foil; she always took the bus or the subway, no matter how late it was or what she had to carry, and she got annoyed when I used too many paper towels. She never had a cleaning person and she only succumbed to cable television at the age of 64 when the rabbit ears wouldn't work in Connecticut. That being said, Mike & I were encouraged to pursue our interests and we took a fun family vacation every year.

TRAVEL:

My mom loved to travel and in our teenage years, she realized that taking a job in a travel agency would allow her to see the world. She made her first trip out of North America when she was 49 years old. She planned every detail of her trips, never wanting to miss a thing. She had no problem riding the bus with the locals, surrounded by chickens and other farm animals. My mom managed to travel everywhere....Chile, Argentina, Egypt, Israel, Cyprus, Malaysia, Surabaya on the tip of Java in Indonesia. She liked to say that she had traveling feet. She also was very independent, traveling without family or friends to places like Morocco and Lake Titicaca in Bolivia. She visited over 35 countries on 5 different continents.

DANCING:

When my parents stayed at resorts in Mexico and the Caribbean, they would often win dance contests...they could do quite a good swing and merengue...and the Glenn Miller song "In the Mood" was always a favorite.

FRIENDS:

My mom had strong friendships throughout her entire life. She was still in touch with many of her friends from grammar school in NYC, high school in Pennsylvania and from her first real job in Manhattan. She knew all of my friends and Mike's friends and eventually all of their spouses. My parents were invited to many of our friends' weddings...both from high school and from college. They hosted several of my friends, sometimes for days on end, when I wasn't even living in the area. Between the swim meets, the tailgates, the barbeques and our Christmas parties, they got to know everyone and they always wanted to be a part of our lives. For my parents' 45th anniversary party, my mom's 4 bridesmaids, my 3 college roommates, one from as far as Colorado, and many of Mike's college roommates were all in attendance. At the chemo center, for my mom's last birthday, the nursing staff came out and surprised her with a cake. I had never seen them do that for a patient before nor did I ever see it again. My mom just stood out.

BEING A GRANDMA:

Root beer floats; crazy hat days; baking projects involving pink, green & yellow breads; berry picking; make-up Sunday school lessons when one of the kids was sick. She had Annie sitting on a stool before the age of two, drying escarole for a meal. She taught Frankie the Lord's Prayer before he was 2 1/2 and she was so very proud of his altar boy service. In May, Annie had a softball game, and my mom insisted on picking the boys up by herself and taking them to see the Mariachi band playing at Robert's Supermarket for Cinco de Mayo. In June, she hauled up huge pots full of dirt, again by herself, in order to plant tomatoes and cucumbers with the kids. In July, her feet were so swollen she could barely walk, and yet she dragged herself to the pool in 90-degree heat...not to see Michael Phelps compete for the gold...but rather not to miss Charlie's first official swim meet.

THE BIG THINGS:

My mom would get bent out of shape if there were crumbs on my stove or if the kids weren't wearing slippers, but she always took the big things in stride, including my dad's heart attack and quadruple bypass, her own mom's passing and finally, her cancer diagnosis. She never wanted to talk about her illness or to let her define her. She never used it as an excuse to get out of things. She helped out all the time...waiting for the furnace man to arrive, cooking dinner, loading and running the dishwasher and locking up while I put the kids to bed, helping me to drive. She would still call to remind me to freeze the uncooked meat or to make sure the boys were dressed up for a certain event. Eight months into her treatment, she took a chess seminar for parents so that she could learn to play with the kids. Last fall, she volunteered to paint the kids' rooms. In May, she danced with my brother and my dad at Mike's wedding, which she was determined to do. After her surgery in July, while she was still in the hospital, she was imploring me not to miss the sale on crushed tomatoes at Shop Rite. She was always looking forward.

FAITH:

It was at the core of who she was since she was a little girl, sometimes having to walk to church by herself as early as age four due to her parents' work schedules. She loved teaching Sunday School and bringing the kids to midnight Easter service. It was fitting that she passed away on Orthodox Education Day, an event we attended and performed at year after year. I know my mom is in God's hands now...and of the many blessings I count each day, right at the top of the list, will always be having Nadine Faro as my mother.