Eulogy
Good morning to everyone... Thank you all for being here with us this morning. You all have been so incredibly good to my family and we thank you all from the bottom of our hearts.
I should first say that no one would appreciate more the irony of my standing before you in a church pulpit than my mother. I’m not sure whether I should thank her for this or chastise her for putting me here...
Before I begin, I want to remember a few of my mom’s friends. My mother never forgot her friends and I think the best way for us to honor her memory is to remember her friends for her. Some couldn’t be here with us today because of their health, or they live too far away and some are no longer with us. I want to briefly mention their names and then I’d like to talk to you about my mom a little bit.
We’d like to remember
Eleanor Comeau who came for a visit recently and lives in Virginia.
Ethel Norton who lives in Ohio and has been a friend of my Mom and Dad for nearly 60 years...
Rita Laghasse who is at South Point nursing home and is a friend of my mother.
Friends of my mother that are no longer with us are:
Connie Mercier
Rita Gendreau
Amelia Geary
Connie Charet
It’s a great privilege to talk with you about a woman that so many people loved so very much. My mother’s too early passing is as shocking as it is painful. It is profound and difficult and life changing for all of us. As painful as this has been, the outpouring of love, affection and kindness expressed for my mother over these last weeks and months has softened our pain and been nothing short of miraculous.
As we try to understand our loss, I feel as many of you must feel, that we should pay our respects. But we also might simply pay attention: To who my mother was and what her life taught us.
My mother received the news of her disease and faced her death with a level of dignity so great I will carry it with me for the rest of my life. After her doctor told her that her disease was inoperable and that chemotherapy would help, but not cure her, she didn’t cry, or rail or ask “why me?” She simply said, “I understand.” She then asked her doctor where he had gone on vacation, if he had enjoyed himself and if his whole family had been with him. She finished her visit by asking if she could still take Tylenol PM. In these past weeks and months my mother did not issue a single complaint. Not even one.
I think that people feel about my mom the way they do is that she was a deeply caring person who was curious, funny and light-hearted. She connected. Even on her deathbed – my mother was a person who created deep connections with others...She understood a well known truth, that love is the fundamental human experience; it pervades all our actions, and is the deepest motivating force in life.
Her life was a great gift -- a lesson in how one person can carry the hopes and longings of other people -- and her dying has been a profound example of human dignity, in how we can take our leave with courage and humor... My mother was never as funny as she was in the weeks before she died. In her last days my mother taught me more about courage and life than any person could hope for.
One of my mother’s lifelong lessons to me was simple and powerful: She used to say, “You can be anything you want to be in this life as long as you want it bad enough.” I can attest to the power of that lesson.
My mother liked tea, wine, chocolate, scrabble, books but above all she liked people. She liked to work out. She was charming, smart and devoted. She was cool. She loved Book TV on CSPAN. When I was growing up, she was wild about college basketball, yelling at the TV... She loved small portions of good food and loved it all the more if someone else had prepared it.
My mother seemed able to change with the times but one thing never changed. She always remembered to care.
If someone’s mother was in the hospital, my mother remembered. If someone’s mother’s third cousin’s uncle was in the hospital, my mother remembered. If you changed jobs, moved to a different state, remarried or lost a spouse, she carried your sorrows, your dreams and your hopes around with her like a necklace.
My mother never wanted to impose on anyone for anything and it is no stretch to imagine her feeling guilty for having gotten sick.
A lot of you know that my mom was a maker of beautiful things. I have this picture in my mind when my sister and I were young... my Mom would be on her hands and knees, a dress or coat pattern laid out on the floor of my sister’s bedroom. She’d be holding a bunch of pins in between her lips as she pinned cloth to pattern for a dress or a coat or a suit. Later came these very beautiful tablecloths, Afghans and blankets made of patience and love and talent and more patience. You look at one stitch and the next one and the next one and soon you see the pattern of a whole life come into focus. One stitch at a time, one row at a time, one blanket, one friend, one niece or nephew at a time, she carefully, patiently and lovingly stitched together a beautiful life for herself and the people she loved and cared about.
My Mom was a world-class listener with a million stories – stories of kindness, of struggle, of triumph. Funny stories and sad ones. Every friend, niece, nephew and acquaintance was a story and every story was instructive.
My mom’s most impressive quality – her caring - was one that may have given her some trouble. My mom didn’t know how to detach so well.... It’s no small trick to know how to care deeply for people and to let go a little at the same time... The other side of caring is worry, and worry has a way of becoming a constant companion.... Like a lot of Mom’s my Mom was a championship worrier, and all that worrying took its toll...
Even though my mom would tell you she wasn’t assertive enough and had a tough time standing up for herself, she had an extraordinary and powerful will. I think my Dad can attest to that. Like many women she underestimated herself. She was far, far stronger than she gave herself credit for.
