"If there is anything better than to be loved, it is loving." ~ Anonymous
My mom, never known by her birth name - Georgiana - died. It's been near six months since her death January 11, 2023 at age 92 3/4 years old. I'm still deep in mourning.
The following is the eulogy I gave at her funeral. I'm posting it here because it tells as clearly as can be "summed up" my relationship with my mom.
Mom’s Eulogy entitled, “Cats and Chair Legs”
Hi, my name is L. My friends call me ____ or just L. I’m the sixth of my parent’s seven children. I want to thank you all today for taking the time to come - from near and far - to honor our mother - legally known as, Georgiana _____ - but aka Georgia Ann ____.
I remember writing the eulogy for my dad. I thought it would be hard to do, but I wanted to do it. And now I’m here again because I want to be. But this time, it’s harder. So much harder.
I thought I had had deep love for both my mom and dad and my grandma, too! They were my everything.
But I realize now, I didn’t know how high the level of love goes. I didn’t know what the ultimate kind of love was. I didn’t know the kind of love where I would do something incredibly hard, but say, when my mom asked if it was hard, “No, it was EASY!” I didn’t know the kind of love where, you could feel like you were drowning, but you threw the only life jacket to the other person and when asked if you were okay, you’d say, “Yeah, I’m fine!” I didn’t know that kind of love before.
But I do know - and have for years - that it would be hard to love someone more deeply than I loved our mom. And yet it wasn’t always that way. We have to go back a bit.
I was 4 years old. And I had 5 siblings older than me. But my mom would say to me, every so often, “You’re the one that’s going to take care of me when I’m old!” Repeat, “You’re the one that’s going to take care of me when I’m old.” And *sigh* I think by age 10 I figured out that, NO WAY! No way did I want to take care of my mom when she was old! I probably finally told her I didn’t want to take care of her and I wasn’t gonna take care of her! And she never said those words to me again. Ever.
And then with my teens years, of butting heads with her and being the brat I was, she probably was like, “I’m NEVER going to let L take care of me when I’m old!” 😂
But God had his plan. His Plan is the one that IS GOING TO BE. There’s no way around it… I’ve actually tried!
So re-wind to what seems like a thousand years!
I moved back to _____ in 2007 to live with my mom. And it wasn’t for me to take care of her. It was because I was lonely and had been on my own for longer than I could ever have fathomed. I needed the companionship; I needed the love! I needed her.
And I wish I could say it was all smooth sailing, but it wasn’t. My mom had a lot on her plate… of which I knew nothing at the time. And, ultimately, she had a breakdown that I wasn’t sure she could recover from. I remember a psychiatric social worker saying to me, “The mother you had may be gone; this (crazy person!) might be your “new” mom!” And I fought that idea like a crazy person!
I didn’t know how it would be done - how she would get from a psychotic breakdown back to her normal self - only that I was gonna be in the fight to make all the positives I could, happen. And that year of her recovery was the hardest year of my life. Much harder than anything that I have had to do for my mom in these last 6 years - and we’ve gone through some pretty tough times in these years too.
But the one thing I promised my mom then - at the beginning of 2009 - was that I would take care of her for the rest of her life! I want to laugh because what my mom had said when I was 4 years old was manifesting into reality 50 some odd years later. But I said to her, “I promise, I will take care of you for the rest of your life!” And I kept my promise.
But at the time I made that promise I had no idea that I would be bestowed the greatest kind of HONOR!
That God was BLESSING ME with the most amazing GIFT!
That He was allowing me the PRIVILEGE of taking care of my momma.
And not only did I get the gift of taking care of her! I got a twofer in the process! Because by honoring my mother, I honored my father… who had treasured her most!
In my dad’s eulogy I read a poem by W.H. Auden and the poem describes just how drastically a loss feels and says, “The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, Pack up the moon and dismantle the Sun, Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods; because nothing now can ever be as good.”
And, *sigh* it was true… But what I found, the longer I cared for my mother, was that losing her, for me, has been way more than just a, packing up of the moon and dismantling the sun… it feels more like, why not just take the galaxy apart while you’re at it!
It’s a physical pain to no longer have that person around that has been loved so deeply, and so long, by so many. For my sisters - Le, C. and K. - to no longer have tea-time with our mom; to not have our mom join them to say their loving prayers. For Leeny to be somewhere in the world not be able to call just to hear her mom’s voice. For Le to no longer watch Jeopardy! with our mom and win against the tight competition. For my brothers - P.M. and P. - to no longer have a mother to drop in on. And for Chris to come over to visit before the girls came filing in.
