Tag: Eulogy

While I’m attending XOXO Fest, I’m running older writings that have not yet been published. Here is the eulogy I wrote for my mom’s funeral, back in July of 2001. Probably this would be more symbolic if I posted it on an even anniversary, but regardless here it is. Enjoy. I’ll be back soon, recharged and ready to create again soon.

On Christmas of 1993, I gave my mom a blank book. I intended for her to use it as a journal, to record her thoughts, her poems or whatever she wanted to write down.

She kept the journal, off and on, until 1999. The book spans five years of her life. There is a gap coinciding with her first bout with cancer. I think that she was embarrassed by it, even in so private a place as her journal.

In going through her belongings, I found and kept her journal. I completed the circle; I gave it to her, and I’d like to think that she would have wanted me to have it now.

I sat down with it a couple of days ago, and read it straight through in one sitting. I had never, during her life, thought to read her journal. My mother was a private person; there are still parts of her life that I will never know. I had a question, however: what did my mother feel was important enough to write down?

First, it’s interesting to me to make a comment on what she didn’t write about. Herself.

In five years of keeping a journal, my mother commented on her health exactly three times. On December 29, 1993, she wrote: “Max is not up to play today. He has a slight fever and cough. I have one too. I hope we all stay well this year.”

Then, five years later, on December 30, 1998, she wrote of a Christmas trip to Cancun: “I was not feeling well and it took us four hours to leave Mex.”

Finally, on February 10, 1999, she wrote: “I went to the Dr. and have to take Blood pressure pills.” That was the final entry.

Three times in five years, she wrote about herself. And what fills the rest of the pages of her journal? What was important to her, important enough to write down, off and on, for that length of time? What did she want to record, presumably in a place that only she would see?

Family.

Entry after entry, she talks about her family. Everyone appears in there. She talks about dad coming home from work and taking her out to dinner. She talks about Lisa, stopping by to visit her, or going over to Lisa and Bill’s house. She talks about me, moving to Texas to follow a silly dream of working for a silly computer company. She talks about hearing from Donna on Mother’s Day, and Kevin, and Daniel. She talks about her sisters and brothers; Carol coming over to stay the night, or taking a road trip to the beach with Mary and Carol to visit Marge and Bill. She talks about dinner with Don and Helen. Aunt Lois appears in there.

And Max. She wrote about Max a lot. December 30 1993: “Max and I spent the day together. He is joy.” I can’t believe that that was a typo.

She felt that way about all of her family. Her family was joy. This was a woman who knew what was important in life. She rarely mentioned things, and money doesn’t make a single appearance in her journal. Her family, however, is front and center.

My mother was a human being, like all of us. She had strengths and weaknesses, like all of us. I really hesitate to try to force a single lesson out of a life as rich as hers was. But if I had to do it, if I had to point to one lesson that we could all take away from having had her in our lives, it would be this: family should be the one thing worth remembering.