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Eulogy for Angela Maria Volan
Given by John George Volan
at Her Wake, Wednesday, June 28, 2006
I am Angela's eldest brother, John. A gulf of nine years separates us.
It means that, of all her brothers, I am the only one who clearly
remembers her as a baby. In fact, I remember her coming home from the
hospital. Marvelling over her shrivelling umbilical cord, and her even
more marvelously stinky diapers.
From day one she was always her daddy's little "kukla." I remember how
big a guffaw she had for such a small baby, whenever Dad would play with
her.
But for a kid, nine years difference is an eternity. When I started
high school, she started kindergarten. When I went off to college she
was only in fourth grade. For a few years, I was off in my own world.
She was always in the background, always loved, but somehow never
registering on my consciousness. Oh, there was the time when Mom had
them cut Angela's hair so short that she was mistaken for a boy, and I
lobbied vociferously against it on her behalf. But that was just me
being a protective big-brother crusader (or maybe just a rebellious
youth). It wasn't like I could actually relate to this little kid.
But over the next few years, something strange happened: This little
girl I barely noticed blossomed into a young lady, then into a woman. I
distinctly recall that, at some point during that time, I suddenly
realized: My God, I have sister. And you know, she's pretty cool.
When Angela was a teeny-bopper and I was in graduate school, I remember
that she was pretty volatile. Got into a lot of arguments with her
parents, especially her mom. In later years, I believe they became good
friends. But back then—boy, could Angela roar! I shrugged my
shoulders and figured: typical teen. I remember there was this period
where she and her girlfriends were infatuated with this bubble-gum rock
band called [shudder] Depeche Mode. She desperately wanted to go with
her girlfriends to a concert. Oh, how she must have caterwauled when she
was initially told no. My parents did not want to take her themselves
(who could blame them?); they certainly would not allow her to go by
herself or just with her girlfriends ... unchaperoned. But—ah,
that's where the solution lay! Somehow she negotiated a compromise with
Mom and Dad: Get big brother John to be the chaperone. I was prevailed
upon. The event is seared in my memory. Gawky juveniles as far as the
eye could see, the girls brainlessly giggling and screaming, the boys
standing around trying to look cool, pretending to their dates that they
really wanted to be there, and not doing a very good job. But it made
Angela happy. It made her feel like a rebel without actually disobeying
or disrespecting her parents. I was happy to do it, and I was ... kind
of proud of her.
Later in high school, she was in a couple of plays. In fact, [in] her
[junior] year they did Godspell, which tickled me because [eight] years
earlier I had been in a production of the same musical, at the same high
school. But what tickled me even more was [in her senior year], when
she had the [lead] role in—get this—[Once Upon a Mattress,
Broadway's retelling of the fable of ] the Princess and the Pea. That's
right. You should have seen how she hammed it up as the "delicate"
princess oh-so-prettily sawing wood (actually, snorting like a horse) on
top of a great big pile of mattresses. [The funniest part was that]
her Prince Charming was a whole head shorter than her, and she played up the
gag for all it was worth. I loved her sense of humor ... and I was so proud of
her...
When she graduated from high school and went off to college, she started
getting interesting. I began to realize that she had developed a mind.
Of course, we would get into these long-winded arguments once we
realized we were on opposite ends of the political spectrum. But for us
Volans, arguing is something of a passtime.
Around the time Angela was graduating from college, I met my future wife
Carolyn. Carolyn and Angela hit it off from the start. They discovered
that they had a lot in common, both being feisty, intelligent women with
a lot of attitude. (Plus they discovered that they were on the same
side of the political spectrum) In fact, Carolyn asked Angela to be her
maid of honor at our wedding.
11 years ago, Angela's Marfan's syndrome struck her down for the first
time. But she was living in Manhattan at the time, and she had
prepared. She had researched the best hospital there for her condition,
and had found, in advance, the best doctors to treat her, and the best
surgeon. When she felt that fateful tearing in her heart, she knew what
to do, and acted fast. They did open-heart on her and saved her.
