Almost a year later: My Eulogy for my Mother, March 2014

My Mother passed away March 10 of last year.  I wrote and delivered this Eulogy for her that week.  As I go through my notes on the year and the things I've written, I feel like it's time I shared this. My next column will be a reflection on having written this, so it felt like a good thing to get out there. 

If you’ve ever had a conversation with me, you’ll understand why it is rare that anyone offers me a microphone.  That said, one of my mother’s favorite things to say at church was, “If you can’t say it well AND under ten minutes, you probably shouldn’t be up there talking.”  So, I’ll do my best to honor that today.

I remember as I was writing the eulogy for my father when he passed away in 1990 and was having trouble getting started.  Mom told me that whatever it was I was going to say, much like the service itself, wasn’t really for the person who died-it was for everybody else.  She also told me not to overthink it too. 

 

Mom faced a lot of challenges in her life.  She faced challenges in her youth, then later dealing with the loss of her first child, our sister Patricia, at a very young age.  Losing our father very young as well and being left alone as a parent to deal with my sister and I-as a parent and a spouse myself, I cannot imagine the reserves it took to endure any of that.  But, she did it.

 

Mom was not one for leaving things unsaid.  If she had an opinion, and she always did, it’s likely she would share it with you early, often, and whether or not you had asked for it.  At the heart of that though is one of the things she taught me.  As dad was dying, she encouraged me to be honest and direct with my friends and my family about what I was feeling and needing and to say whatever it was I needed to say to my father, whenever I could.  She said, “If you keep your relationships current and up to date with the people you love, then they never really go away.”  I recall that I used that exact line in my sister-in-laws wedding toast, which I was given a grand total of 42 seconds to prepare for… I know that the last thing I said to her was that we loved her and she said the same.  I’m grateful for that lesson as it helped me leave nothing unsaid with my father and I’m pleased to say that the same is true with my mother.  I’m glad we had these last few years with her here in Virginia where she had the chance to spend time with her grandchildren and made new friends here at St. Andrews and at Heatherwood. 

 

Mom was a complex person, and I can appreciate so much more now the intensity that she brought to the table when dealing with the challenges that we faced as kids.  Losing our sister so young was a tremendous loss, but life in our parents’ home was rarely dull.  We were encouraged to try everything and mom and dad were frequently shuttling us around to choir, play practice, swimming, baseball, horseback riding, basketball, youth group, and anything else we wanted to try.  There were the brief experiments with soccer, rowing crew and drum lessons too, but by the end, even my mom was making me walk to the Drum lessons…I wasn’t real good.  Listening to Friday’s with Frank (Sinatra…) on the radio and Family dinners with the radio on-occasional dance breaks if the Platters or Dion and the Belmonts or Sam Cooke came on.  Our home was permeated with music and I like the way that sits in my memory.

 

Mom was genuinely tough and she expected a lot of us as kids and expected as much if not more from the people who were our teachers and leaders.  I remember vividly in 7^th grade I was assigned a Comparative biography project.  I had to pick two historical figures and do a biography on both and a comparative study.  Social studies was my best subject at the time, and probably the only one I wasn’t getting phone calls from teachers about, so I was really excited.  As dad and I had just watched the PBS “Eyes on the Prize” documentary series about the Civil Rights Movement, he suggested that I compare Malcolm X, whose autobiography mom had me reading, and slave revolt leader Nat Turner.  I excitedly presented my idea to my teacher, who was appalled-promptly forbidding me from doing such an inflammatory project and sent me to the Principals office.  I knew the way…Sister Karina explained that my choices were not appropriate due to their “violent and controversial predilections.”  Having already discussed historical bias with my father, I said something rather snarky to my Principal which of course resulted in a call to mom, and as I recall, Sister did not need to look up the number.

