Gisele's Eulogy
I’m not here to mourn the loss of Gisele, but rather to celebrate her life’s journey. And what an amazing life and journey she had. I’m purposefully not wearing black because Gisele was a colorful woman. While she respected tradition, she was not traditional.
She was born in Heliopolis, Egypt, the eldest of Esther and Issac’s five children, including Diane, Alain, Joyce, and Danny. They had a good life there which included summer vacationing in Alexandria, which is where she developed her love of the beach and swimming in the ocean. As the oldest of five, Esther leaned on Gisele to help her care for her younger siblings.
In Egypt, she played netball (think basketball, without a backboard), in Paris, basketball, in the US, tennis, and she loved swimming, especially in the ocean. Gisele was a female athlete before “female athlete” was a thing.
When I would tell people, my mother was born in Egypt, I always followed it with, “I have a real Mummy.” She loved when I said that because she had a great sense of humor and didn’t take herself so seriously.
After WWII, when she was 15, the family fled Egypt to find a safer place to live. Given French was their first language, they naturally moved to Paris, France, where she lived for the next 11 years. Stripped of all their material wealth, the seven of them lived in two motel rooms. When my mother started working, the money she earned went to helping support the family.
In her mid 20’s she worked for the US Army accounting office in Paris. It was there where she met her oldest friend, Helen Lallouche, whom she’s been friends with for over 60 years. It is also where she met our father. When our dad proposed, she couldn’t just say yes. First, she had to be assured that her parents had received the visas they were seeking to move to Canada. Although she was a strong and independent woman, she was unwilling to live across the ocean from her family. Family was paramount to her.
Gisele and Shelly said their vows three times, first getting married in Paris, then again when they arrived in Philadelphia, and then years later, they exchanged their vows yet again.
Despite the challenges she experienced, Paris was her happy place. She loved traveling there and returned many times over the years. Her last trip there was in March of 2012, when she spent two weeks sharing her love of art, architecture, music, and culture with her only granddaughter, Esther. When I picked them up from the airport, she was oozing with energy and vibrancy. Paris and France had filled her up.
Our parents built their lives and family in Philadelphia. Our mother stayed home to raise us while our father would go out to earn a living. While that may seem like the traditional marriage of that time, there was nothing traditional about Gisele or their marriage. Although our father had a strong personality, make no mistake, Gisele pulled all the strings in our family.
When we were young, our mom breastfed us. Some were appalled by this and thought she was a peasant. She didn’t care. She knew it was nature's way to nurture a baby. She raised the three of us to laugh, have fun in life, and that family was the most important thing. She did this not by telling us, but by living it every day.
It was during this time she met one of her oldest and dearest friends, Andrée Broudo. They both shared the same gynecologist. He knew they were both from Egypt and both spoke French, and thought they should know each other. They were living similar lives, immigrant mothers, wives of hard-working husbands dealing with the challenges of motherhood in a different culture and land.
Unlike our dad who grew up here, went to college here and had many friends, my mom had none. That didn’t deter her. My dad’s friends and their wives quickly became my mother’s friends. They had many great friendships that lasted 30, 40, 50 years and more.
Our parents loved to travel and did it often. They traveled to four continents and skied on two of them. They gave the three of us the gift and love for travel and adventure. Their favorite travel partners were Harry and Jeannie Gelman; as young families, we traveled and camped up and down the east coast every summer with the Gelman’s. As the children grew they continued to travel, however, without the kids. They went on so many amazing trips together.
Gisele was worldly before “worldly” was a thing.
Our mother had a unique ability to see things others didn’t see and know what was needed. When I struggled with reading, she got me a tutor. When I struggled with my confidence, she was there to support me. As a shy child, she wouldn’t let me hide. When we sat down to eat dinner as a family, which we always did, she would ask “how was your day?” - and off Helene and Mimi went, jabbering away, with me sitting there silently. I never needed to say anything, I had a sister on either side speaking for me. Then she would stop them and say, “I’m speaking to Alan.”
Growing up, I wouldn’t answer the phone in our home. When asked why, I would say it’s never for me and if I answer the phone I’ll have to take a message. Gisele knew it was something else. Recognizing that I didn’t like to speak to people I didn’t know, she used to ask me to call stores for her to find out what their hours were. She really didn’t want the information, she was just training me in how to speak to strangers.
Although I was completely bilingual when I was five, I shut French off when I got to kindergarten because I got made fun of for speaking French. In elementary school, she recognized my artistic side and she wanted me to attend art classes. I refused because it wasn’t cool. My mom never made me or anyone else wrong for not following her lead.
When I was in high school, she started eating as a pescatarian, removing meat and chicken from her diet and encouraged my father to join her, which he did. It didn’t matter that I loved meat, she would just make two meals, one for them and one for us. She was very health-conscious and sought out what at the time was considered alternative healthcare: chiropractic, acupuncture, rolfing, and massages, as well as consuming large quantities of supplements. It clearly paid off as she was living a vibrant life, driving and on zero medications before she had her first stroke just shy of her 85th birthday.
She embraced healthy eating and living long before that was a thing.
She taught me how to play tennis and I was to never take it easy on her for any reason. In my twenties, Mom, Dad, and I played doubles weekly with Mike Zapic, a salesman from dad’s office. Once I drilled her with a tennis ball when she was at the net. Mike looked at me and said, “what the heck are you doing?'' I said, “Sorry, my mom taught me to never take it easy on her.” With a sly smile she laughed and said, “he’s right.” She loved that I treated her that way.
