(Following is what I read at her funeral)
My father’s wife of 61 years died last week.
My mom died.
Monica, Melissa and Cash lost their mom too.
Jessica, Kathleen, Nathan, Camille, Travis, Tiffany, Alexis, Sage, Sawyer, Hadley, Olivia, Henry, Abi, Ben and Jack lost their grandma.
Ethan, Adison, Violet, Juniper, Hunter, Evangeline, Alessandra, Sadie, and 2 babies on the way, lost their great-grandma.
And today that loss all but consumes me.
So I’m thinking of gifts-
The gifts my mother gave me.
Of course a few obvious things come to mind: she gave me life and 3 dear siblings who are my best friends.
But there are other things she gave me:
-the pleasure of cooking good food for those you love.
-an appreciation for nature and a love for being out in it
-a love of cookies and dark chocolate
-the serious business of collecting sea shells
-the ability to orchestrate the perfect picnic lunch
-a love for reading and reading aloud
-the ability to spell supercalifragilistic…
-a crazy love for newborn babies
-an aversion to hot weather
-attention to detail; sometimes too much attention to detail!
-a love of learning
-an absurd love for words ( i.e supercalifragilistic…)
-extreme fear of snakes
-an abiding appreciation for the humble petunia
-tenacity, perseverance and the ability to face into hard things
Yes, there is great loss represented here- in this place, on these faces, in these hearts.
AND there are the gifts that each of us has received from this woman, this wife, this sister, this mother, this grandma, this great-grandma -from my mom.
by 