Micella Carla Statuto

In true fashion and in keeping in what would become the keystone of her vibrant personality, Micella Carla Statuto entered the world on September 15, 1990 as she would enter all future rooms. Like a golden spinning top, a luminous hurricane that drew you in with swirling energy, color, love and light. She chose September 15th, ten years to the day of her eldest sister’s earthly entrance, because she wanted to forever forge a twin flame bond with Gina that would survive all time, all threads and all lifetimes. She also wanted to make sure we had two different cakes to choose from every year.

Born the youngest of her loving and completely thrilled parents, Carol and Don Statuto, Micella completed the Statuto family of Little Women. Three girls: Gina the oldest, Danielle (Dani) the second and Micella, bringing up the Statuto caboose. From that moment on for the next 30 years of Micella’s life, the Little Statuto Women would do as all sisters do: bicker, laugh, tell scary stories in the night, look for fairies, play dress up, make lifetime promises, poke fun in jest at one another, create memories only meant for siblings, keep secrets and fiercely defend one another against their bullies.

Micella (known to all who knew and loved her as Cella or Cel) was anything BUT a wallflower as a child. Putting on plays, singing shows, engaging with her sisters in whatever they were doing (even if she was not “formally invited” to the older girls’ slumber parties), having tea parties with her beloved cats, riding horses with her sister Gina, rebounding (albeit not well) for her sister Dani’s basketball practices, collecting wildflowers in the woods, taking hours to pick out the perfect Christmas tree every year and practicing, dancing and singing to perfection her favorite song “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” for her elementary school talent show which she crushed, and obviously won. Cella was an incredible vocalist, later on singing another of her lifelong favorites, “At Last,” by Etta James in her high school talent show.

She was a fierce lover and defender of all animals and found a lifetime best friend in her cockatiel, Paulie, whom she adopted at age 9. She spent hours caring for Paulie and teaching him to whistle an impressive array of songs. Because of her love and attentive care, Paulie now has quite the musical career and is affectionately known in the family as the “Frank Sinatra of birds.” Later in her life, she adopted a miniature white poodle she named Freya Frida Statuto, who would become her heart dog. Much like one of her favorite Disney Princesses, her animals always surrounded her.

Cella was involved in and very often directed every aspect of family life as the three sisters grew up together in an old white farmhouse called “Rosebriar Farm” in the Monadnock mountain region of NH. These were the happiest times for Cella when her sisters were home together doing dishes, being outside, going to Dani’s basketball games and having a special secret knock on the shared wall between Dani’s and Cella’s rooms at night to let Dani know she was awake. These were her favorite moments as she always told her mother, before college took the older girls away from Rosebriar.

As Cella was growing up, she also grew closer to her cousins Jennie and Lauren- daughters of her father’s twin sister Cassie, spending every summer for many years with Lauren traveling from NH to DC and back again as the two youngest cousins of the extended Statuto family. The two young cousins had summer pie throwing contests, craft projects, lazy days swimming, basking in the sun and hikes through the woods. Cella and Jennie shared a mutual love of singing and many times would star in impromptu family musicals in the kitchen in costumes cleverly made from tablecloths. Cella’s family was not the only ones to love and adore her. She also formed a lifelong, strong friendship with her kindred spirit and partner in crime Meg and the two created almost 20 years of memories, mischief, and epic capers together that could fill several books. Cella was loved, adored and enveloped in nurturing arms not only by her proud and completely enchanted parents and protective older sisters but also by her entire larger Italian family full of grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles both familial and honorary, as Italians tend to adopt in friends as family.

Cella, always a lover of her family and wanting to grow her inner circle more was beyond thrilled when her family expanded and she acquired an older brother when her sister Gina married John in 2004. John and Cella shared a close and special bond calling one another often, having inside jokes and leaning on one another throughout the years. Cella relied on John for all sorts of varied information and opinions on topics upon which she considered him the resident expert, from making cheese to building shelving to deciding on if aliens exist. (The two ultimately decided they absolutely do exist, of course).