But, Chris, let me just tell you this, when I would ask mom… later, “How’d your visit with Chris go?” She’d tell it straight as can be. She’d say, “He fell asleep!” And then she’d add, “and he snored!” And my mom would continue by saying, “I just LOVE to hear him sleeping; I love to hear him snoring!” *sigh* lol! So, people, NEVER underestimate the power of your presence with an elderly parent. They can listen to you breathe - have you fall asleep on them! - and they will still be happy; they will still be so glad that you are there with them!
And, for myself, these years - the years of taking care of my mom getting older have, like I said, been a privilege I would never have fathomed. To get to know my mom; to get to love on my mom; to get to be “two peas in a pod” with her has been the greatest joy of my life.
And our mom was tough! K. and I like the term “well-fortified” in regards to our momma… or as K. would say, “my Mams!” But Mam’s toughness wasn’t just a physical toughness but more importantly, it was a mental and spiritual toughness. Mam’s was mentally and spiritually well-fortified! And if God blesses us - her legacy! - with just some of that well-fortified mental or spiritual toughness it will be a gift we all should appreciate.
With my mom whatever conversation she didn’t have with people during the day, trust me, at 3:00am her Chatty Cathy would come out. I’d say to her, why are you talk’n about all this now - in the middle of the night - when we had all afternoon together and you coulda said anything? And she was like, “Well, I wasn’t think’n of it then!
And my mom was the most creative, imaginative dreamer I have ever known. I had a monitor in my room for her to call me and I found out, nearly every night was gonna be a great - tiring, maybe - but a GREAT adventure!
One time, she called me on the monitor to help me get her out of the bath tub. It was 2:00am. I always tried to “air traffic” control those calls. Like, you’re fine use Runway 3 it’s wide open with a soft bed to land on!” I’d say, you’re not in the bathtub you’re in your bed. She wouldn’t believe me. So that was a, go upstairs and figure it out situation.
When I got to her and laid on the bed next to her, I used my reason and logic skills to persuade her she wasn’t in the bath tub. I said, what’s your head laying on right now? You feel that? And she replied, “A pillow.” So I’d say, do think you’d have a pillow in the bathtub? And she’d say, “Oh, that’s a great idea!” When I put the soft, fleece blanket against her skin, I’d ask can you feel that warm, fleece blanket on your face? And she’d be like, “What a wonderful wash cloth!” Like, there was nothing I was gonna do or say - and I kept trying! - to make her think in real terms - her logic and reasoning skill wasn’t losing out to mine that night, that’s for sure. So I took the L… I took the loss on that one!
Another time in the middle of the night when I went up to give her water I asked, Whatchya been do’n? She answered, “Just taking a walk on the beach… in _____… with Grace Kelly! I was like, the Princess of Monaco? And, she was like, yes, of course.
And then there was a middle of the night dream that involved being in Japan, a Lamborghini, my dad’s long feet, and short shoes. A dream that my mom would remember every detail of in the afternoon and laugh at all over again. As Kathleen can attest, my mom laughed at that dream being brought up for near a year!
She dreamed of her sons and daughters and grandkids and great-grandkids and all of them were just too interesting; and amazingly detailed. P.M., S___ and Sa___ get’n shut down for gambling in Miami at 11:30 pm, then on the run up north where I guess my mom got involved at 3:00 am; the police surrounded them - they couldn’t go anywhere anyway the car was shot up with BB guns and wouldn’t work… that was right there between the Krispy Kreme and the Walgreens on ____ and _____. For that one I said, “Listen, mom, everything’s gonna be alright. And because you weren’t really instigating all the crime maybe they’ll give you… and I couldn’t think of the word I wanted to say… I was like, you know the word when you aren’t so responsible? and my mom said, “Clemency?” And I’m like, “Yeah, that’s it! They’ll probably give you clemency! “Jeopardy! Points” My mom dreamed that dream for 3 1/2 hours!
Our routine was 7:00pm supper and dessert. Then our loving CNA’s getting her to bed. And afterward that’s when I would find my way into her darkened room and lay down on her bed next to her and I would rest my left hand on her right ear - so she was cradled, and I’d find my “spot” where my forehead would be resting against her face. And we would have what we ultimately called Cuddle Time! And at first, when it started it was purely done for my mom. Because in my heart, I wanted my mom to fall asleep each night feeling PEACE; feeling LOVED; and feeling HONORED. And I think she did.
