Eulogizing Esther M. Tatalo Nicastro, My Mom

Eulogizing Esther M. Tatalo Nicastro, My Mom, January 31, 1948 – May 15, 2025

June 2025

A few years ago, I gave the hardest speech I thought I would ever have to give: a eulogy for my best friend, Chad. I was wrong.

Losing my mom, Esther M. Tatalo Nicastro, has been a different kind of pain altogether. Quiet. Unrelenting. Personal in a way nothing else has ever been. She was the kindest person I’ve ever known. And saying goodbye to her, in front of friends, family, and loved ones, is the most important thing I have ever done.

The video below is the eulogy I delivered. It’s the best I can offer in a moment where words never feel like enough. And beneath that, I’ve included the full text of my remarks, unchanged.

One detail I’ll never forget is what happened just days before I spoke. Through a strange twist of timing, I found a leather-bound journal tucked away in a cabinet at my parents’ house. It was a gift to my mom in 2008. She only wrote on one page, but what she wrote captured her essence. It was calm, grateful, loving, and full of light. Just like her. It was that journal that inspired my speech.

As I stood at the podium at Salvatore’s Italian Grill and delivered these words, I did so not as a performer or a writer, but as a son who knew there would never be enough words to capture what Mom meant to our family. And yet somehow, the act of standing up there, for my dad, sister, and all mom’s loved ones, trying to be steady, strong, and sincere, felt like the most fitting way to honor her.

People say grief is love with nowhere to go. I think grief is love that demands a voice. And that’s what this eulogy was: a way to speak the love, respect, and gratitude we all feel for the woman who raised us, cared for us, and quietly shaped our lives in more ways than we can count.

I’ve included the full text of the eulogy below, along with the video of me delivering it above. I hope it captures even a fraction of her kindness, strength, and devotion. Below the text, I’ve also included a tribute slideshow with some of my favorite photos from Mom’s life. It’s a way to see her journey, her joy, and the light she brought to everyone she knew.

Mom, your legacy lives on in every act of gentleness we pass forward, in every quiet moment of presence we offer one another. Thank you for showing us how to live, how to love, and how to be decent human beings. I love you. Keep a place for me (and keep Chad in line!) Love, your son, Nicholas.

Eulogy for Esther M. Tatalo Nicastro – My Mom

Wednesday, May 21, 2025

Salvatore’s Italian Grill, Warren, Ohio

On behalf of my dad, my sister Gina, and myself, thank you all for being here today, and thank you for the tremendous outpouring of love, support, warm wishes, and kind words we’ve received over the past week. It has meant more than we can say.

In the days after my mom passed, through what can only be described as serendipity, I found something that none of us even knew existed. Tucked away in a cabinet at my parents’ house was a small leather journal, handmade in Italy, a thoughtful birthday gift from my cousin Dominic to my mom back in 2008.

She only wrote on one page in that journal. Just a handful of quotes, written in her handwriting. No dates, no context. But reading them, I didn’t need any. Every line on that page reflected something essential about who she was.

One quote read:

“You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.”

That wasn’t just a line she liked, that was how she lived. Quiet, generous, kind without agenda. My mom never needed credit. She just did what needed to be done and made people feel loved while doing it.

Another quote simply said:

“In the evening of our lives, we shall be judged on love.”

She lived by that standard every single day.

Mom lived simply. She found joy in the everyday: being with her husband, raising her children, spending time with her sisters and friends, her extended family, my dad’s siblings, and all of her nieces and nephews. She gave her full attention to the people in front of her, and that’s something I will always admire. She wasn’t interested in appearances or status. She was interested in connection.

Even now, people continue to tell us how much they loved being around her, how she had a calming presence, how easy she was to talk to, how quick she was to smile. It’s comforting to hear these things and realize they reflect exactly the woman we continue to love.

She didn’t write much in that journal. But maybe she didn’t need to. Maybe she said what she needed to say in how she lived, and because of that, one page was all she needed.

-Nicholas J. Nicastro