Canzano: "It ties us all together."

A fan. A letter. And an important lesson.

Joyce DeBellis, an Oregon fan, died in September. (Photo: Naji Saker)

I received a letter in the mail from a reader named Sam DeBellis Jr. The contents just about broke my heart.

Sam’s mother, Joyce, died earlier this year.

She was 89.

Sam sent me the program from the funeral service and a few pages of typed thoughts. It turns out I’ve lost one of my most loyal readers and radio-show listeners. I wish I’d had the chance to meet Joyce and talk with her about her upbringing, her travels in the Navy, motherhood, and her love of the Oregon Ducks.

I never got the chance, but Sam said I’ve been in an ongoing conversation with his mom over the last 20 years. That meant a lot to me. He also helped me get to know her a little.

Joyce was born in North Dakota. Her family moved to the Pacific Northwest when she was in high school. Joyce wasn’t thrilled about that. She was an independent soul and convinced her parents to let her stay behind so she could finish high school. After graduation, she joined the Navy, where she was stationed in Maryland and, later, Seattle.

Sam Sr. worked at Weyerhaeuser. He was the son of Italian immigrants and served in the 24th Infantry Division in World War II. Family friends introduced him and Joyce. They fell in love, married, and moved to Coos Bay, where they raised a couple of sons.

Wrote Sam Jr.: “She was one of the best room mothers that Bunker Hill Elementary School has ever had.”

Sam Sr. died in 2005. He was 75. Joyce kept her husband’s ashes and held onto his memory. She wanted to be put to rest beside him, and that’s just what the DeBellis family did a few weeks into this college football season.

Joyce loved her Ducks.

There’s a lot of talk about the rise of Oregon football. The team is undefeated and ranked No. 1. The transition from Rich Brooks to Mike Bellotti to Chip Kelly is summarized by national media in a sentence or two — as if it were a get-rich-quick scheme. But for the die-hards who showed up on Saturdays and rooted for the team over the last 30 years, it feels more like a gradual climb toward an unthinkable summit.

Kelly handed off to Mark Helfrich, who begat Willie Taggart, who begat Mario Cristobal — and then came Dan Lanning. Hearing the Ducks talked about as a national champion contender last summer must have sounded delightfully absurd to Joyce in her final months. Like a lunar landing, the invention of cellular phones, and artificial intelligence. After all, Joyce and her family were rooting when the stadium was half-empty on game day and as quiet as the campus library.

Joyce raised those two sons and had three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. She and Sam Sr. moved to Springfield in the 1980s. The family got together regularly for meals over the years. Her son told me some of the best memories included conversations about sports held over spaghetti dinners.

I relate to that.

Do you?

We had regular family dinners at my Italian grandparents’ house. We sat in their dining room, usually on a Sunday, ate pasta, talked sports, and listened to my grandfather tell stories. Those family dinners shaped my development and identity. They were gold. I find myself striving to duplicate them for my children.

Sam Jr. tells me his mom listened to my radio show and devoured my column. She particularly enjoyed the human-interest pieces. When I left the newspaper and launched this independent endeavor, Joyce migrated with me. Her son printed out my columns in the waning months of her life and let her hold them in her hands as she read them.

Said Sam Jr.: “There are still times when I read one of your columns and for an instant think about printing it out because ‘Mom would like that one.’”

Then, he paused.

“Another crying moment… I’ll get over it at some point, right?”

I’m sad that Joyce died. She lived a wonderful life and left the world better than she found it. She lived, loved, dreamed — and baked a birthday cake for every family member’s big day.

Joyce’s family held funeral services at Sunset Memorial Park in Coos Bay in late September. Sam and Joyce were laid to rest together. There was a reception after at a local pizza parlor. Most of her friends were already gone. So, it was a small, cozy gathering. Her immediate family attended. So did a couple of cousins. And a few of Sam Jr.’s elementary school classmates surprised everyone by showing up, too.

Veterans Affairs showed up for the service, played taps, and presented the colors.

People told stories and honored her life.

A few weeks later, Sam Jr. wrote the letter and dropped it in the mail.

“Mom was a big fan of you and your entire family,” he wrote. “She loved reading and hearing about the kids. Sports talk is awesome, and it ties us all together, but the human interest stories are definitely the most important.”

Ain’t it the truth.

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