Cella went on to high school not only in NH but also in North Carolina when her parents moved down south for a period of eight years for work purposes. There in North Carolina Cella discovered her deep love of the ocean and the constant warm sun and vowed continually to her family that, “One day I will move and live south permanently because it is too damn cold in NH.” In North Carolina Cella also discovered and nurtured what would become the most important part of herself: her natural artistic ability. She began painting, throwing pottery, experimenting with broken glass mosaics, photography and creating and selling exquisite jewelry. Her room and eventually the entire house began to fill with her art, only extending her eclectic and radiant personality outward, transforming the feeling of who she was into things that were now both beautiful and tangible. It was not a surprise to her family when Cella went on to college at The University of North Carolina in Wilmington and pursued a major in Fine Arts as she continued to create her massive and bedazzling mixed media art portfolio.

After college, Cella moved back to NH when her parents retired from their medical professions and went home to Rosebriar. Upon returning home to “the Shire” she would add more and more lovely human beings to her sacred inner circle of friends including her boyfriend Mike, her dearest friends Carrie and Gary and an even larger circle of creative, magical women that she held close and dear. Cella was an intensely spiritual person and identified as both a Catholic and a Wiccan and joined a group of women, her coven, where she found joy and peace in celebrating the innate connectivity of Spirit, Water, Air, Fire, Earth and the Universe. There are too many dear friends to even list as Cella touched so many people with her inherent and continual kindness, creativity, giving nature and her unending willingness to ALWAYS, ALWAYS “find the very best in every person because it is there.” She always said to us, her family who worried about those who may take advantage of her kind nature, “There is too much hatred in the world to not just offer love and forgiveness from the very beginning. Life is hard, let’s not make it even harder.” A Micella lesson for all of us every second of everyday in every lifetime we should be so graciously afforded.

Cella was believer and a student of magic since she was a child, having been tutored closely by her sister Gina (Gryffindor) starting at age 5. Her favorite in home classes were Woodland Fairies 101, An Introduction to Goblin Sorcery, Interpretive Ghost Dancing and Herbalism for Metaphysical Ailments. She excelled in these studies and it was clear that in her home tutorage would not be a sufficient match for her skills for long. As such, her letter to the esteemed Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry arrived and Micella was aptly sorted into Ravenclaw House: a perfect match for her inherent wit, learning abilities and wisdom. She joined her nuclear and extended family of Hogwarts alumni, with sisters, cousins and brother-in-law representing all four Houses: Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw.

There were times when we wondered if Cella should have pursued an education in theology as she had a voracious appetite for learning, reading and deeply thinking about all religions. As she would often state to those who were having trouble accepting her spiritual path, the religious ideology of others or those who were simply struggling with an emotional weight that she could empathically sense: “Religions are roads that lead to the same destination.” Cella believed in the healing energies of crystals and natural stone formations and started two businesses selling crystals meant for healing, positive energy transfer and spiritual guidance: The Raven’s Crystal Nest and The Little Black Bird.

On top of being a female entrepreneur before age 30, intuitive healer, tarot reader, artist and continual student of theology by her own choosing, Cella began fusing her passion for art with a newfound love of teaching art and art history, and embarked upon her attaining her Masters of Education, which she finished just a few months ago. She had a deep love of children, especially bullied children, emotionally struggling children and children from underserved communities, as their access to art and art supplies is often limited. She focused her heart and soul on her Masters in anticipation of being able to work with children and transfer the healing energy of art to them.

Following the completion of her masters coursework, in the last months of her life, Cella began work at an afterschool program for kids (the kiddos as she always called them) and put together a fundraiser in the last week of her life to send these kids to summer camp. Cella, we want you to know you met your fundraising goal and then some, and all your kiddos are headed to camp this summer because of your love and efforts.

We could go on and on about Micella for pages and pages and pages. It is scary to stop writing because that would be yet another end we are not ready to accept. Like the original story of Little Women, this tale of the Little Statuto Women ends sadly the same. You now have a sense of who our Micella was, not only to us but also to others and in her own magical sphere. She had the most loving and forgiving nature, the kindest and purest soul, a sparkling spirit, ethereal personality and the most inquisitive mind. Her heart was big and generous, and yet in a cruel twist of fate it was her heart, weakened from birth by a congenital defect that stole her from us in the dead of winter, like a thief in the night.

Her last collective words to all her family, in response to a funny video email thread we were all on together were simply, “I love you all.”

And she did.

In leiu of flowers, Micella’s family requests you make a donation in her memory to the Monadnock Humane Society, as her love for all animals was a huge part of who she was.