Obituary of Elizabeth Raniere

Elizabeth C. Raniere, a woman who devoted her life to her family, passed away with her family at her bedside at the Kaplan Family Hospice House in Danvers on Monday evening, June 21, 2010. She was 71 years old. Elizabeth was born in Boston, the daughter of the late Peter and Margherita Raniere. She was a graduate of Girls High in Boston. She had worked as a bookkeeper for Gorney Beauty Salons and the Beauty Faire. Elizabeth had a number of interests. She enjoyed touring art museums and loved going to the casino. She mostly enjoyed her home and was always working on decorating and home improvement projects. She was deeply dedicated to her family and lovingly cared for her disabled mother for 13 years. She shared a home with her sister and brother. For the past several years, they shared a home with her daughter, son-in-law, and grandson Peter who was the apple of her eye. She loved being around her family. She enjoyed cooking and entertaining and had a talent for making Italian pastries so much that some referred to her as the “Cannoli Queen” . Her only fault was that she was always in the kitchen. In her final days, her family supported and cared for her, just as she had done them countless times before. Elizabeth was the loving mother of Nadine Thys & her husband, Robert, of Burlington. Sister of Rose Boisvert, William Raniere both of Burlington, Raymond Fabian & his wife Maureen of Pelham, NH and the late Phyllis Oschman. Devoted grandmother of Peter Thys of Burlington. A Mass of Christian Burial will be held in St. Malachy’s Church, 99 Bedford St., Burlington on Saturday, June 26 at 12:30 p.m. Visiting hours will be held prior to the Funeral at the Edward V. Sullivan Funeral Home, 43 Winn St., BURLINGTON (Exit 34 off Rt. 128, Woburn side) on Saturday from 10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Relatives and friends are respectfully invited. Interment will be private. Memorials in Elizabeth’s name may be made to Hospice House of the North Shore, 75 Sylvan St., Suite B-102, Danvers, MA 01923. Family Remembrance I want to thank all of you, on behalf of my family, for coming today. Over my mother's final days the outpouring of support and the steady stream of visitors she had gave strength to our family and helped my mother leave this earth draped in a blanket of love. It is difficult to condense the true essense of such a beautiful person into five minutes. So, I will use two words to describe my mother...sacrifice and unconditional. My mother had a deep, intense and unconditional love for her family. She sacrificed herself to care for an ailing mother and took on one of the toughest jobs there is in life, being a single parent. Her job was even tougher because she was a single parent at a time when being so carried a big social stigma. Fortunately, the deep bonds of love of our family supported and protected us. And she persevered. Elizabeth Christine Raniere, also known as Betty, but to me always Mom. But even more than that, she was my best friend. She was my conscience, my spiritual guide, and an example of the most unselfish love I have ever known. She was also a person who lived by principle. In Paul's letter to the Corinthians, Paul notes that Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. My mother was the embodiment of that type of love and imparted that to me as the most precious gift someone could ever receive. The thing many would notice about my mother was her smile. She had the most beautiful one I've ever known, and it has been embedded in my mind no doubt since I was a young child. Over the years her smile did not dim even though she was experiencing increasingly greater difficulty from various illnesses. Now, as I write about her, that smile burns through the fog of sadness and the haze of tears and reminds me how much she loved me and everyone in our family. Mom's beginnings were modest. She was born in 1938 and was the youngest of her siblings. She and her brothers and sisters lived with their mother and father in cold water flat in North End of Boston and then the West End. While her father was a theater manager and had a steady job, they still lived sparely but managed to get by on what little they had and lots of love. She went to the Blackstone School and then Girls High. At the age of 16 she went into Boston and entered the working world, taking a job with Gorney Beauty Salons where she worked in their corporate office. She had such style and fashion sense that she was known as the glamour girl with her haute couture styles and perfectly manicured nails. By the time she was 20 though, her mother, my grandmother had a major stroke and was from then on was an invalid. At that point mom sacrificed her dreams and ambitions of being a writer, and lovingly took care of her mother. When my grandmother was sent home from the hospital the doctors told the family that she would live 6 more months at best. My mother's total and utter devotion to my grandmother inspired a miraculous event and my grandmother lived for 13 more years. Mom and her siblings were so very close that they shared everything and loved each other so irrevocably and completely, their bond remained throughout life, transcending distance and has never been broken, not even now with her passing. Their kind of love is that unconditional and eternal type that poets write about and regular folks hope to attain someday. My mother loved her family and friends so earnestly and unendingly that absolutely nothing could shake its tenacity or endurance. I know that even if Mom didn't like something I did it meant nothing compared to how much she loved me. The power of that love overcame any kind of adversity, thus letting me know that I mattered more than everything and anything else. Betty and family are synonymous. I will cherish a warm and loving memory of my mother. I will miss our heated debates about life and religion. I will miss those chubby arms reaching around me to give the most unexpected strong hug. I will miss going to her home and being welcomed by the most delicious aroma of homemade food that was spiced with love. I will miss her humor and her practical jokes. I will miss our daily telephone calls where she always had some words of wisdom for me, whether I wanted it or not. I would like to believe that we shall meet again in another dimension and time but until then, arriverderci Momma, te amo grande. Thank you.