Picture worth a thousand words...

News of Mary Theocharides leaving us this week was hard to swallow on several levels.


The Theocharides family was an important part of the Stockton St. Basil's Greek Community for many years before moving to Thessaloniki and the American Farm School circa 1960. There were many good (verging on crazy) times in the days when the church really was the center of our lives. Harry, Mary, Terry and Nico were part of the Xanttopoulos/Sarris families, too. And to make a very long story short, our ties -- from Stockton, to Thessaloniki (where I was for 10 years at the School) and back again -- run deep.

 Evgenia Sarris, Mary Theocharides, Liberty Sarris and Harry's mother.

Terry and Nico will surely have many great stories to tell after their mother's funeral at St. Basil's on Friday at 10 am.  But this isn't just about memories and stories. It's really about an entire and in many ways heroic generation -- along with their belief system and work ethic -- having left us one-by-one. And that is VERY hard to swallow.


May dear Mary's memory -- and those of all our parents/relatives -- be eternal. Zoi se mas.