Simon loved going to visit and play ping pong with her. She taught him, but never let him win. He had to earn the victory and he knew it. I don’t know why Simon’s such a competitive athlete, but my guess is that playing ping pong with his grandmere had a lot to do with it.
Once they were empty nesters, she decided that since she had spent over 30 years of her life serving her family, now was the time to focus on her interests and desires. First, she gave up the family truckster, a 12-passenger one-ton GMC van, and got a Volvo GT with a four-speed transmission. Then, she convinced dad to leave the comfort and roominess of their suburban home and move in town to an apartment in The Philadelphian, across from the Art Museum. She wanted easier access to the culture and the vibrancy the city offered. Like I said, Gisele was always pulling the strings.
There, she started taking art classes and learning how to paint. Her favorite medium was watercolors. My artistic side was starting to become clear, photography. She loved looking at my photos of nature and asked for several that she then painted.
She lived there for 31 years. Of course, dad loved it there, as she always knew what was right for them.
Gisele had the opportunity to rebuild a home, three times. First, when they bought their beach house at 18 North Brunswick in Margate. There they took a cape cod and made it a two-story home. When they bought the condo in The Philadelphian they gutted it and configured it just the way she wanted. Finally, just a few years ago, sensing that their apartment had become too much for her to handle, I helped her to find a smaller one. Again, she gutted it and re-built it to meet their needs.
Each and every time, she did it without a designer. She knew what she wanted, how to think through design challenges and deliver a finished project that was a match for what she wanted. I have fond memories of supporting her with the rebuilding of their current apartment. As you might expect, the general contractor fell in love with our mom. He would come over just to visit with her. Imagine that: a contractor who didn’t run from a job, but came back to have tea with his client! That was a familiar refrain I’ve heard from so many people who met my mom. They loved her and wanted to spend time with her. I can’t tell you the number of people who have said Gisele was like my second mom.
Gisele and Shelly loved to dance. They were like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Everyone loved watching them dance. They were smooth, in sync, and the love and connection between them was obvious. Naturally, my mother taught me how to dance.
Always the caregiver, in the mid 1980s she led the team of her two siblings Joyce and Danny in buying a condo in Fort Lauderdale so that their parents could escape the harsh Montreal winters.
While some people collect things, our mom collected relationships. She had so many of them in every corner of her life. It didn’t matter to her where you came from or what you had, you were her equal. Creating those relationships was effortless for Gisele. She treated everyone with respect. She was genuinely interested in others and their stories and was a remarkable listener.
She knew first-hand what it was like to be an immigrant and always lent a helping hand to those in need. She also understood the importance of providing others with a leg up.
Harry Gelman used to joke that we sent Gisele into a store to get directions and she’d come out with their life story. Not a truer word has been spoken.
I haven’t yet told her dry cleaner of her passing, but I know when I do she will be devastated. Every time I went there with her, the owner came out and hugged and kissed her and got caught up on their families. My mother was treated like royalty everywhere she went, including all the way back to when she would drive from Huntington Valley to 9th Street in South Philadelphia to shop for produce, cheese, fish and meats. She had her favorite places and when she arrived the red carpet was rolled out.
In the last few years, we spent more and more time at the Philadelphian supporting our parents. Recently, after finding out that I was Gisele and Shelly’s son, one of the staff members said, “I love your parents. Actually, we all love them. They are the nicest people in this whole building.” I smiled and thanked him. Then I went upstairs and told her what happened and said, “what’s up with that?”
She said, “Alan, most people treat them like servants, we treat them with respect. We always greet them with a smile and a kind word. We take the time to know them and their families and what’s going on in their lives and of course, your dad always had a joke for them.”
Obviously the most important people in her life were her immediate family, Shelly, Helene, Mimi, and me as well as Ron, Carol, and her grandchildren, Daniel, Josh, Joel, Esther, and Simon. She was so very proud of each and everyone one of us. In the last months I would call her daily to check in on her and her health, always looking for how I could make her situation better. She never wanted to answer my questions, all she cared about was how Carol and the boys were doing. She was living her future through her family and their accomplishments and adventures.
She was unquestionably the matriarch of the family. Everyone sought out Gisele’s council. Frank Lellouche, the son of her longtime friend from Paris would call her every 3-4 weeks, for decades. He would come to the states and visit with her in Philadelphia, Margate, and at the condo in Florida. It was as if he was going to the tribal elder for counsel, which is really what everyone was doing.
Everyone was seeking her counsel, as they knew she would subtlety drop pearls of wisdom and brilliance on them. The problem is that her thinking was frequently so far ahead of society, you really had to trust that what she was sharing was so. My only regret is that I didn’t trust her insights and instincts more.
You might think that she treated everyone equally, but she didn’t. She was amazing at seeing and knowing what each person needed from her and that’s exactly what she provided. Gisele made an impact on everyone she met, no kidding.
Our mom lived life on her own terms. She didn’t concern herself with what anyone thought about her, her actions or beliefs. She lived life true to her heart. Gisele was a classy lady who lived with flair and grace all the way to the end. It even showed up in her penmanship. Her signature was a thing of beauty.
Gisele made a dent in the world, one person at a time. The ripple effect of her kindness and love is felt around the world. Mom, you were an extraordinary woman and will be sorely missed by so many. All who knew you are better off for having known you, not because I say so, but because that’s what they have been telling Helene, Mimi, and me since your passing.
We have been truly blessed to have you as our mom.
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We love you, always and forever.