Jeannette Marie Castellano, my Mother and the retired Executive Secretary whose life inspired the world’s first public recognition program for Administrative Professionals passed away on December 19th, surrounded by her family.
My Mom spent ninety-one years loving people with everything she had - pouring her heart into her five children, twenty-five grand and great-grandchildren, nieces, nephews and the countless friends and coworkers. So it feels almost inevitable - poetic, even, that in the end, she left this world the same way she lived in it: with a heart so completely spent that it finally failed.
Shortly before the 2025 Dallas Fort Worth Admin Awards, I had posted on LinkedIn that at 91 she would be joining us at the Gala, and how all of this existed because of her. She was so proud of what her seemingly ordinary life had helped bring into the world: recognition of people like her who loved their profession rooted in serving others. We had 20 family and friends confirmed to join us in what she quietly suspected might be her last hurrah.
She was beside herself with excitement. Choosing the perfect “good as gold” outfit allowed her enjoy one of her favorite pastimes: online shopping. My mom took tremendous pride in how she dressed (a gene I did not inherit). She loved scrolling for clothes, jewelry, and makeup and I loved teasing her about what a whip it was returning all the things that didn’t work for her, the most recent being a pair of metallic gold parachute pants from Kohl’s (a choice which, at her age, you have to admire).
I finally said, “Mom, let’s go shopping and find something awesome for you for the Admin Awards. We'll make a day of it.” So we went dress shopping together, and in the dressing room she slipped into the outfit we both knew was waiting for her. Elegant, floral, a little sparkly. Utterly her. She was glowing. She couldn’t wait to wear it. She looked so beautiful and proud I snapped a picture of her in the dressing room mirror to send to my daughter and sisters. At the time it felt like an ordinary moment. Now it feels like a relic.
As luck would have it, for the second year in a row during the week of the Admin Awards in Dallas, she entered the hospital. I used to joke that if she didn’t want to come, she could just tell me. This time, it was pneumonia - something she had never been hospitalized with before, and one of the illnesses her cardiologist had warned
could ultimately overwhelm her already-tired heart.
I chose not to share my Mom’s condition publicly, and that she wouldn’t be attending after all - not to hide it, but to protect the celebration and keep the spotlight where it belonged: on the Administrative Professionals we were there to honor.
I lived at the hospital that week, holding two truths at once: the fragility of my Mother - the very reason this work exists, and the responsibility to carry forward the purpose she gave me. In the middle of the night, with my laptop open and my Mom resting just beyond the screen, I began working on the program's Nominee's tribute video again. As I began weaving in final clips I realized that my next folder contained submissions by of all places, another Baylor hospital in the area. Videos were sent by coworkers who understood, in the most practical and profound way, how essential Admins are to the heartbeat of a hospital, carrying the work that allows doctors and nurses to focus on saving lives.
In that dim hospital room, the program born from her life's work was moving forward in the world, as the woman who inspired it was slowly leaving it. Although I didn't know how close we were to the end at the time, I understood the irony.
My Mother’s vitals began moving in the right direction after a few days, and the doctors even marveled at how quickly she was recovering at 91. After open-heart surgery at 76, countless setbacks and scares, she always found her way back to us. Resilient. Stubborn in the best Italian-Mom way, refusing to let go before she was ready. Our family often joked she didn’t have nine lives, she had thousands and of course, we believed she would pull through again.
She was set to be transitioned to outpatient rehab in a few days when she suggested with that ever-present, familiar defiant spark "I think I can still make the Admin Awards after all!" Another one of her wild ideas we quickly but gently shut down. As badly as I wanted her to be there, we wouldn’t risk her health.
She was disappointed, not just to miss the event but because she wouldn’t get to wear her outfit and the Spanx that had just arrived (which, at 91, I of course roasted her about on Facebook). She was also sad that she wouldn’t get to see me in the dress she had helped me pick out online - the one that arrived after she had already been admitted.
On November 14th, the day of the 14th Annual Admin Awards in Dallas, my family insisted that I focus on work while they remained at her side. She had beaten pneumonia, was doing well, and for a moment it felt like we were once again witnessing her extraordinary resilience - the pattern we had come to know so well.
