A Tribute To Wanda - A Life’s Journey
On behalf of the Carreira family we thank each of you for coming to pay your respect for Wanda. You being here this evening is a testimony of the thumb print Wanda’s life has left on you. She touched all of us here in her own special way. This gathering is to pay our respects to a person who left us with such an impression that it is right to remember her contribution to our lives.
Let me take you on a brief journey and see if you can see on how she has left her thumb print on you.
Wanda was born on December 17, 1957 at 8:00PM at Dr’s Hospital in San Jose. The meaning of the name Wanda is from the old German dialect meaning Wanderer. This name, of German origin, given to a person of Portuguese ancestry coupled with the meaning of the name along with the time of her birth would provide a glimpse of this person’s spirit and how special and unique her life would be in the years to come. Yet the Lord knew Wanda. Nothing she did in her life surprised him. Psalm 139 states:
O Lord, you searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord…For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
The Memories
The first time I met Wanda I was 4 years old. It was at the hospital. I walked into the room my mother was residing in and saw a little dark haired person bundled in a white blanket next to my mother. Looking at her I said to myself who is this person and why is she with Mom. I am sure it was explained to me.
The second time I met her is when she was brought home. Mom walked through the front door and sat down in a chair that was near the large bay window. Wanda was still bundled up in a small blanket and my Mom was smiling. I remembered she said that Wanda was here to stay. In my 4 year old mind I said why?
Now there were three of us. Charlotte, Wanda and I all slept in one bedroom. As we grew a little older a bunk bed was purchased to replace the crib which provided more room in the bedroom. We all became experts in defying gravity as we learned to jump from one bed to another especially from the top bunk.
As the oldest I was responsible to pull my two sisters in the red wagon Dad bought for us. Wanda would be in the back of the wagon with a cookie in her mouth and enjoying the ride. I was also the permanent horse giving Wanda a ride on my back. Not knowing this would lead her into one of her own adventures with horses later in life.
Friday night was Lawrence Welk night at the Carreira household. All of us would dance to the music. We would pick our partners during different songs. Wanda would be right there dancing with anyone of us just to participate in the family tradition.
During the holidays we would all gather at one of relative’s house and dance with our Aunts, Uncles and cousins. Again you would see Wanda participating and enjoying the company that family life offered. My uncles would tease Wanda and she would smile, squint her eyes and laugh which became a trade mark for my sister for the rest of her life.
Her Spirit
Wanda’s life had a purpose that was created by God. He used her to touch each of us in ways that her thumb print will remain in our lives and to point us toward our heavenly father. As I read this verse, picture a time in your life when God visited you through Wanda. Jesus said to his disciples in Matt 25:
Then the King will say to those on His right, Come, you who are blessed by my father; take you’re your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came and visited me. Then the righteous will answer him, Lord when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink. When did we see you a stranger and invited you in or needing clothes and clothe you. When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you? The King will reply, I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.
As she grew older her spirit started to show more. She would blaze a trail into areas where most of us did not follow.
She became close friend with a Mexican family who lived door to us. She would spend more time over there eating the food that was offered to her we normally did not eat at home.
She challenged her teachers to become better teachers toward a student who had difficulty in learning.
She became a friend to those other students that no one wanted to associate with.
She became interested in horses and would work in cleaning the stalls in order for her to ride horses. She enjoyed this part of her life. She did something different that know else in our family was doing.
After High School, once again the winds in Wanda went in a different direction then the rest of us. She attended a beauty school. This brought her self esteem up and showed her a path that may have had possibilities for her. She work hard on her portfolio and was quite photogenic in some of her pictures.
In time the winds in her life took her into a different direction again. She got married in Reno and decided to settle down and channel her spirit through a family.
Her contributions
Wanda showed in action what the word loyalty was about. Against all odds she remained a loyal wife. She visited her husband Charlie at prison. She remained married while other may have chosen a different path.
Her ideals of a family life ran deep by the examples she experienced in her childhood.
Her ideals played out in the care she exhibited for her children by making sure they had a roof over their head, food to eat, clothes to wear and had a proper education. She worked to support her family as an assembler at Cemtron for 10 years. When she was laid off due to hard economic times she managed to find employment at Nob Hill in the deli. There she expanded her skills in food preparations which the family benefited from when we had special family gatherings during the holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries. She taught us how to make her famous crab dip, gyros and other deli delights
Her children have furthered their education beyond high school. She wanted them not to make the mistakes she made in her life. She rathered they make their own mistakes that were different from hers. Her desire was to make sure they were happy in their choices.
Wanda led the family to go beyond ourselves and reach out for someone in need. God creates various instruments and vessels to make us a better person. Wanda was not a Ming Vase where one would put on shelf for all to look at. She did not have a degree from College, nor did she write a book, or invented something that improved the quality of all our lives. I rather think of her as a soup bowl. A common vessel, used daily, nothing to gaze at, yet important. Think about it. Would you use a Ming Vase to eat soup from? No, a soup bowl may not be something to gaze at but is very important instrument to eat from. Wanda was the soup bowl that God provided in our family. From her God stretched us to look beyond ourselves. To see for ourselves what loyalty to marriage was, deep love for children, to reach out and become a valued friend to those that others would not make friends with. As we all reached into the bowl, we would nourish our soul in things that God had designed us for in this life. To care for each other. Together we experienced what MS can do to person first hand--while others only read about it. God used her in one of his last drama’s he had go through in order to leave her finger print in our lives. When she contracted MS it was a path that no else would experience. She had contracted the most aggressive elements of this horrible disease. For 10+ years she would enter into the various phases this diseases could take a person. From a once vibrant person she became, at the end of her life’s journey, almost a vegetable.
This event provided us once again to dip into the soup bowl as we reached out to help her. Mom joined the MS Walk event and walked to collect money for research and a cure for this disease. We would contribute money for this cause. Dad would make modification to the house so that Wanda could move about more freely. He would purchase an electric wheel chair as the disease progress so that Wanda would still be able to move about and take a ride around the block. Charlotte would help by providing special massage techniques that would help bring relief to a body racked with pain. I would take her on walks and talk with her.
Her circumstances help me to search and read the scriptures during family gatherings. The selection of the scriptures as they varied at each family gathering was to provide her insight of her relationship with God and to plant the seeds of hope. The one verse that was stated at each gathering was the one, I hoped, would provide her with hope in eternity.
It was from Rev. 21: 1-7
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will pass away."
Isaiah 11:6-9 adds to this providing another glimpse of the world our heavenly father has prepared for us; it reads:
"The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper’s nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea."
Her life helped me to focus to pray for others instead for myself and my needs. She challenged me to speak the gospel to her and share the possibilities of a life with God. She helped us all to reach out to a person in need and fulfill the plan that God has for all of us while we are here on this earth.
Yet through all of the adversity of life Wanda still had that small squinty eye, smiling and laughing expression she had when she was a little girl. No matter how much life mistreated her there remained in her the simple ideology of loyalty to family and friends, deep love from her children and parents. She loved Angels. It was her that brought that new awareness of them to family. We all have a little memento of her love for Angles. Our parents have a picture of an Angle. We have a pillow in our living room that serves as a reminder of my sister. Now her journey here on earth has ended. But a new adventure starts in eternity with a Merciful God.
Jesus comforts us by saying in Matt 14: "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me. In my father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am."
Lord we are thankful for the gifts you gave us through Wanda. And may she enter your kingdom that you have prepared for her.
Manuel Carreira
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