The Shield Bearer's Tale

Something like eighty-five years ago, on Long Island, an Irish-American lady named Gladys Havens married an Italian-American architect named Erman Scudellari. The surname Scudellari means "Shield Bearer." When Gladys was about to give birth to her first child, a boy to be named Vincent, her doctor warned her of dangerous difficulties, and said it might come to a choice between her life or her baby's. Without hesitation, the courageous Gladys told him, "Save my baby." In the event, Vincent and his mother both pulled through; and Gladys went on to give birth successfully to three more sons, and one daughter.

The one daughter was Mary Anne Cecilia Scudellari, born on 28 January 1937, and destined to be married to me on 15 April 1979. I have wanted, ever since my Mary passed through the Door Into Summer, to write a thorough biography of her; but God has always kept my attention on persons who were still in mortal life and still needed attention. To the extent that I have obeyed God in this, I have been emulating Mary, who was a longtime nurse, a fiercely loyal friend, and a pro-life activist who did NOT "forget about the woman." Still, on this exact sixth anniversary of the Tuesday morning when my first wife crossed over, I can offer some fragments of what belongs in her biography.

Mary was never anything remotely like a pampered child; her father was cold and distant with her. But Mary grew up tough and strong, while still being capable of love. She became a nurse at New York's Bellevue Hospital, where her best pal was a fellow nurse named Meg Hendricks, whom I eventually had the satisfaction of meeting. Mary and Meg enjoyed their work, and enjoyed outdoor activities like camping.

Mary, not her brothers, cared for both parents in their final illnesses; and it was she who inherited the family house. Prior to this, the only one of Mary's brothers to have loved her, David Scudellari, had also died. So with no one left on Long Island to hold her there, she decided to give up the house and move west. Before she had revealed her intention, she experienced what seemed a sign from God that her plan was right. A little girl in her extended family--a daughter of one of her brothers, I believe--came up to her and, out of the blue, said to her, "Happy landings."

She meant to join a concent in Minnesota, but got no farther west than western Wisconsin, where she worked awhile at raising goats. Then she headed south into Illinois, where she made a living for several years by private in-home care for elderly women. She participated in a Catholic Charismatic fellowship in Rockford, and like many Charismatics, was very open about mingling with Protestants. In fact, for a long time she ceased to feel a need to stick with Catholic churches.

I first met Mary at a Charismatic meeting in the summer of 1972, when I was a Fuller Brush salesman. I considered her attractive from the very first instant of our acquaintance; but as she was older than I was, I initially felt she was out of my league. Really, she WAS out of my league until I grew up some more. But there was nothing to stop me from being friends with her, nor from joining the Birthright chapter she had co-founded in Rockford. With no sexual element in our early relationship, we were free to get to know each other as persons in great depth. We also worked together at a nursing home.

Mary was popular with the young men at Faith Alliance, my first church. Some of them nicknamed her "Scoots," in tribute to how energetic she was. Like me, they enjoyed being pals with her; she would give them haircuts and homemade cookies. And she actively encouraged those of us who were in music ministry. Unlike the other guys, though, I progressed into having much deeper feelings for her. (During the same period, she and I went for our first time ever to a Renaissance Festival, the same kind of activity I have now become part of in my old age.)

Mary and I got married on an Easter Sunday. It is a cheerful memory for me that, on our wedding night, we literally collapsed the bed.

At that time, in 1979, I had a blue-collar job in a warehouse. The next year, unfortunately, I was laid off. The Rockford area was suffering economic troubles then (as it still is now). On top of this, in the summer of 1981, Mary suffered a miscarriage, which the Holy Spirit had warned her would happen. God was not going to let us raise a baby of our own begetting; but later, He providentially made the way for us to adopt a Korean toddler named Ahn Mee-Hwa, who was to become Annemarie Rosalind Ravitts--now Annemarie Martinez, the successful working wife of Anthony Martinez and mother of Mary's and my grandson Dominic.

The need for employment propelled me into the U.S. Navy in 1986. Becoming a Navy wife, Mary charged into this new role the way she always charged into things: with a sort of intelligent recklessness, and a resolve to carry more than her weight. She was an ombudsman for my submarine's crew families in Connecticut, and homeschooled Annemarie when we were stationed in Japan.

Our last duty station was at Fort Meade, Maryland. As always, Mary made it her own duty station too. For instance, she participated in a large seminar on base to discuss quality-of-life issues for military families; she even acted in a comical skit which illustrated the issues. She was as brave as ever, taking a commmunity-health nursing job which sent her into the dangerous neighborhoods of Baltimore; and as compassionate as ever, performing volunteer hospice work until she herself was laid low by cancer.

To be truthful, she had her dark side--which was purged out of her by the ordeal of her own cancer. It was an inclination to excessive anger. This well of indignation inside her was partly resentment of unloving family members back in New York, partly annoyance at people who wouldn't do their share the way she did her share, and partly disgust at the moral decay of society that she could see all around her. Though God did not choose to heal Mary's body, her spirit was healed, and the rage eliminated, by experiencing how much love was lavished upon her during her sickness.

She got to plan her own funeral. One Scripture she called for was Job 19:25-27, the famous "I know that my Redeemer lives" passage. And she made her crossing to the sound of the hymn "There Is A Fountain," sung by me, my sister Tammy, and two hospice ladies who were in attendance.

As I near the conclusion of this terribly incomplete biographical sketch of my true love, the time in the time zone where she died is about nine a.m.--less than an hour and a half before the actual time of her departure. As I am fond of saying, if it had been anything like a fair fight, Mary would have kicked the butt of that cancer until it was crying for its mommy. Nonetheless, Mary's grain of wheat fallen into the earth has borne good fruit. Her visitation and burial were attended by an astonishing diversity of people, from a lesbian neighbor we had befriended, to a Muslim couple from next door, to a U.S. Navy admiral who had known us in Japan, to a Navy honor detail which carried her casket.

The maturing I acquired by my life with Mary was what made me a suitable husband for my second wife Janalee. I'm just one of many persons Mary inspired to do better things and be better people. As for my Mary herself, she now dwells where she always longed to be, in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.