Eighteen Months

A Tribute to Carmen Guevara Neuberger (1935-2018)

“Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.” -Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Careers and Vocations

It is interesting and somewhat apt that my extraordinary aunt Carmen Guevara Neuberger died on September 5, the same day as St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Like Teresa, Carmen lived each day as a gift, and was responsive to life-long “calls within a call.” Her family obligations combined with her grit and ardor for learning often resulted in the need to juggle multiple pursuits at the same time: Daughter, sister, immigrant, student, army wife, mother, artist, advocate, scout leader, secretary, graduate student, educator, doctoral student, professor, dean, lawyer, grandmother, world traveler, trustee, board member, director, etc. Despite these disparate and overlapping responsibilities and undertakings, Carmen recognized the distinction between a career and a vocation. She believed that one’s true vocation is using your God-given gifts, passions, scholarship, and life experiences to benefit others. Carmen lived out that call continually and admirably – notably through acts of hospitality, generosity, relationship, and encouragement.

Early Life

Carmen was born in the Philippines and named after her mother Carmen Fernandez Guevara, a former beauty queen and a college graduate, the latter a rare accomplishment for a woman in Filipino culture. Young Carmen was alternately nicknamed Carmacita and Minnie. Carmen’s father was an accomplished pioneer as well. Santiago Guevara was one of the first Filipino foreign cadets to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and a career Army officer. Santiago fought on Bataan, suffered the horrors of the Death March, and survived the deprivation of a prisoner-of-war camp in which half or more of his fellow Filipino internees were destined to die of disease and neglect. Carmen, then a seven year-old, remembered visiting her father at the POW camp near Capas in Tarlac province.  With limited transportation options, Capas was an eight to ten-hour trip from Manila where she and the rest of her family suffered hardships and humiliations of their own during three years of wartime occupation.  After liberation the family was posted to the United States, where then teen-aged Carmen was shocked by some of the behavior of her American peers. She went to high school in Monterey, California and attended college classes in El Paso, Texas and College Park, Maryland near Washington D.C. where her parents chose to settle after retirement. There we came to know Santiago and Carmen as Lolo and Nona, and their daughter Carmen as Aunt Minnie.

Carmen’s younger brother Nicky went to St. John’s High School while Minnie simultaneously attended the nearby University of Maryland. Nicky then spent two years in the U.S. Army, attending West Point for a year before returning to the area where he met and married Mary Ann Grayson, an only child, with whom he had eight children. Because Carmen’s older brother Bobby and his wife lived in California, Minnie was the only aunt we ever really knew. We gathered at her Albemarle Street house a handful of times in the 1960s and early 1970s for family celebrations. I remember an Easter egg hunt in the backyard and a green outdoor glider bench on the concrete patio. Within the home I vaguely remember an upright piano, Minnie’s painting of her five daughters, and a staircase with open risers. We saw Minnie and those girls countless times at her parents’ Watergate apartment, at the Fort Myer Officer’s club for Easter brunch and birthday celebrations (occasionally held at Ft. McNair), at summer picnics at Carderock and Rock Creek, at Nona and Lolo’s summer cottage on Silver Lake in Rehoboth Beach, and at Catholic Youth Organization basketball games. Many of those CYO games were played in the gym at St. Ann’s, where the Neuberger girls went to grade school. We eight Guevara children attended nearby St. Thomas Apostle School until it was forced to close. The Guevara girls later joined the Neuberger girls at Immaculata High School, until it too closed its doors in 1986.

“Peace begins with a smile.” (Mother Teresa)

Minnie had an engaging smile, practiced a gentle hospitality with all she met, and was a dedicated daughter, sister, mother, and grandmother. When Nona expressed a desire to return to Cuyo, her childhood home in Palawan province, Minnie planned the trip and accompanied her mother. It was a triumphant homecoming for Tita Carmen, then in her 90s. Nona glowed and bragged about her visit for months afterward. As Nona became less independent, Minnie curtailed her own work and travel schedule to take on greater responsibility for her mother’s care. She hired an in-home caregiver to whom she offered educational and other benefits in addition to her salary. Marietta became something of an extended family member, and when she later died in a tragic auto accident, Minnie assisted with her funeral and travel arrangements.

Minnie invariably expressed a sincere interest in her brothers’ families as well. When I lived in California and Tennessee, my aunt made time to visit me when her travels brought her near. I am confident that all eleven of her nephews and nieces can testify to similar experiences. After her brothers Nicky and Bobby both died prematurely, Minnie went out of her way to engage and connect more deeply with her brothers’ wives, children, and grandchildren at subsequent family functions, most of which she usually planned and paid for. When our mother received a terminal cancer diagnosis in 2015 – seven years after Carmen’s remarkably similar diagnosis – Minnie visited her widowed sister-in-law Ann at her care facility to encourage and condole with her. Minnie remained present and supportive, not only attending Ann’s subsequent funeral Mass but also her memorial Mass one year later. When I was seeking information about her family’s experiences in the Philippines, Minnie provided access to boxes of family papers, communicated often, made a present of four separate books about the era, and was an effective and enthusiastic cheerleader for the ensuing biographical project.

Minnie energetically connected us to our extended relatives as well. Her arrangement for Nona’s 100th birthday weekend in 2007 was a notable success, with Guevara and Fernandez relations arriving from around the world to enjoy a brunch cruise on the Potomac River, a celebratory Mass, and a night of Filipino food, music, dance, and fellowship.

“Life is a song; sing it. Life is a struggle; accept it.” -Mother Teresa

Eighteen Months

There was an old U.S. Army ad campaign that bragged, “We do more before 9AM than most people do all day.”  Carmen, a long-time U.S. Army daughter and wife, pursued and accomplished family, educational, professional, and service excellence. When she was diagnosed with cancer at age 72, Minnie was told she had perhaps eighteen months to live. Rather than meekly accepting her fate, she fought it with a gentle but determined grace. Minnie aggressively and for a long time successfully battled the enemy with every traditional and experimental means available to her. As the months became years, Carmen lost neither her engaging smile nor her desire to waste not a single day. She continued her efforts to keep the families connected, encouraged and supported her friends and family, practiced her gentle hospitality, and maintained an ambitious travel schedule, all while fulfilling her obligations as mother and grandmother. Her vigor and good humor throughout her illness was an inspiration to us. One could fairly say that Carmen did more in those “eighteen months” than most people would do in a lifetime.

“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.” -Mother Teresa

Drops in the Ocean

Aunt Minnie, you were more than a drop in the ocean. May your example of love, courage, and zeal help us to recognize our own terminal diagnoses, and respond with a portion of your grit and grace. May we rededicate ourselves to live the rest of our lives in service to God and others – be it eighteen months, eleven years, or whatever – one drop and one day at a time.

“There is no alternative to charity: those who put themselves at the service of others, even when they don’t know it, are those who love God.” -Pope Francis at the Canonization Mass of St. Teresa of Calcutta