The eulogy I wrote for my mother is below. I did not believe I could speak it because, as I write below, my mother passed along her "gift" at crying at anything, even AT&T commercials. I had expected the minister to read it verbatim, but as my Mom would boldly and directly tell you, this man could rarely let anyone's statements go without commentary, much less a woman's texts.
Our home churches are quite different.
Yes, it's taken me months to post this. I have written few thank you notes for all the kind notes and flowers and meals people sent. To acknowledge such kindness is to face why people have been so kind, and it remains extremely painful to fully reckon with my mother's passing.
I have additional thoughts I will share in future posts, including my core family's realization that mom's brain damage from vascular dementia happened many years before her official diagnosis and how that affected our relationship with her. But for now, the actual eulogy we wanted read at my mom's funeral.
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A few words from Dot’s children.
Mom loved when, at her brother’s memorial, the
family stood up and shared memories of love, compassion, and humor about his
life. But we also recognize that Mom was incredibly tenderhearted and passed
along to her daughter, at least, the special gift of crying at Hallmark movies and
AT&T commercials. So, we do not trust that we can get up and say what we
want to say without sobbing the whole way through.
Therefore, thank you, Dr. Clapp, for reading
this for Scott and Anita.
Mom’s father told her she could do anything she
wanted and she did. She double majored
in Chemistry and Biology at Woman's College and minored in French. When she reentered the workforce after her
children were grown, she was hired as a receptionist at Greensboro OBGYN. But within one year, they saw her talents and
charged her with starting and administering their medical lab. She remained in
that position until she retired over 20 years later.
Mom passed her father's advice on to her
children and told us that we could do anything and everything as long as we
tried. And she supported everything when we tried from Anita moving across
country to go back to graduate school to Scott starting his own private lawncare
business after he retired from the Air Force and the North Carolina Zoo. She
worried about the risks but believed we would be successful because we tried.
She celebrated every one of our successes--major
and minor--as though we were winning a Nobel prize.
Her Christian faith was an essential part of
her being. She was a scholar: listening, reading, and learning about God and
the bible throughout her life. She loved
to share her faith and her knowledge. Her teachings had powerful, positive
effects on everyone around her. She
loved engaging in theological discussions and she helped create an important
foundation of Love and Faith in her family.
Everyone here knows that Mom had an amazing
sense of humor. She created a family that laughed frequently and laughed hard. Our
favorite memories are laughing until we cried over family stories both as they happened
and every time we brought them up later. We are a loud family and we’re going
to blame Dad for that so he could hear all our stories. But it also means that everyone
else could experience all the love and laughs we shared as a family.
Mom loved unconditionally, which is what
brought people into her light. She was always amazed that strangers would seek
her out to share their life stories and then ask for advice. We think that was
simply her aura: she had a light that others could see and wanted to be a part
of.
As we have become parents, we have used her as a
role model. Like her, we love unconditionally. We have created houses where the
neighborhood kids come and hang out. We have created our own friendships with
our children’s friends. We make friends with strangers. And, of course, we laugh.
Loudly.
Mom’s family was the most important part of her
life. She loved and was extremely close
to her mother and father, brother, and sister.
She was a second mother to her nieces and nephews. She cared about them,
worried about them, and celebrated their lives.
She loved her grandchildren deeply. She made each one feel like he or she was the center of her universe because they all were.
We know that Mom and Dad were best friends. They were life partners in the clearest and deepest sense of the word. We are so proud of Dad in how he has taken care of Mom in the last 6 plus years. Vascular dementia is a cruel thief. But one gift we were given is that she recognized us and she told us that she loved us even until the end. Dementia took so much of Mom away from us over many more years than she or we knew. But it never took her love of her family away from her or away from us. And that feels like a true blessing.
All of this can be summarized best by her son.
Scott would like to say for and to all of us: He misses his Mama.