About Bea Guzzi

Beatrice Lucille Cricco, or better known as, Bea, by her friends and family, was born April 6th 1944 to Joseph and Francis Cricco of Hoboken, NJ. Bea is the youngest of three children, with an older brother, Carl, since deceased, and an older sister, Rae. Bea always had poor eyesight as a child, and wore glasses throughout her childhood and adolescent years. While growing up in Hoboken, Bea lived next door to James Guzzi with whom she went to school and began dating at the age of 16. Her vision was progressively getting worse, so Jim took her to see a specialist and found that she had a rare degenerative eye disease called Retinitis Pigmentosa. It is a disease that attacks and deteriorates the retina, and ultimately leads to blindness. The doctor said she will go blind in 3 to 20 years, and that there was no cure. This was a lot to handle, but Bea wasn’t going to let that hold her down, and was determined to fulfill her dreams. 

Jim and Bea fell in love, got engaged, and were married in April of 1964. After living for a while as newlyweds at Jim’s father’s vacation home, they moved to a small apartment in Chatham, NJ, as Jim was working a few jobs to make ends meet. As Bea’s eyesight was fading, she was determined to have children. The thoughts entered her mind if she’d be able to raise children completely blind. Would she be a good mother? How would she do it completely blind? Well, she prayed to God to be blessed with a baby, and tried eagerly to get pregnant. But as this was her joyous dream, the dismal day finally came when she lost her sight completely. It was a devastating time for her, but through her faith in God and the support of her husband, family and friends, she fought through it. Her prayers were finally answered and she became pregnant, but unfortunately, she had a miscarriage. She didn’t let this stop her though, and they continued trying. God finally blessed them with their first son, Jay, who was born in July of 1969, and then a second son, Glen, who followed in August of 1971. At this point, the apartment was becoming too small for two young boys.  So, the opportunity arose for Jim to purchase a gas station in Madison, NJ. Although he was reluctant, Bea pushed him to go for it, and after doing so, he became very successful. In a short period of time, they were able to buy a small house in the town of Chatham. This was everything Bea wanted, and more. She had her family, they had a successful business, and a house with a yard for her boys to play in. 

Well shortly after, she found herself pregnant again, and gave birth to her third son, Mark, in June of 1975, and then once again to her fourth son, Steven, in October of 1976. Once again, the house now became too small for four boys and although they hated to leave all their neighbors who they became so fond of over the years, they began looking for a larger home. They found a four-bedroom house in Florham Park, NJ, and it was absolutely perfect. It was also around this time that Bea was listening to an inspirational radio program where she found the Lord, and went on to become a born-again Christian. This changed her life completely, and is the faith by which she and her family live to this very day. Even though all her wishes were granted, and she loved her children no matter what, she still yearned for a little girl. The day came once more where she found herself pregnant again, only this time was with twins. She prayed tirelessly to have at least one girl, and went on to be blessed with two beautiful girls, Gayle and Jean, in October of 1981. The lord had blessed her with all of her dreams in having children.

At this time, Jim’s business wasn’t doing as well as it had in the past, so Bea decided to help out by getting a job working through the night dispatching calls for U-Haul. Luckily, they were able to make it work, but again, only this time with six children, found themselves in need of a larger home. They went on to find the home of their dreams, also in Florham Park, but larger with five bedrooms, and on a big wooded lot in a beautiful neighborhood. At this time, Jim decided to sell the gas station, and go into the painting business with his son, Jay. Bea decided to follow her dream and get a guide dog named Becky from the Seeing Eye in Morristown, where she was able to gain an immense amount of independence. She was able to take walks on her own around the block with her seeing eye dog, and she loved being able to do so.

Shortly after, Jim was diagnosed with Leukemia. It was a terrible time. Jim was bedridden, and all of their children stepped up to help out with the business and things around the house. As the children were getting older, and money was tight with college expenses and Jim’s illness, Bea once again put her independence to work, and decided to help out and got a job for AAA as a dispatcher. She would go there each day with Becky, work on a computer, and help set up roadside assistance for customers. As time went on, Jim finally went into remission, and they got through Jim’s cancer battle. Ironically though, a few years later, Bea was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma. She had a stem cell transplant, and although it was a debilitating, long haul for her, she also went into remission, and battled her own cancer.

Bea’s children all moved out of their house, got married, and had children of their own. She has 11 grandchildren. They decided to sell their house, scale down to an apartment, and they now reside in Madison, NJ. Now that all of her children are grown, Bea decided to write a memoir about her amazing life. Although she had no intentions of ever pursuing publishing, the thought was always in the back of her mind. It took some time for her to write the book, but it was finally completed in 2019. Her son, Jay, helped her edit her manuscript, and they pursued a publisher, where Bea went on to become an accomplished author by the Christian Faith Publishing company, so aptly fitting. 

The book is titled, I Walk by Faith, Not by Sight. She has sold over 500 copies in the first couple months, and it is still going strong as a motivational, inspirational, family oriented, religious based book sure to tug on the heart strings of all who read it. She didn’t write it for the fame or fortune, but to show people how she persevered through all that life had thrown her, with her faith and love in her Lord Jesus Christ. Although Bea’s life has had an incredible story, there were lots of ups and downs, laughs and cries. Most people would have given up many times, but if you ask her how she did it, she’d give you the same answer every time, “I truly walk by faith, and not by sight.”