But then Cuddle Time turned out to be what we both looked forward to because, ultimately, I couldn’t help but feel the love returned. And my soul and spirit needed that, too!
I have a prayer I want to say, but before that, I want to explain the title of this eulogy. “Cats and Chair Legs”
In the beginning I spoke about levels of love. And during Cuddle Time my level of love got tested. Because when I held my mom gently, like I mentioned previously, it was sweet and comforting. But all of the sudden she’d turn her forehead into mine and it kinda felt like she was burrowing her forehead into me. And the first time it happened, I didn’t know exactly what was going on, but then I got back into my “spot” and she burrowed into me again! And it finally kind of dawned on me and I said to her, “Mom! You are NOT a CAT and I am NOT a CHAIR LEG!” And *sigh* then I would scratch where she wanted scratched and we would get back to our Cuddle Time. But so many Cuddle Time nights my mom would continue to be the cat and continue to try and use me as the chair leg. Until, ultimately, it happened so naturally, we both got to laugh at my mom being the Cat and me being the Chair Leg!
So, finally we come to the following prayer by John Henry Cardinal Newman written March 7, 1848 which is one that I - and my mom - hold dear. The prayer both reminds us of hope and gives us faith, and it reminds us of faith and gives us hope.
"Hope in God—Creator"
"God knows me and calls me by my name.…
God has created me to do Him some definite service;
He has committed some work to me
which He has not committed to another.
I have my mission—I never may know it in this life,
but I shall be told it in the next.
Somehow I am necessary for His purposes…
I have a part in this great work;
I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection
between persons.
He has not created me for naught. I shall do good,
I shall do His work;
I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth
in my own place, while not intending it,
if I do but keep His commandments
and serve Him in my calling.
Therefore I will trust Him.
Whatever, wherever I am,
I can never be thrown away.
If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him;
In perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him;
If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him.
My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be
necessary causes of some great end,
which is quite beyond us.
He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life,
He may shorten it;
He knows what He is about.
He may take away my friends,
He may throw me among strangers,
He may make me feel desolate,
make my spirits sink, hide the future from me—
still He knows what He is about.…
Let me be Thy blind instrument. I ask not to see—
I ask not to know—I ask simply to be used."
BE IN JOY MOMMA! UNTIL WE MEET WITH YOU AGAIN… IN JOY !
__________
So as I said, it has been nearly six months since I lost my mom. It has been insanely hard because there was only one prayer I would pray to God regarding my mom dying. I said, "God, please don't let it be something I do or don't do that causes my mom to die." I prayed that prayer because I knew - as the sensitive soul I am - that I would be devastated to have to handle that kind of blame or guilt. And God, as he so often does, ignored my prayer! I have felt like I failed my mother. You can ask anyone that knew how I caregived for her and every single person will say something like, you gave her an extra 10 years of living; you didn't fail her. Heck, my mom would say that I didn't fail her! But it doesn't matter what they say, how good I know I loved and took care of my mom, in my head it's "factual" that I failed her. I can say, I wasn't the only one who failed her - there were plenty of failures by the hospital and the staff from the get-go that I feel failed her, too - but I was the only one that had prayed that prayer to God to not let it be something I did or didn't do... that caused her to die. You can read this and feel like, wow, she was 92 3/4 years old, it seems like she lived a long and happy life! But, in my mind, it's not the age - if it was a 2 year old I would feel the same way - it was the belief that her death was a *needless* death. In other words, I did not - still don't! - think she *had* to die then. I think she had the perfect storm of so many things out of her control - be it via me, the hospital or its staff (my dad used to say, "If you can make it out of hospital alive, you're doing something right!) - that her fighting to live... which she was... was an up-hill battle.
So that brings me to now. My mom had, in 2014, amended her Will to allow me six months to live in our home - the home of my childhood - before I needed to move out. And now that six months is up just days away. I will be moving to a rental unit on July 11th and hope not to stay there for more than a year. I bought the house next door to my mom six years ago but have had it rented out while I lived with her.
And, part of the reason why I wanted to share my mom and my story is because it ultimately does relate to my age and still wanting - going to be trying (I had dropped off it for the last year) again - to have the family of my own I have always dreamed of... and why I started this blog in the first place. I'll write more about the *significance* of our story and my Dreaming Miracles "journey" in my next post.
Following is a short video clip of me and my mom over the years...