 

After Sister explained her position on my paper and that she expected my mom and dad to support the school point of view, I could hear, across the desk, through the giant old style rotary handheld phone, my mom essentially lose her mind on Sister Karina.  “Are you kidding me with this?!  That’s IT!  You have gone too far this time, Sister.  You are absolutely NOT going to tell my child what he can or cannot read and learn about, especially in the one class he does well in!”  Sister tried to explain her opinion again, but I knew it was all over for her on this one.  I’d been on the other end of a few of mom’s ‘bestowing of opinions’ and I knew Sister didn’t have a chance.  I heard her through the receiver across the room, as Sister pulled it from her ear, “MY son is doing this report, and he’s going to nail it.  Maybe you’ll even learn something or so help me God, I will have the ACLU picketing your convent faster than you can blink!” 

 

I’d never heard anyone talk to a nun that way and it was by far my favorite trip to the principal’s office, though not my last.  I think on that every time I advocate for my kids.  She made sure I did a good job on that report too, and the teacher later even said that she was sorry about the whole thing.  Said she learned something.  I probably would have just done something else like Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin, but I remember that mom stood up for me and academic freedom that day, and I learned something too.  The ACLU was never called though.  But she would’ve.  Mom didn’t bluff. 

 

No story of my mother is complete without talking about Wildwood.  The Jersey Shore.  She and dad met and fell in love there and that beach has remained at the center of our family life.  Despite her Midwestern roots I think she definitely became a Jersey gal.  Dad was a lifeguard in The Crest and mom was a college freshman on her first summer away from Ohio.  She and her friend didn’t know that early May is not the usual weather to run to the water in one’s bikini, and Dad and his pal noticed them while working on the patrol jeep up at the guard house.  So, seeing, as he described, “two crazy girls sprinting to the freezing water…” he and his buddy jumped into action and drove the jeep down to warn them of the cold temperatures…and of course get their numbers.  Wildwood was our summer for pretty much every summer of my life and it remains a very large part of our present and future.  If you’ve ever seen the lines out the door at Lobster House, where she and Aunt Karla used to be servers, much as I am now, you might be amazed to know that we never once waited on line there.  She’d go to the host stand, drop a name or two as a former waitress, and we’d be seated immediately.  That was as VIP as we got but it worked.  And she made that happen every time.  I’m pleased we had the chance to take her and the whole family last summer.  It’s truly a magical place and will remain so for us.

 

Mom was very proud of my sisters accomplishments.  She really enjoyed telling her friends to tune into the network when my sister had a new piece running.  She was particularly proud of her work with the Saratoga War Horse project.  Enjoyed bragging about her Emmy award winning daughter.

 

Heidi reminded me of a story from her bridal shower where Mom, who had fallen in love with the “Froggy Boots” from Restoration Hardware, had blurted out, during the shower that Heidi and I needed to “Get going on bringing me some grandkids-I need to buy Froggy boots!”  She adored her grandchildren and I know that she was never more pleased than when showing them off to friends or bragging about their accomplishments:  Boyo promotion to Red Belt in Tae Kwon Do; J-Bird being twice selected to be in the Pyramid Art show; The Bear also making the Pyramid show and performing with her scout troop at Heatherwood.  These are just a few of the things that she really enjoyed and I’m glad we had the chance to share the amazing people that our children are with my mother.

 

Trimming the tree for Christmas and Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.  Nights when she’d feel inspired to talk about the old days, and people she’d loved-my father, her mother and brothers, Daddy Pop and my Grandpa Kugs.  Patricia.  When mom got in a story groove it was fun to experience.

 

When I ended the eulogy to my father, I said, “From where I stand, the sun is still shining.”  I’d like to think that one still applies, but I was 17 at the time.  As I end here today, hopefully a little wiser and maybe just a little older, I have two lines that are sticking with me.  They are both ones I learned when we lived in Hawaii.  The first is: Kulia i ka nu'u.  It means, “strive for the summit.”

Every time I have been faced with a challenge over the last several years, regardless of what arena of my life that challenge came from, I think of that.  Strive for it.  Even if you fall short, I think, you’ve strived…and I think that really matters. 

And the other is far simpler. And it is “A Hui Ho” and it means “until we meet again.”  Whatever else my mother is, was and may be, she has left this life, and she will be missed.  So, I say Aloha, which my children know means both Hello and goodbye, and to their grandmother, and our mother, I say Aloha, and A Hui Ho.