Marisa Kane

July 20, 1962 - December 16, 2022 La Habra Heights Marisa Kane was born Mary Grace Agro in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, to Joan and Louis Agro. Born into a large and vibrant family with a strong Sicilian heritage, at a young age, her family soon began to call her Marisa, as that name seemed more fitting to her already strong and vibrant personality. Marisa grew up with a loving family who instilled in her a strong love for family, work and play. These values and qualities would be sustained and nurtured throughout her life and carried on with her own family. After graduating from Concordia University in Montreal with a degree in Art History, Marisa helped to develop the Agro family mushroom and seafood business in Hamilton. Marisa loved food, art, dancing, her parents' race horses (many named after the grandchildren, e.g., Sophia's Prince), and spending time with her family and friends with whom she sustained long-lasting bonds. Her adventurous spirit led to travels around the world, and she enjoyed family trips to Sicily, visiting ancestral homelands and distant relatives. While visiting friends in San Francisco, Marisa met her future husband, Clifford Kane, and she started a new chapter of her life, eventually settling in Southern California. Cliff remembers when, early in their courtship, Marisa insisted on coming over to his flat in San Francisco to cook him dinner. She brought a bag full of exotic seafood and proceeded to make a truly amazing bouillabaisse seafood stew. Her bouillabaisse was not only incredibly delicious, but Cliff swears that she cast a spell over him with it, and from that day on he was hers. They remained deeply in love and devoted to each other for the next 27 years. Marisa raised her step-daughter Kimberly, and soon her own daughter, Sophia. As a wife and mother, Marisa brought the strong family traditions and values that she grew up with, and these have been passed down and continue with her children as they have grown into adulthood. Because of Marisa's values and love for her family, it was important that every evening the family sat down to eat together at the same table. Her family's love for good food and art is one of the many lasting legacies that Marisa created and left behind for those she loved to live a fuller life and remember her with. Marisa became a devoted and nurturing teacher in Long Beach, found great value, and took great pride in the impact she was able to make in the lives of her young students. She also continued her love for business, and with her husband developed a small family farming enterprise; in many ways a continuation of her family's business in Canada. Marisa was a strong and outstanding woman, a true natural beauty in body and soul, full of love and spirit, with kindness and generosity for the people in her life. The lives of her family, friends, students, and colleagues are enriched and blessed by knowing Marisa and having had her in their lives. She is deeply missed and is, and will always be, lovingly remembered and held closely in our hearts. Her spirit lives on in the hearts of her family and friends. After a heroic struggle with illness, Marisa passed peacefully at home surrounded and comforted by her husband and daughters. Marisa is survived in California by her husband, Clifford, daughter, Sophia, and step-daughter, Kimberly, and in Canada by her sisters, Dawn, Lori, and Julia, her brother, Sam, and many nieces and nephews.