Published: May 30, 2008 05:31 pm      

BECAUSE WE LOVED YOU: Local families celebrate memories of loved ones

Mary Marvin wanted her ashes scattered on the pink beaches of Bermuda. It was one of her last wishes.

So, 10 years after her death, her two sisters, Rebecca Kelley and Glenda Chausse, of Lockport, and their two friends flew to Bermuda to grant that wish.

There were unexpected blessings, like a free lunch and dinner when their original hotel was overbooked. Their new rooms were in a hotel called, coincidentally, The Pink Beach and the private beach was a perfect location to send their sister’s ashes flying upon ocean breezes.

When Chausse’s cell phone song, “Angel,” wouldn’t play on cue, the ladies joined their soft voices together, led by Chausse, a professional singer, and sang the song a capella. Despite its silence in that moment, the phone seemed to play “Angel” at random and whenever it did, the ladies felt as if Mary was around, having a little fun with them.

“We were just standing in the hotel room and it went off,” said Kelley, grinning. Later, when Kelley was shoe shopping back home in Lockport with Chausse and her daughter, the phone went off again, to everyone’s delight.

Mary has been gone a decade, but her sisters have kept her memory so vivid that the friends who accompanied them on the Bermuda trip said they felt as if they knew her well.

“The trip was magical,” said Julie Donohue, who joined the sisters on the excursion. “It had its own energy and flow, and we just went with it.

“It was probably the best trip I ever had in my life,” said Jackie Langdon, also of Lockport, “I feel blessed to have been asked to go.”

All four women participate in the tradition that Mary Marvin started, the Mother’s Day Walkathon held at Widewater Marina in Lockport to benefit breast cancer (see the picture page of the event on page 20).

Almost $42,000 was raised at the walk, and all the proceeds will go to the American Cancer Society — specifically Mary’s Room, where those struggling with hair loss from chemotherapy treatments can receive wigs and beauty assistance to help maintain their sense of self.

In the last few months of her life, Mary was employed by the American Cancer Society and worked to create the wig room, Kelley said.

“She helped so many women. Even to this day, people come up to me and say, ‘I remember Mary Marvin,’ ” she said.

Such are the stories Mary Marvin’s sisters intend to keep alive. They are already planning their next adventure to Bermuda and look forward to the Mother’s Day walk next year.

•••

Susan St. Denny was the one who found her son’s lifeless body in the garage of their home. He had meticulously planned his death but surely never counted on the grief his mother would feel so freshly even six years later.

“I’m crying now,” she said as she recalled the memories of her son.

She has talked about him on television and in the newspapers since nearly the day he died because she believes talking openly about the mental stresses that cause suicide may just help save someone else before it’s too late.

To bring him alive for her listeners, she recalls his dry sense of humor and his soft heart, and tells of how he saved all the letters from young boy he befriended, the little brother of a former girlfriend.

“I have a beautiful letter from the mother of a girl he took to prom. Her son was very young at the time and Jeff was so kind to him. He would put him on his shoulders and carry him around,” St. Denny said. “Jeff saved all the cards and letters the child sent him. I found them all after he died.”

Telling the stories of her son is hard, but not telling them would be harder, she said.

“It’s important to talk about it. It’s no different than someone dying of breast cancer or heart disease, it’s an illness,” St. Peter said.

The grieving mother keeps her son alive through a golf tournament she has held every summer since his death.

“He was a good guy,” St. Denny said of Jeff, who was 27 when he died.

A handsome young man and an award-winning soccer co-captain for his Lewiston-Porter High School team, he was working as an assistant pro in Florida during the winter, trying to make it as a full-time golf pro like his older brother, Chris.

“He was a pain in the neck sometimes, but he was a good guy who had a lot of friends,” she said, gently laughing. “I never realized how many friends he had until the wake, when over 500 people were there.”

Many of those people come from places all over the country to play in the memorial golf tournament.

The tournament will be held July 28 at the Niagara Frontier Country Club. All proceeds will go to the Mental Health Association of Niagara County.

•••

Ryan Glena’s daughter was born two weeks after he died from an aneurysm. He never got to see little Marcella, but if the toddler’s mother has her way, the girl will always be reminded of how many people loved her father.

Angela DePasquale-Glena is planning the first annual Ryan Glena Memorial Motorcycle Run on June 14 at the Wendellville Fire Hall in Pendleton.

Both husband and wife loved motorcycles, but it wasn’t so much the wind-in-the-face, open-road cruising that won their hearts, but the time spent enjoying life.

“We always rode with family and friends,” DePasquale-Glena said. “It’s ultimately about living life and we were both very good at that. Thank goodness we did do those things.”

The motorcycle run is planned as an annual event, “so our daughter can grow up with this and know that this is all revolving around her father and the people involved with her father’s life,” she said.

The money raised will go to a different family each year, DePasquale-Glena said, a family experiencing the same type of challenges that face her and her 18-month-old daughter. This first year’s proceeds will go to a widowed woman in North Tonawanda who is raising three children alone.

The run will start at 11 a.m. at the fire hall and end there at 3 p.m. There will be a basket raffle and food and drinks at the hall, all in memory of Ryan Glena.

“He was a wonderful friend and family member,” his wife said. “Everyone will tell you how big of a heart he had and how he always had a smile on his face.”

Marcella Glena’s mom plans to make sure that the child meets all of those who loved her father, because it will be through their eyes in the coming years that his memory will be kept alive.

Contact editor Michele DeLucaat 693-1000, ext. 157.