Back to the night of the Admin Awards. It's about 5:30 PM and I am hours late getting to the event. I had just texted our team that I was 5 minutes away from the hotel and would be there soon. The route I took to the hotel happened to be one that passed by the hospital. I thought how I wished I had time to swing in and surprise her so she could see me in my dress after all. But I was so late. It was our biggest event of the year and nothing had gone as planned that day which had them running extremely behind - we didn't even have the awards unboxed on stage yet which I was set to do the minute I arrived. I came upon a red light. Straight meant meant responsibility - doing "the right thing". Left meant her. I began driving straight and then in just the nick of time my hands turned the wheel in the direction of the hospital complex. Something in me said go see your Mom.
I walked into her hospital room, dressed for the Gala, and it was like the sun rose on her face. We took pictures that I didn't fully see until the next morning - her eyes glistening, her expression soft and knowing. It felt like a holy moment suspended in time. Only later did I understand that somewhere inside of both of us, we already knew we were saying goodbye.
The following week while waiting to be transitioned to rehab she unexpectedly took a sudden turn for the worse (unrelated to pneumonia) serious enough that our family gathered around her hospital bed and said our good-byes. After two exploratory procedures, nothing definitive was found, her labs began to improve rapidly and once again she beat the odds. She stabilized, recovered, and was transitioned to inpatient rehab.
Three weeks later she was released from rehab to our home and while she was very weak, we believed that at 91 she was simply recovering slowly. She had come through before, so many times. We had grown accustomed to resilience arriving like a second wind. So when this time was different, the shock came wrapped in disbelief, something I'm still struggling to get my head around.
The ambulance carried her out of our home for the last time, and within twenty-two hours, she took her final breath.
You never really think it will be the last time until suddenly, it is.
Grief becomes especially complicated when your life’s work is rooted in the person you’ve lost. Normally, I would disappear into my work to ease anxiety, survive loss. But my work is my mother - her values, her dignity, her strength reflected in every Nominee, every award, every celebration. To step into it now means walking straight into the place where she still lives.
But she is everywhere I am.
She is in the evergreen wreaths with red bows that hang in my home. In my wardrobe of black and camel - her favorite. In the pralines and cream ice cream in my freezer. On the rocks she painted for me in my garden. She’s in the secretarial handbooks and shorthand guides she kept for fifty years that now sit on my shelf. In the New Yorker magazines I stacked for her, waiting. In the homemade glass cleaner in my cabinet, her handwriting telling me how much vinegar and water to add. She is in the cardinals hovering in our yard like quiet messengers.
She is in our empty bathtub where Ben and I lowered her into warm water and gave her what became her last bath the week of her death.
She is in the Bible verse daily devotional she chose to display on her desk when she passed; Be still and know that I am God. A message she keeps sending me from beyond in ways only a mother who now knows the Truth could: slow down, breathe, live your life. Stop striving. What she's been urging me to do for years.
And there is the dress - still hanging on her closet door, never worn.
I notice mothers and their adult children everywhere now. At Marshall's, the coffee shop, the pizza place. These seemingly everyday moments when busy adults are making time with their Mom. I want to tell all of them: cherish this. One day, these simple, unremarkable hours will become relics for you, too. You don’t realize how many people are out in the world with their Moms, until you lose yours.
The last Admin Awards my Mom attended was in Dallas in 2023. The hotel had offered to project our logo onto the side of the building, but you could only see it from a distance. She was so excited about it that she asked if we could drive somewhere to get a better view. So we drove across the Trinity River and looked out toward the glowing hotel, our name shining in lights.
She stood there quietly for a moment, full of pride and tenderness, and then she began to reflect. I captured it: a Mother witnessing an ordinary life she poured herself into, becoming something larger than either of us ever imagined.
I hoped to share this video shortly after the 2023 Admin Awards, but if I'm being honest, there's a moment in it where my Mom starts bragging about me - in that way only a mother can and as tempted as I was to tell her to "Stoppppp Mom!" so I could post it in our recap, I just grinned and bared it, and let her talk. It was her truth to speak, not mine.
What mattered more than having something I felt comfortable sharing publicly was capturing her speaking straight from her heart. And now, I’m grateful I did. I believe she would want you to know how proud she was of this program and how proud she was of me.
This moment now lives where all my memories live of her, in that fragile, holy space between love and loss. The place where she remains, and always will.
Thank you for helping carry my Mother’s legacy forward - whether you’ve been part of the Admin Awards in the past, will join us in the future, or simply took the time read this.
Jeannette Castellano's Celebration of Life will be held in Dallas on January 17th. To learn more and attend either in person or via the live-stream click here.
