Mom's Eulogy

My Mother passed away July 21st 2004 and we had her memorial service on Saturday. This is the eulogy I presented there.

My to Eulogy Mom (Presented at her Memorial Service July 31, 2004)

Welcome Everyone and thank-you for coming. In case anyone doesn’t know me, I’m Bob. Helen’s son. We wanted to gather our family and close friends together today to remember Mom.

Mom told us a long time ago that she didn’t want a formal funeral, but we felt that it was important to gather our family and close friends together today to remember her.

She passed away quietly on July 21st. We were there with her as she left this old world behind.

Mom lived her life the best way she knew how. She was one of the finest people I ever met. She didn’t gossip. She never held a grudge and she never felt the need to get even when someone slighted her. She was always willing to lend a helping hand even to a stranger. One summer she even took in a bunch of kids she had never met before, and looked after them while their mother was in the hospital for surgery. She had never met the mother before then either.

In times of bereavement the bible offers Christians some solace by promising something better than this earthly existence for righteous people. Whether its eternal life on a paradise earth that has been cleansed of all wickedness and evil, or the promise of sitting at the right hand of your creator in a heavenly home surrounded by your loved ones, I know Mom will be there.

I would encourage each of you to turn to your faith for comfort until we meet her again.

I hope that this can be not so much a memorial of Mom, as a celebration of her life. Of course we all want to remember her and we will each do so in our own way. In fact she will live on in our hearts and minds as long as we keep remembering.

If anyone would like to get up and say a few words about Mom please feel free to do so. She was loved by many and respected by all who knew her as a fine upstanding woman who lived a good, long wholesome life. That’s why we’re here today. Not just to say goodbye but to remember her, so if you have a story or something you’d like to share please do so.

I’d like to offer everybody a bit of an explanation of what’s been happening in our home over the last couple of years. It’s been brought to my attention recently that some feel slighted or that we’ve been trying to keep them away. Nothing could be further from the truth.

When Dad died in 2000, we packed our boys up and moved into the house he and Mom lived in. We soon realized what Dad had meant all those times when he told us how Mom was failing.

I had often told Dad to shush for saying, right in front of Mom, how badly she was on the decline. When we moved into their house, we began to realize exactly what he had meant. We had always thought that he was referring to her physical condition. We all knew she was failing physically. She was having trouble walking and trouble with her feet, but he wasn’t talking about that. He had been concerned about her mind.

We hadn’t noticed before, but now we began to see that she couldn’t remember the little things that we all take for granted. Things like her address, how old she was, what day it was, what happened yesterday, or even a couple of hours ago. Oh, she could sit and carry on a great conversation with you and chances where you wouldn’t notice anything wrong, but when you were around her constantly, like Dad had been and we now were, you started to notice certain little signs and inconsistences.

First we began to notice lots of little things. Things like the fact that every time Bren asked her if she would like some help to take a shower or to wash her hair, she would always say she had just done that yesterday, when we knew for a fact that she hadn’t.

Soon she began to do dangerous things. At a totally inappropriate times, and always when no one was looking, she would half peel some potatoes or carrots and put them on the stove to cook with no water. We would smell smoke and come to the rescue.

When Mom began to forget people, I made a conscious decision to do two things. The first was to try to retain as much of Mom’s dignity as we possibly could. If that meant not asking people to visit at certain times so we wouldn’t be trying to handle delicate situations in public then so-be-it.

The second thing was to try to get people to remember her as she had been, a dynamic intelligent woman who always put others ahead of herself. If anyone was, or is offended by those decisions then I apologise, It was never my intention to slight or offend anyone, but they were my decisions to make and I still think I was right. I wouldn’t want anybody to see me that way and I didn’t think Mom would have either.

For the last couple of years she didn’t recognize anyone other than Brenda, myself and our kids anyway. Even the kids were a problem a lot of the time.

Enough about that. Let’s talk about Mom’s life.

Mom was born in 1913 right here in Ingersoll and was raised just around the corner on Canterbury Street. She lived within ten miles of her place of birth all her life. She went to public school at Victory memorial when it was a brand-new school and graduated high school from IDCI . She didn’t marry until late in life because she stayed at home to look after her aging parents.

Mom met the love of her life when she was working as a house keeper at the Norsworthy house out on King Street East. Dad and mom courted for thirteen years while they both worked there and looked after Dad’s aunt. After she passed away, they bought a farm between Ingersoll and Thamesford and settled down to raise a large family of one. Me.

Mom worked hard on that farm. She drove tractors, milked cows, and did any other job that was required of her. At the same time she looked after the house and cooked all the meals. We often used to joke that all dad could cook was eggs and it was pretty much true. Mom however was a fantastic cook.

