I've set this to post at 1:30 EST. This should be right around the time that I'm actually giving this eulogy at my mother's service, or have completed it. But I wanted to share with it more than only the people in the room today:
A little over two years ago, I had very little difficulty speaking off the cuff and without a net about my father. Today, I know I’ll have to use the medium in which I find myself most comfortable expressing myself, or I’ll be unable to get much, if anything, out. In fact, I started writing this Sunday morning, knowing I would need it.
Maybe this was because with Dad, I was silently mentally preparing for years, and with Mom, it came as a great and sudden shock, as I know it was for all of us. I had completely expected Mom to have many more years, despite her MS.
Maybe this was also because my father and I had a much different relationship than my mother and I had. A much simpler, easier to define relationship. Mom and I had much more difficult to define relationship, beyond “mother/son.” In fact, one of the things people tend to ask me, when they first meet me, is “how can you talk to your mother like that?” They always seemed to assume that because I would occasionally yell at Mom, that yelling meant I didn’t love her. Well, they were wrong. Because I do. I’m not sure she knows how much because of our unique relationship, but she probably did. When it came to love, she is, was, and will always be much wiser than me.
One of the best books I ever read was the Pulitzer Prize winning biography “Growing Up” by Russell Baker. If you’ve never read it, I highly recommend it. If I could write a book like that about my childhood, I would, but unfortunately, where my mother lacked in short term, I seem to lack in long term memory. I can remember vague things, but the details tend to elude me. The one person I could turn to, to help fill in the gaps, or to get me on the right track simply because she was slightly wrong, but right enough to get those memories unlocked in my own brain, is now no longer here. But, I’ll try to do my best.
I entered my mother’s life a little shy of 31 years ago. Setting a trend, I gave her trouble that day as I tried to enter this world literally ass backwards. I have always said that I started my philosophy of mooning the world early, she would always admonish me for that sentiment. But no matter how much trouble I gave her, she always supported me. When I decided, somewhere around 6 years old, that, for reasons I can not recall and I don’t think I ever expressed back then, that I didn’t want to go to church anymore, she supported me, even though I’m sure that was a great disappointment to her. She drove me to countless baseball practices and games. She encouraged my interest in playing a musical instrument. When I came home in grade school and thought for sure I knew where babies came from because Davey Powell told me, she patiently listened to what I thought, and firmly let me know I was wrong. For the record, I was close, but also very very far off at the same time. I don’t think I ever trusted Davey Powell again.
As I grew older, and her MS progressed and she starting losing more and more mobility, she helped teach me the small, yet important stuff. Like cooking. I continued to be surprised by how many people, especially men, my age are not only unable to cook, they are uncomfortable with even trying. My mother made sure that was not that case with me, and whether it was recognizance on her part or simply necessity, the end result remains the same. I may have gotten my tendency to want to improvise while cooking from my father, but I learned how to cook from my mother, so we’d have dinner on the table when Dad came home from work. As a surly teenager, she always took my stock answer of “fine,” to the question “how was your day?” in stride. When I would tell her that if she wanted my name to be “VanKenBart,” the cycle she would normally run through in the morning when trying to wake me up, she should have named me that, she wouldn’t be too offended. It might surprise some of you to learn that, primarily, my mother taught me how to drive. Conversely, though, it was me who told her, in no uncertain terms, one day that she was never to drive again…luckily this was the day she drove the two of us to get her passenger seat converted in to one that swiveled out so she could get in to it.
When I dropped out of college, she was obviously disappointed, but as was her way, she rolled with it. But I could tell that when I got back on track with my education she was proud, and the expression on her, and Dad’s, face, when I got my bachelor’s degree was worth every hour of class and every annoying test.
My mother and I did argue a lot, though. I couldn’t deny this even if I were inclined to try…too many people saw it first hand. I’m both ashamed and unashamed of these arguments, and it’s hard to figure out why. They mainly stemmed from our personalities plus her MS clashing. She had horrible short term memory and was stubborn. I have little patience for repeating myself and am also stubborn. I also wasn’t very forthcoming about myself, so on many occasions we’d have our unique problem of her thinking things about me that were completely different. She would either have pictured something as her ideal for me, or simply remembered something about me from when I was younger. For instance, a few Christmases ago, before we were married, Jessie wanted to help Mom shop for me by going to the house and helping her shop online. When she did, she also mentioned that I was in need of underwear, and told her the kind I wear: boxer briefs. Jessie asked if Mom wanted her to write that down for her, but she said no, that she knew her son. Well, come Christmas day, I open a package with underwear: tighty whities. I had worn those when I was younger, but had changed styles when I went to college. But I never told her that, and I wasn’t walking around the house in my underwear (like father like son) anymore, so she didn’t know, and to her, I wore regular briefs underwear, not that boxer brief stuff. So it’s no wonder we’d argue, so why should I feel ashamed? I think it’s because of what I spoke of earlier…it made people think I didn’t love my mother. I would have to tell people occasionally: “sometimes I really don’t like my mother, but I love her.” And I think when people got to know us better they understood our weird relationship. I would do anything, and on some occasions, DID anything, for my mother. Like right now, pouring my heart out in her honor. Ask anyone, especially my wonderful wife, I’m not someone who talks about his feelings. But for Mom, today, I am, even if I had to prepare them ahead of time, though I’m crying right now as I type, and I’ll probably be crying as I speak. She deserves that for all the trouble I gave her.
My mother was an eternally optimistic woman, which went well with her stubbornness. Besides the normal time a son should hear his mother say “no,” I rarely heard it out of her. She would continue to try and do things, well beyond the point in time where she really should have stopped (like driving). She was warm and loving, and made friends very easily. And I know she cherished every one of those friendships dearly by how she spoke of them. I wish I could make friends the way Mom could make friends. If that skill was a job, Mom would have risen fast and become CEO very quickly.
I want everyone, her family and cherished friends to know, that she wasn’t alone in the end. She had me there, she had her blood sister Sherry there, and she had her life-sister Mary-Ann there. My only regret is that she never got the chance to meet her granddaughter. But believe me, I will let little
I’m not a religious man as I mentioned before. But I know that right now, Mom is with Dad again. She’s with Dad, she’s with her parents, she’s with her life-brother Evan, and with so many others as well. And when we’re done here today, she’ll smile. Then she’ll hold Dad’s hand. She’ll smile at him, at Grandmother and Grandfather (or Mom-mom and Gramps), and at Evan, and everyone else she’s with, and she will say “let’s go for a walk.” And she’ll stand up, and walk with them, wherever, simply because she can.
That was a beautiful eulogy. Thank you so much for sharing it here and letting me learn a little bit about your mom.
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