There are moments from these last few weeks that I will never forget.
My mother’s hospice worker was Mary Jo. She and my mother bonded on a very deep level. One night she told us, “Your mother is so strong it’s unbelievable. In all my experience I just don’t see this. After this many days, I just can’t believe it.” At the time, my mother hadn’t had any food to speak of in eighteen days.
Quite a bit later when my mother was barely speaking at all, Mary Jo came in to bathe her and she leaned in close to her friend’s ear and said, “Hi. I love you.” My mother whispered to her, “I love you more.”
Anyone who knew and loved my mother can only feel a deep sense of gratitude and relief that her suffering is over. I can tell you that the rest she has found has been deeply earned.
No one can presume to speak for others in a moment like this. But I know how much my father loved my mother and I have seen him struggle to cope with the loss of his wife of nearly 60 years. I have seen him cry and I cannot begin to imagine how he feels right now. He will need our love and support. My sister is as close to my mother as a daughter could possibly be. They are bound together – the way mother and daughter should be. She has stood beside my mother through very difficult days and long nights, holding her, lifting her, comforting her, making her beautiful... I saw in my sister’s devotion to my mother a deep well of love that was a crystal clear reflection of my mother’s being...When you leave here today, I ask you to hold my father and my sister in your thoughts and prayers...
We say goodbye today to a strong woman. A kind, lovely and gracious woman. I am proud to stand here today as her son. My mother made it her life’s work to live and love well, to make beautiful things, to make this world a better place, to love her children and her husband and her extended family day in and day out. My mother was a woman who never, ever stopped trying; to stretch herself, to keep learning, to stay healthy, to keep in touch, to nourish her own humanity and the humanity of others...Those are the lessons she leaves us.
I’d like to close with a brief and beautiful poem. It appears in the very last book of a very great writer. I never dreamed I would read this work at own my mothers’ funeral. It’s called Late Fragment, it's by Raymond Carver, and it goes like this:
And did you get what you wanted from this life even so?
I did.
And what was that?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
Our friend Jean was born on June 20, 1922. She was 83 years young on March 31, 2006, when she bade us farewell on a beautiful, soft spring day. Mother, you were truly and deeply beloved on the earth...We loved you more.
I should first say that no one would appreciate more the irony of my standing before you in a church pulpit than my mother. I’m not sure whether I should thank her for this or chastise her for putting me here...
Before I begin, I want to remember a few of my mom’s friends. My mother never forgot her friends and I think the best way for us to honor her memory is to remember her friends for her. Some couldn’t be here with us today because of their health, or they live too far away and some are no longer with us. I want to briefly mention their names and then I’d like to talk to you about my mom a little bit.
We’d like to remember
Eleanor Comeau who came for a visit recently and lives in Virginia.
Ethel Norton who lives in Ohio and has been a friend of my Mom and Dad for nearly 60 years...
Rita Laghasse who is at South Point nursing home and is a friend of my mother.
Friends of my mother that are no longer with us are:
Connie Mercier
Rita Gendreau
Amelia Geary
Connie Charet
It’s a great privilege to talk with you about a woman that so many people loved so very much. My mother’s too early passing is as shocking as it is painful. It is profound and difficult and life changing for all of us. As painful as this has been, the outpouring of love, affection and kindness expressed for my mother over these last weeks and months has softened our pain and been nothing short of miraculous.
As we try to understand our loss, I feel as many of you must feel, that we should pay our respects. But we also might simply pay attention: To who my mother was and what her life taught us.
My mother received the news of her disease and faced her death with a level of dignity so great I will carry it with me for the rest of my life. After her doctor told her that her disease was inoperable and that chemotherapy would help, but not cure her, she didn’t cry, or rail or ask “why me?” She simply said, “I understand.” She then asked her doctor where he had gone on vacation, if he had enjoyed himself and if his whole family had been with him. She finished her visit by asking if she could still take Tylenol PM. In these past weeks and months my mother did not issue a single complaint. Not even one.
I think that people feel about my mom the way they do is that she was a deeply caring person who was curious, funny and light-hearted. She connected. Even on her deathbed – my mother was a person who created deep connections with others...She understood a well known truth, that love is the fundamental human experience; it pervades all our actions, and is the deepest motivating force in life.
Her life was a great gift -- a lesson in how one person can carry the hopes and longings of other people -- and her dying has been a profound example of human dignity, in how we can take our leave with courage and humor... My mother was never as funny as she was in the weeks before she died. In her last days my mother taught me more about courage and life than any person could hope for.
One of my mother’s lifelong lessons to me was simple and powerful: She used to say, “You can be anything you want to be in this life as long as you want it bad enough.” I can attest to the power of that lesson.
