Just. Like. That.

Little more than a year ago, not long after I was laid off from my job, I started meeting at a nearby Starbucks on Wednesdays with a group of people with the similar interest of video production. It is rather loosely helmed by a friend of mine, Sean, and we talk about all kinds of things, but generally about new media and content creation.

The group has never been large; there’s usually only the core group of about four or five of us, and everyone other than Sean — with whom I once worked with back in 1989 at the TV station at Southern Illinois University, and then again in 1993 at the ABC affiliate in southern Illinois, and with whom I have bumped into on and off in the intervening years — is someone I hadn’t known before I started meeting with the group.

One of the group was an older woman, Celina, who I had guessed was in her late fifties to early sixties. She was admittedly clueless about video production at all, let alone video for the digital age. While I found myself mildly annoyed that she would monopolize the day’s conversation with her efforts and questions to understand a concept of production or a trick in editing, I was also impressed at her dogged determination to learn something that was so far beyond the realm of her body of experience, as well as the many computer-age things she had incorporated into her otherwise old-fashioned world.

Celina was forever searching for client companies and organizations for which she could produce videos, and in March of this year I helped her shoot a video for the local chapter of a national sewing organization. The edit of that video became her new obsession, and the new distraction for our Wednesday morning group!

I never really knew Celina all that well. I recall from conversations that she had been an art teacher, but had retired. She and her husband, Ernie, had me over for lunch one Sunday afternoon in autumn last year, and it was a very cerebral experience in addition to the excellent chicken parmegiana that Celina made for the occasion. She wasn't a close friend, but she was a current friend, all the same.

Several weeks ago Celina went absent from our group due to a cracked rib she suffered moving a heavy item in her home, and she remained at home to recuperate. On pain medication, she didn’t want to drive under its influence.

Last week a get well card was passed around the group to send our wishes to Celina that she return to us soon. In my inimitable style, I wrote “Don’t die!” and then crossed it out as though to imply an afterthought, and then the pat, “Get well soon!” comment in its place.

The very next day the whole group and I received an e-mail from Ernie telling us that Celina had experienced a fall in their home the day before, which resulted in a severely broken arm and a broken neck. At the emergency room, tests and x-rays revealed, in addition to the broken bones, a mass in her lungs: stage 4 cancer which had metastasized and spread to her cervical spine and her brain.

There was nothing the doctors could do for her. It had already spread too far.

She opted against any life-saving measures — had there been any available to her — and chose instead comfort care, and was immediately sedated beyond coherence.

One of our group, Stephen, was able to use his status as a clergyman to visit Celina in the ICU where no one else other than family were allowed to visit. In addition to the comfort and support he provided to Ernie, he was able to give us an update on her condition. She was still heavily sedated and incoherent. As one would expect, the outlook was grim.

In reference to my suddenly callous-seeming comment on the get-well card, I had expressed the hope that the card had not yet been sent, but it had been. Stephen, in an attempt to head it off, or to head off any offense it might cause, mentioned the comment to Ernie. Stephen later reported that Ernie, in his characteristically warped good humor, said that Celina had opted not to take my advice. Regardless, I was still mortified, though relieved that he had taken it in stride.

Tuesday evening, around 11:30, I received from Ernie the message that Celina had passed away just after 8:00 that evening. “Shocked” does not even begin to describe my feelings about the whole progression.

Celina is the first friend I have lost. There have been other friends with whom I had lost touch years before and never re-established contact before their passing, and there have been friends of the family — of my siblings or of my parents — who passed away, and to whose families I came and provided support and comfort, but, until now, I had never lost a personal friend. The strange, sudden, and seemingly cruel manner in which she was taken has left me feeling quite hollow, and this bustling, noisy Starbucks today seems nonetheless quieter.

Celina was 62.



Celina Acquaro
September 25, 1948 - September 7, 2010
(photo: Sean McMenemy)


(edited to replace originally posted photo with a better one, above, and assign proper photo credit)