10 years since my mother's last birthday

Donna Christopher

Jun 28, 2025

It’s been 10 years since my mother died at home in the apartment she loved in Seaford.

It was a few days after her birthday which was June 28.

The official date is July 3, 2015.

We were last together at a family wedding the Saturday prior in Connecticut.

I would be going to L.I. that week on Friday for her birthday dinner at my sister’s.

I sat next to her in the wedding Mass. It seems fitting our last day together included a mass.

She had the usual jubilant expression with watery eyes during the Eucharist, a familiar look I remember from childhood at St. Matthew’s.

My mother told me when I asked her why she cried in church that mass was ‘beautiful.’

While a lifelong Catholic her curious mind and open heart looked into other Christian based ways of faith.

The ones I remember on L.I. were Baptist, Pentecostal, and a progressive Charismatic Catholic parish. There are probably others.

Her colleague was what he called ‘Born Again’ and they spoke in length over lunches about the Scriptures.

Ultimately she remained a Catholic.

She loved to talk about her faith and prayer. She was an independent thinker and hungry for other viewpoints and ideas, but fiercely protected the sanctity of her personal belief, and strived to respect the differences in others while hoping to be respected for her faith in return.

She was knowledgeable, a reader, and a thinker, someone who actively pursued experiences and entertainment. The arts and religion were always of special interest.

She could recite psalms and source scripture, sing hymns, and play them on the piano. Musically she’d learned accordion but also could play my piano by ear. I heard her tap out Prayer of St. Francis and other church songs.

In her late 70s, after a cancer and healing, Mentina went with her friends to Lourdes and Fatima.

She also attended a prayer group of a man on Long Island who experienced visitation with Saint Padre Pio. I recap some of that story in my article here.

She attended both St. Elizabeth and St. Mary’s in Ridgefield when she stayed weekends at my house. We met at Our Lady of Pompeii, her NYC parish, and spent masses together, and sometimes with my kids at her parish church Maria Regina

My mother drove but walked to church.

She also had a 2nd career as a night secretary at St. James Parish in Massapequa until age 79. The only reason she left the job is because the post moved to the diocesan location and she didn’t want to commute at night.

So that family wedding in Connecticut was the last time I was with Mentina. I didn’t stay like other family did in a hotel in New Haven. I drove back with Jay to Ridgefield.

We were going to sleep at Mentina’s the following weekend.

She had a one bedroom in Cedar Cove a few minutes walk to Wantagh Park, close to the water, by the White Whale, a cozy neighborhood. It was so great my sister and her husband and kids helped my mother snag the purchase and get settled.

I went to pack up her house with Gina on Diane Drive and back the day after she moved in with help from the Ingrisanis and my brother. Jenna came and stayed too. I unpacked everything. The place was perfect on the second floor. There was a chairlift but Mentina walked up the flight. I used the chair for carrying stuff from my car.

She loved her place and lived there almost four years.

On June 28, a Monday, I called for her birthday.

We talked.

On Tuesday she called me and left me a voicemail.

‘Donna, I got your card. You always send beautiful cards. I love you.’

I did not return the Tuesday call which is an enduring mystery.

You see, since my father JR died in 2011 Mentina and I had a daily phone conversation around 7 p.m. I loved those daily talks so have no idea why I would have skipped two days this week.

In fact, no one in my family spoke to her Wednesday or Thursday.

We found out on Friday she died suddenly.