My mother liked tea, wine, chocolate, scrabble, books but above all she liked people. She liked to work out. She was charming, smart and devoted. She was cool. She loved Book TV on CSPAN. When I was growing up, she was wild about college basketball, yelling at the TV... She loved small portions of good food and loved it all the more if someone else had prepared it.
My mother seemed able to change with the times but one thing never changed. She always remembered to care.
If someone’s mother was in the hospital, my mother remembered. If someone’s mother’s third cousin’s uncle was in the hospital, my mother remembered. If you changed jobs, moved to a different state, remarried or lost a spouse, she carried your sorrows, your dreams and your hopes around with her like a necklace.
My mother never wanted to impose on anyone for anything and it is no stretch to imagine her feeling guilty for having gotten sick.
A lot of you know that my mom was a maker of beautiful things. I have this picture in my mind when my sister and I were young... my Mom would be on her hands and knees, a dress or coat pattern laid out on the floor of my sister’s bedroom. She’d be holding a bunch of pins in between her lips as she pinned cloth to pattern for a dress or a coat or a suit. Later came these very beautiful tablecloths, Afghans and blankets made of patience and love and talent and more patience. You look at one stitch and the next one and the next one and soon you see the pattern of a whole life come into focus. One stitch at a time, one row at a time, one blanket, one friend, one niece or nephew at a time, she carefully, patiently and lovingly stitched together a beautiful life for herself and the people she loved and cared about.
My Mom was a world-class listener with a million stories – stories of kindness, of struggle, of triumph. Funny stories and sad ones. Every friend, niece, nephew and acquaintance was a story and every story was instructive.
My mom’s most impressive quality – her caring - was one that may have given her some trouble. My mom didn’t know how to detach so well.... It’s no small trick to know how to care deeply for people and to let go a little at the same time... The other side of caring is worry, and worry has a way of becoming a constant companion.... Like a lot of Mom’s my Mom was a championship worrier, and all that worrying took its toll...
Even though my mom would tell you she wasn’t assertive enough and had a tough time standing up for herself, she had an extraordinary and powerful will. I think my Dad can attest to that. Like many women she underestimated herself. She was far, far stronger than she gave herself credit for.
There are moments from these last few weeks that I will never forget.
My mother’s hospice worker was Mary Jo. She and my mother bonded on a very deep level. One night she told us, “Your mother is so strong it’s unbelievable. In all my experience I just don’t see this. After this many days, I just can’t believe it.” At the time, my mother hadn’t had any food to speak of in eighteen days.
Quite a bit later when my mother was barely speaking at all, Mary Jo came in to bathe her and she leaned in close to her friend’s ear and said, “Hi. I love you.” My mother whispered to her, “I love you more.”
Anyone who knew and loved my mother can only feel a deep sense of gratitude and relief that her suffering is over. I can tell you that the rest she has found has been deeply earned.
No one can presume to speak for others in a moment like this. But I know how much my father loved my mother and I have seen him struggle to cope with the loss of his wife of nearly 60 years. I have seen him cry and I cannot begin to imagine how he feels right now. He will need our love and support. My sister is as close to my mother as a daughter could possibly be. They are bound together – the way mother and daughter should be. She has stood beside my mother through very difficult days and long nights, holding her, lifting her, comforting her, making her beautiful... I saw in my sister’s devotion to my mother a deep well of love that was a crystal clear reflection of my mother’s being...When you leave here today, I ask you to hold my father and my sister in your thoughts and prayers...
We say goodbye today to a strong woman. A kind, lovely and gracious woman. I am proud to stand here today as her son. My mother made it her life’s work to live and love well, to make beautiful things, to make this world a better place, to love her children and her husband and her extended family day in and day out. My mother was a woman who never, ever stopped trying; to stretch herself, to keep learning, to stay healthy, to keep in touch, to nourish her own humanity and the humanity of others...Those are the lessons she leaves us.
I’d like to close with a brief and beautiful poem. It appears in the very last book of a very great writer. I never dreamed I would read this work at own my mothers’ funeral. It’s called Late Fragment, it's by Raymond Carver, and it goes like this:
And did you get what you wanted from this life even so?
I did.
And what was that?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
Our friend Jean was born on June 20, 1922. She was 83 years young on March 31, 2006, when she bade us farewell on a beautiful, soft spring day. Mother, you were truly and deeply beloved on the earth...We loved you more.
posted by richard at
5:50 PM
1 Comments:
Thank you for sharing such a wonderful and loving tribute to your mother.
My Mother just passed on as well. March 24th, she was 68.
I found your blog, by just clicking on the next blog link at the top... this was the first time I had done this... so I found it appropriate that I was led here. Your family will be in my thoughts and prayers too...
D
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