Call the office of the state Senate sergeant-at-arms, and chances are you’ll get a recorded greeting. The voice is pleasant, female. Listen hard enough, and you might hear a trace of Long Island in it, though Elaine Calzolari, possessor of the voice, has lived in this state for more than 30 years.
Calzolari was a sergeant-at-arms in the Senate in 2001 and 2002. She is commonly referred to as the first and only woman to have ever held the job, though someone told her once that another woman might have preceded her in the ’60s. Be that as it may, it is likely no other sergeant-at-arms kept an emergency stash of panty hose for female legislators suddenly confronted with a run.
“Make sure you get a flu shot,” was her first advice to now-chief sergeant Phil Brown. “There are a lot of germs around this place.” She’s a matter-of-fact woman, always has been.
Calzolari left the Capitol after the 2002 session but returned in 2006 to work as the calendar clerk, a job she held until Friday. The calendar clerk sits just below and in front of the Senate president and faces the chamber. On Friday, immediately after adjournment, the chamber stood to face Calzolari.
She stood in turn, and before any words of tribute were spoken, the tears started. Calzolari grabbed some tissues. Next to me, sergeant-at-arms Frank Garcilano wiped his eyes.
Calzolari, in her own efficient way, had told her Senate family she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer a week after last year’s session. Told them when they asked of the particulars of her illness and her treatment. Told them when it appeared the cancer was in remission and when, recently, tests revealed that it was spreading again, aggressive, drug-resistant, stage IV. Terminal cancer. Time to retire, she announced. I have stuff to do.
I’d never met Calzolari before Friday. A Renaissance woman, one of the senators called her during the tribute, “a woman who has left her mark on our hearts and on this state.” Calzolari is a successful and prolific creator of public art. Her work can be found throughout the state. She’s a bird watcher and calls herself a mycophagist, which basically means she eats mushrooms and loves hiking through forests looking for them.
She’s a striking woman in her late 50s. Young. Do you think she’ll be OK with me talking to her about her cancer, I ask Senate secretary Karen Goldman before heading to the Capitol. “She’s been very open about it,” Goldman says. Later, she tells me Calzolari has been an inspiration to her.
“Elaine says staff tells her she’s brave and she says, ‘I don’t feel I’m brave.’ It’s the dignity with which she has done this.”
It’s a cliche that those facing death teach the rest of us to value life. What I find to be true more often is that those who face their own mortality, with sorrow, yes, but with grace and curiosity and practicality, teach us not to fear death. Perhaps this is the bravery of which the Senate staff speaks and which Calzolari cannot understand because she sees it as accepting what lies before her.
“It’s going with the flow,” Calzolari says. “For a while, going with the flow meant surgery and chemotherapy. Now going with the flow is doing what I want to do. So many people are terrified of death. For me, it’s better to have quality of life than quantity.”
After the Senate tributes, I accompanied Calzolari to a lunch in her honor. The room was packed. One of the House staffers presented her with a fat envelope, $935, collected on the House side from everyone from custodians to lawmakers. For your travels, the woman said. And Calzolari hugged her close and cried.
“I think it’s in the ‘Wizard of Oz’ that the Scarecrow says, ‘Aw, shucks, guys. I’m speechless,’ ” she said. “Between being a sergeant-at-arms and sitting at that front desk, it’s really been some of the happiest times of my life. It’s been like having a front-row seat at the best show in town.”
They all talked and Calzolari boasted about her 22-year-old daughter’s accomplishments and went over her travel itinerary. The Grand Canyon. Central American pyramids. Northern Italy. New Zealand. New Caledonia, where her father served during World War II. “And if I make it to another year, Machu Picchu.”
“To Elaine!” they cheered, raising their glasses. “To great adventures!”
She told her friends that in some ways, it was easier to receive her current diagnosis than to be in remission, “because in remission, I kept thinking, ‘How much time do I have?’ Now that I know, it’s really kind of a relief.”
She told them: “You look every day for what is beautiful in life, and you don’t think about the end. That’s how you do this.”
The sergeants-at-arms, including Chief Sgt. Brown, showed up late. Brown’s the one who told me Calzolari’s voice is still on the office voice mail. “We never changed it, and we’re never going to change it.”
They were still wearing their uniforms: burgundy blazers. Brown smiled at Calzolari and whipped out another blazer. Size 12. Hers from back in the day. The sergeants had rescued it from a Capitol vault and spruced it up, complete with American flag and Senate staff pins on the lapels.
“My blazer!” she shouted, and burst into laughter.
Tina Griego writes Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Reach her at 303-954-1416 or tgriego@denverpost.com.
