OBIT TO ANNIE GUNN

Annie Gunn was one of the great border journalists, last associated with The McHale Report. She liked men and she loved sex, but she said that she never slept with a Cameron County Democrat official because they were filled with every venereal disease under the sun, which, in her opinion, accounted for their irrational behavior.

Annie passed away last week after a short battle with breast cancer. At her funeral mass "Delta" Dave Handelmen delivered the eulogy. He met Annie his first year at The Brownsville Herald because she was editor at one of the high school newspapers and would appear once a month at the daily to put the finishing touches on the latest edition. "Delta" had a front row seat as he watched her talent blossom. Speaking before a standing-room-only crowd at the Immaculate Conception Cathedral, Handelmen delivered this eulogy:

"If I were to stand before you and say that we are here to celebrate a life and not mourn a death, Annie would turn over in her grave. Except that would be impossible since her ashes are in this urn. Besides having a great personality, Annie like originality. She would not appreciate seeing this evening reduced to clichés.

"Many people believe I met Annie at the newspaper, but the first time I saw her she was sitting at the edge of a pool. I was living in an efficiency and she was living in the same complex with her parents. She was in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. She had a smile that invited confidence. There was nothing pretentious about her. She looked you straight in the eye and delivered a straight pitch. She was fearless and adventuresome. Challenges didn't intimidate her. Taking a chance was part of living and she had a lust for life.

"But if she was carefree, she wasn't careless. Her mother, bible in hand, working six days a week, taught her responsibility. Her father was a welder who couldn't look at himself in the mirror if he missed a day of work. Hangovers were no excuse when there were children to be raised and bills to be paid. Annie yearned to be in faraway places living a Hemingway fantasy in France or Cuba, but she was content sitting in her patio, pouring a glass of Merlot, the conversation free and easy but profound and uplifting.

"She arrived at her station in life through hard work and sacrifice. Throughout her college days as a single mother, she juggled raising a son, freelancing and studying. But she never complained. She plowed forward with that indomitable will of hers because she had a vision for herself and her boy. She had too much pride to bow her head and succumb to overwhelming circumstances. Like her inherent appreciation for life, she had an inherent understanding that life was a struggle, but it was the struggle that yielded accomplishment and fulfillment.

"We are anonymous beings, but in our anonymity exists an infinite world of possibility. Annie believed that each day could make a difference and this knowledge imbued her with an optimism that attracted others to her person. People came to her for advice because physically her voice and countenance comforted them and spiritually she possessed an insight into the complexities of this existence that she could communicate to others in a simple and sympathetic language.

"During her final illness she had no patience for tears or regrets. She was grateful, she said, that she hadn't been whisked away in an instant. She savored these last weeks spending time with those she loved.

"'If I had the time, I would write a book on the one hundred best ways to say good-bye,' she remarked one afternoon after receiving several visitors.

"She was at her counseling best comforting us because we didn't want to let her go. None of us could accept life without her presence. She insisted that we should honor rather than despise death, that life without death had no meaning. There would be nothing. She explained that a part of ourselves would be going with her and a part of her would be staying with us. We had to acknowledge that we were part of a force beyond our comprehension and that through acceptance we could find peace during trying times.

"I half expect to see Annie rising from her ashes like a great phoenix and slapping me across the face with her wings.

"'Enough of your pious philosophizing,' she would reprimand me. 'You're using my ceremony to bore this captive audience with your crazy ideas about existence. There's good wine and good food waiting at the house. Let's go home and have a good time. You only die once!'

"Aye, Annie, beautiful, lovely Annie. If there's any reason to believe in an afterlife, you are the reason."