By:John C. O'Connell
After so many years of suffering with the agonies of arthritis, she rests now in painless peace.
As many as 150 people attended the funeral service Sunday for Cecil Zabatta, 62, as her many friends mourned the passing of her gentle and giving soul. The wife of Village Trustee Joseph Zabatta died on Saturday.
Father Thomas Harold, pastor of Holy Name of Mary Church in Valley Stream, conducted the funeral service at the Lieber Funeral Home and spoke eloquent words in her memory.
"She was a bridge builder," Harold said. "She built bridges between the Jewish faith tradition that she was born into and the Christian faith tradition, which grew out of the Jewish faith tradition. She was baptized and she had a great respect and love for both faith traditions.
"She was also a bridge builder between generations. She brought her grandchildren and her children the experience of both the Seder meal and the Easter meal, and she wanted to extend that across generations."
Something very moving, Harold said, was "her celebration of the sacrament of the sick" the day before her death. She was home, in and out of consciousness, and her husband, Joe, was by her side. "When I asked her if she wanted to pray, she was able to make the sign of the cross."
Her husband had rented a limousine the previous week so he could take Cecil and friends to the city for a special night on the town. "Somehow I think she knew it was the last time she'd be doing that," Joe said.
"She died peacefully at home with her family around her," her grieving husband said. "She went exactly the way she would have wanted to go, with style and dignity. In all her 36 years of pain from arthritis, one thing she feared was infection. And that is what finally took her."
"People who came to the service," Joe's brother, Jim, said, "came sad and left uplifted. She looked at ease, really beautiful. The pain was gone."
Cecil's son-in-law, Scott Kaufman, delivered the eulogy. He began by describing her last moments, in her living room, looking at walls covered with pictures of her dear friends.
"When Mom died yesterday, she was resting comfortably at home. She died peacefully, on a sunny Saturday afternoon, within ten minutes of the arrival of the last immediate family member. At the moment of truth, she was surrounded by 219 photographs of all of you. In other words, Mom died on her own terms, her own way.
"I say Mom because she was the matriarch of an extended family that spans four generations. And for Nanci, Joey, Michael, Lori, Wendy and me, she was always there to teach us life's important lessons. ... Mom spent a lifetime preparing us for our loss; preparing us not just for this day, the day we would say goodbye to her, but more importantly for the days to come, the days we would have to go on living without her.
"Mom may have surrendered to the infection, but she won the war of life. ... Mom, you fought for so long and you fought so hard. We feel your strength every minute of every day. Your spirit is in all of us."
Her friends and family were her great strengths throughout her life, and at the end. Joe named four special people who made such a difference in Cecil's life at the end. "Judy Youshock provided hospice services, Johanna Lovalvo gave spiritual support, and Harriet Dikman supplied technical nursing care. And these three had a wonderful general, our daughter, Nanci, and they all made her last days on Earth as peaceful as could be."
"I always admired her strength and how she willed herself through just daily tasks, her younger brother John said at the service. "Sometimes you don't always say what you should and how you feel. I just want to say, Ces, I love you and I will miss you."
Noreen Carro, a past president of the Valley Stream Chamber of Commerce and someone who knew Cecil through village activities, knew of Cecil's strength and caring.
"She's one of the few people I know that, no matter how much she was going through her own personal pains - and you know she was in pain for a very long time - she always seemed to manage to help others. Whether it was the 75th anniversary of the village, or the Arthritis Foundation, or being a part of Joe's life, she always was there. She never said an unkind word and never really complained about her own problems. Cecil always had a heart for someone else."
Fellow Rotarian Bruce Beaver called Cecil one of the best. "From the point of view of doing what's right for the community, for Valley Stream, for the seniors, for the students, Cecil and Joe were right there, a dynamic duo.
"They functioned as a team and they were one of the very few husband and wife team members in the history of the Valley Stream Rotary Club. Whenever there was a need, she and Joe were there."
Barbara DeGrace worked with Cecil on several of the village's 75th anniversary committees. "What a courageous woman she was; what an inspiration. I was completely impressed with her. What Cecil did that made her so unusual is that she never allowed her illness to define her. She went ahead and she did all the things that were really important to her, and she did not let that illness get in her way, ever.
"She worked very hard for the Gift of Life," DeGrace said, "and although there were many things she could not physically do, one thing she could do was drive. She would drive incredible distances to pick up these children that were coming in from other countries for serious operations, and bring them to the hospital. I think one day she drove from Valley Stream to Port Washington and then to new Jersey and back to port Washington and then to Valley Stream all in one day. Because it was important to her.
"She never let her illness stop her or slow her down. She went about her life with tremendous courage and grace, and she was an inspiration. I will really miss her."
