Beckham: The Power of Family Memories

Harriet Burak draws strength from happy memories of her family, who are pictured together at her son Michael’s Bar Mitzvah. (Above l-r) Al, Harriet, Michael, Michelle and Stacey Burak

Like a warm coat, memories hug us like those we have lost

Beverly Beckham is a columnist for the Boston Globe and a longtime Canton resident. The column below was originally published in December and is being reprinted with permission from the Boston Globe.

I told her I loved her coat, which was an almost-to-the-floor black and gray wool that seemed to be embracing the woman who was standing before me. That’s the feeling I had, that the coat was hugging her.

We were leaving a Christmas party, my husband and I, saying our goodbyes and there was Harriet, leaving, too. And I said, “Your coat is so pretty,” and she smiled and stroked the soft wool near the collar. “It was my daughter’s,” she said, and there it was, out in the open, something we seldom talk about, something we back away from every day: death.

Yet this was not an awkward moment. It was a segue, an opportunity for Harriet to talk about her daughter with thanksgiving that she had lived, and with pleasure that she’d had such good taste in coats.

“People ask me how I get up every day, how I go on,” she said, candidly. “And I tell them, because they are all still with me. Because I take them everywhere I go.”

I wish I remembered her next words exactly. I don’t, but what she said is this: My daughter is a part of me. She will always be a part of me. They are all a part of me. I think about them. I talk about them. I tell their stories. I remember them. And I am grateful for them every minute of every day.

Stacey, Harriet’s daughter whose coat she was wearing, died in June. Stacey was 52. Michael, her son, died 18 years ago when he was 31. Fourteen months after Michael died, Al, her husband, was killed in a car crash. He was 60. Tragedies, each of them. Collectively, they are a catastrophe.

And still she carries on, yet not just carries on. She carries, too, the memories of all their times together, good times and not good times. Her times and theirs intertwined. And she smiles. And she is present and engaged and in the now because she knows she is not alone, she is never alone, because her children and her husband live in her heart. She speaks their names. She tells their stories. And with every breath, every day of her life, she celebrates their having been.

Earlier, at this same party, I was talking to a man who mentioned my Aunt Lorraine. He told me she had worked for him for a few weeks shortly before she died. I had forgotten this. I had forgotten the conversation we had when she got the job. “I’ll be right down the street from you,” she’d said. We would see each other more. And that made us happy.

I wear a thin, gold bracelet that Lorraine never took off. I don’t take it off, either, because every time I look at it, I think of her. But hearing her name unexpectedly? Hearing her name spoken out loud at a party 25 years after her death? Learning that someone else remembers her, too?

This brought me joy.

Sometimes, we’re afraid to say a person’s name, to say, I remember, to tell a story, to remind someone of their loss. We don’t want to make someone sadder than they are. Especially over the holidays. And so we say nothing.

But it’s over the holidays that it’s especially important to say the names, tell the stories, and remember.

We’re not reminding anyone of anything. No one has to be reminded that this is the first Christmas without their mother. That their best friend died a year ago. That there’s another empty chair at the dining room table. There is no forgetting these things.

And sad is sad is sad.

I remember a much younger me avoiding a woman whose teenage son died suddenly. She was an acquaintance, not a friend, and I saw her in line at a grocery store shortly after his death. And instead of getting in line behind her and saying, “I’m so sorry,” I pretended I’d forgotten something and hurried down some aisle.

I would not do that now. I would not be afraid of her silence, of her anger, or her tears. I would speak to her. I would hug her. And, if she wanted to talk, I would listen.

***

Remembering Stacey Megalaitis

By Jay Turner

Described by loved ones as a “beautiful ray of sunshine” and the embodiment of “sweetness and strength,” Stacey Burak Megalaitis bravely fought cancer for six years without so much as a hint of self-pity.

Too preoccupied with her commitments as a mom, wife, daughter, sister and friend, she “embraced life to the fullest” and “faced each moment with humor, enthusiasm and energy.”

Stacey Megalaitis with her mom, Harriet Burak

A Canton native and CHS graduate, Stacey would build her life in southern New Hampshire, where she attended college, forged a successful career in marketing, and settled down with her husband, Mark, and their three children, Austin, Logan and Alyssa.

Although nearly 40 percent of Americans will develop cancer over the course of their lifetime, Stacey’s particular diagnosis — adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC) — was exceedingly rare, with only four per million new cases diagnosed each year.

Originating in glandular tissues, most commonly in the head and neck, ACC has a reasonably high short-term prognosis but tends to recur years after initial diagnosis and treatment. The cause is still unknown and no environmental links have been established, although there is a growing body of research and several promising treatment options in the pipeline thanks largely to the efforts of the locally based Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma Research Foundation (ACCRF), a nonprofit organization established by ACC survivor Marnie Kaufman and her husband, Jeff, of Needham.

Just in the past few months, ACCRF collaborators have launched an “exciting and cutting-edge” clinical trial at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute that involves the implantation of a microdevice containing 20 different drugs into an ACC tumor.

To honor Stacey’s legacy, her mother, Harriet Burak, urges her fellow residents to visit accrf.org to learn more about current research efforts and to consider making a donation to Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma Research Foundation, PO Box 442, Needham, MA 02494.

“She has left this world; but she is not gone,” noted Harriet. “She is our angel and will continue to watch over her family.”

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