Carolyn and I drove down from Massachusetts that first night, and in the
morning when she woke up, I was there to squeeze her hand. Her mouth
was full of tubes, so she couldn't speak, but she squeezed my hand back.
And I knew she would be okay. She was a fighter. And I was so proud
of her...
She bounced back. Boy, did she bounce back! She went to the University
of Chicago to study Art History. Got a Fulbright Scholarship and an
Onassis Grant. Went haring off to far-off lands and exotic climes, like
some female Indiana Jones, climbing up and down mountains to research
ancient icons in obscure old monasteries. We would get these wonderful
post cards from Paris, Venice, Istanbul, Crete. I was proud to have
such an adventurous and accomplished sister.
Two years ago, Marfan's struck again. They started seeing problems in
the X-rays and echocardiograms. So she needed an even bigger surgery, but at
least this time it was planned.
She bounced back from that too. She finished a nice piece of
scholarship, wrote up a dissertation, and got that PhD. Became the
second Dr. Volan in the family. I used to joke that now that she was an Art
Doctor, she could start diagnosing our aesthetic maladies. She went on
to a post-doctorate fellowship at Princeton, no small achievement
itself. Then this spring she interviewed and landed an assistant
professor appointment at the University of South Florida in Tampa, which
she would have started this fall. Through it all, I was exceedingly
proud of her.
But of course, her most prestigious title of all was: Theia. Carolyn and
I have made sure to explain to our son, Isaac, that on Mommy's side of
the family, he has aunts, but on Daddy's side, he has just one theia.
Angela took it upon herself to teach her nephew Isaac some valuable,
important lessons. She showed him how to eat an Oreo properly, from the
inside out. She bought him a kid's book entitled: "Everybody Poops" [in
which he learned, for instance, that a one-hump camel makes a one-hump
poop, and a two-hump camel makes a two-hump poop. She taught him all her
yoga moves; imagine, if you will, a lithe, graceful willow showing a little
fireplug how to do the "triangle stance," or the "downward dog," or even the
"crane." Angela once] grabbed a bed-sheet, [held it aloft,] and played parachute
with him, and Isaac laughed and laughed and laughed. She promised him that she
would take him to see far off lands and exotic climes, some day.
She made sure that he knew that he had a theia who loved him, very, very much.
She did me proud.
But somewhere along the line, in all those surgeries and procedures,
something snuck into her system and infected her. [It may have been lurking
there, hidden, for months, even years.] At the end of April, it
suddenly manifested. By the time the doctors figured out what it was,
it was probably too late. Carolyn and I have a couple friends who are
physicians, and when we would describe Angela's condition to them, their
reactions were invariably grim. We all had hope that she could bounce
back even from this. She was so strong, she was such a fighter. But
even the strongest of us cannot hold back the tide. Yet I am still
proud of her, how hard she fought to live, how brave she was (though she
thought that she wasn't).
Had things been different, Angela could well have died 11 years ago. If
[we had lived in that unfortunate world], we all would have believed
in her potential, but we
would never have known what she could have accomplished. She would
never have met her nephew, never have had a chance to be a theia. But
she did live, she did become a Doctor Volan, she did become Theia
Angela, and we are all the richer for it. For that, we have been
blessed.
It is also possible, in some might-have-been world, that that infection
might not have invaded her body, that she could have dodged this bullet,
gone on to that position in Florida, and achieved who-knows-what even
greater achievements. Could have fulfilled her promise to Isaac. Alas,
we don't live in that world. So I guess, in this one, it will have to be up to
Isaac's daddy, his Theio Stephen, and his Theio Gregory—we, the
surviving, the boring siblings—to fulfil Theia Angela's promise to Isaac.
Some of you will want to visit her grave, to pray for her there, perhaps to
try to speak to her there. That's fine. As for me ... I think I want
to take a trip down to Florida some time. I'd like to see where she
would have taught. Talk to some of her would-have-been colleagues. And
maybe whisper, across time, to some might-have-been Angela who is out
there, somewhere, and tell her ... sis, I am still proud of you.
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