Helen Hanna Eulogy

Delivered at Saint Paul's Episcopal Church, Norfolk on April 12, 2008

Greetings everyone, and thank you so much for being here with us to celebrate the life of a delightful woman of tremendous light named Helen Hanna.
I want to take this time to thank all of you who embraced Helen into this community. Like a hug from Charlotte Leinbach, Helen, like Charlotte loved the human race. She was so open to encounter, but never intrusive. You can imagine the plethora of cards and calls we’ve received over the past ten days since her death. So many of you have mentioned that you had the most wonderful encounter with her the very Sunday before her passing. Thank you all so very much for caring for her and holding her so dear and close in this community she enjoyed for five years, and specifically these 2 or so years since George’s death. I suspect that she is the first “New Englander” invited to the Second Circle, but Iris, Chappie, Ann Brook, thank you for letting her drink too much wine so that she had to be driven home after her first meeting!
1. There are so many tired cliché’s about mothers in law. None of them apply to Helen. Helen Hanna, over the course of 19 years taught me by example what it is to be a good mother. Helen’s motives were always certainly fixed on seeing others happy. She lived her adult life in devotion to her sons: she and George frugally saved to send Kevin and Chris to Ivy league schools.
2. She was champion to Kevin’s preternatural artistic abilities while nurturing the spiritual gifts he brings to that process of creating fine art. Her first five years of retirement from teaching 5th grade, were spent providing daily care to her first Grandson Liam so that Kevin could continue to take commissions and create his world class sculpture.

To say she was Chris’ biggest fan would be a most unfortunate understatement of the excitement she brought to the theatre experience. She was a life long devotee of the stage, in fact, that is how she met George Hanna, working in community theatre in Westchester. She was planning to see Hank Williams the Lost Highway at the Wells last Saturday, with her new friend Ann Brook, and if Helen had ever heard a country tune in her life, I would be stunned if she remembered it’s title, but she would never pre-judge a play based on “what it’s about”, she would experience the play with an open mind and bring intelligent inquiry and observation to the post show discussion. And Ann Brook, I’d love to see the play with you if you are still interested.

In the words of Nick Wheeler, she was a “Grand Lady”. I met Helen in 1989 and in all those years there was only one brief moment that she was not in complete control. In Dec. of 2006, she had surgery to repair her broken hip. On Christmas Eve we broke her out of Lake Taylor Rehab, where she was recovering, so she could join us at the Tekamp’s for Christmas dinner. Mark, upon assessing the situation, gently got her out our car, knelt down, laid her over his shoulder and carried her into the house. I wish I had a picture to show you of a Helen, relaxed, in surrender, veritably thrown over the shoulder of that gentle Giant Mark Tekamp. Truly, it was a blessed sight to behold!
Helen had an exquisitely sharp mind and a decidedly eloquent way of speaking. A life long writer, she often recorded for others her perceptions and impressions of their situations; to receive a birthday letter from Helen was an envelope thick with eloquent remembrances, and andecdotes, thoroughly infused with love and sincere caring. In a world where time has become the most coveted currency, Helen made time to share her gift and love of writing with others.
If we live as we die, my mother in law is a shining example! She was the Energizer Bunny! At 86, she kept going and going until she no longer did. Her friend Jane commented to me that what was so unique about Helen was that in her aging years she continued to form new relationships and I know many of you were the recipent of those new found friendships. In Connecticut, Helen had joined a writers group, again, atypical of an 86 year old and I imagine they will miss her sorely when she doesn’t return as they hoped she would in May. She was happy up until the last moments of coherent thought and I cannot imagine a more fitting end to an extraordinary life of love and service to her family and friends. Helen was a beloved kindred spirit, a woman of great faith and of deep wisdom. She was tenacious, frugal, hard working and uncomplaining in the discomfort and pain she experienced later in life as her body began to deteriorate while her mind continued to sharpen! 

For those of you who had the honor and joy of knowing Helen, I offer you my sincere condolences on the loss of your dear friend.


. Helen showed me the love and tenderness and nurturing that my own mother was not capable of. My sister in law Mary and I were truly the daughters she had hoped for and I am deeply grateful for the time with Helen on this heavenly earth. God was so very generous and merciful in granting me the gift of being with her at the moment her body surrendered it’s existence, I touched her head, so hot with fever, touched her wrist, seeking her pulse; made contact and FELT the last of her beating heart...the final beat of a loving heart, passed like a relay baton, into my own loving human flesh; to cherish and hold and continue to be inspired by a woman whose love of family, life, God and all his magnificent creations knew no end, no boundary. Helen Hanna is resurrected in each of us whom she loved so dearly. Death is certain as is the knowledge that Love never ends.