She was always up for a game of cards and she played crib and euchre like a pro. You see, Mom had grown up in a time when there were no TVs or video games. You had to make your own fun and Mom knew how to do that. She was fun. She knew how to laugh and have a good time. She wasn’t above a little prank now and then either.

I remember walking into the barn one day and Mom was hiding inside the door with a milker hose in her hand. She swatted me across the bum with it and if you’ve ever been hit with one you know it hurt a lot. When She realized how much it hurt Mom sat and cried right along with me. You see Mom would never hurt anyone on purpose.

Mom was always busy but she always had time for me. When I needed help with home work, or some encouragement or even just a shoulder to cry on Mom was always there. Even after I married and left home she was always just a phone call away. She was never judgmental and she always supported me in everything I ever did.

If not for Mom, I might never have learned to cook, to iron clothes or even play a guitar. She insisted that I learn to cook, mend, iron and do laundry. She told me that I might not always have someone around to do it for me. Turns out she was right for a while too.

The guitar was a good story though. When I was about fifteen or sixteen, Larry got a guitar and started learning to play. Being an only child, Larry was the closest thing I had to an older brother and everything Larry did I wanted to do too, he was my idol, so I wanted a guitar too. And I mean I really wanted one . . . badly.

I had been through a brief fling with the Hawaiian guitar when I was about seven that ended quite badly, ( I quit after a couple of months) so Dad was determined that he would not buy me a guitar. “You’ll just leave it in the corner to collect dust,” he said.

Well, I still wanted one. In fact I had my eye on a certain guitar in a store in Town. It had a black body with tiger stripes across the front. It was nice alright. Every chance I got I would go into the store and gaze longingly at it.

Now, Dad didn’t say I couldn’t have a guitar, he just said that he wouldn’t buy me one so I started saving my nickels, dimes and quarters, after several months of saving I was about half way there.

I went into town with Mom one day and while she did whatever it was she had to do I went to Fosters and ogled my guitar. When Mom came to get me, she must have seen something in my eyes because she asked me how much the guitar was. I told her and she wanted to know how much I had saved. I told her. “You really want that guitar don’t you,” she asked. I told her that I did.

She thought for a minute then said, ”You had better learn to play it.” She took it down off the wall and we paid for it and I walked out with a brand-new guitar and a beginners book on learning to play and I did learn to play. For many years music has been a huge part of my life. Thanks to Mom.

She wasn’t just an old softie though. She knew how to put her foot down and when she did it stayed down. I could whine and cry all I wanted if Mom had made up her mind she could not be swayed.

I remember biking home from somewhere one afternoon and I came to the big hill leading up the road from the corner to our driveway. That hill was pretty steep and I was pretty pudgy, so I got off of my bike and started pushing it along up the hill. The hill was probably about a hundred yards from bottom to top and about half way up I heard a car coming. I moved over to the edge of the road and turned to see Mom coming home from town. I flagged her down. When she stopped, I asked if I could put my bike in the trunk and get a ride the rest of the way home. Needless to say, the answer was no. She told me that the house was just up at the top of the hill. “Don’t be so lazy,” she said.

I argued, but to no avail. Mom simply put the car in drive, and drove. Now I wasn’t happy. In a bit of a temper I pushed my bike down into the ditch, then stood and watched in a huff as mom drove into our driveway and disappeared. After a short pout I gathered up my bike and walked it the rest of the way home. I had forgotten however that cars had rear-view mirrors, and Mom had been looking in hers. As I walked into the kitchen Mom turned around, looked at me, and in a very matter-of-fact voice said, “Go put your bike in the shed.”

I put my bike away and came back to the house just a little bit confused because I always kept my bike inside the door of the back porch. Mom simply looked at me again said, “Now, it can stay there for two weeks and then maybe you’ll know how to take care of it.”

I walked for the next two weeks.

Now I’m a parent of six kids. Six of the most deviant, underhanded, sneaky, irreverent, cute, smart, loving and perfect kids to ever grace a dinner table. I love each and every one of the six as much as the others, but all for different reasons.

When one of them does something that disappoints me, I often wonder how my parents were able to handle those moments and there were plenty of them. I have five other kids, and at any given time it’s quite certain that at least one, of them is doing something that will make me proud. Something that will make up for another’s complete lack of whatever it is he or she happens to be lacking today.

My parents only had me. All they could do was hope that tomorrow would be better, that tomorrow I would somehow miraculously gain some insight into what makes a man a man. They didn’t have any other kids to fall back on. If I was a jerk then all of their kids were jerks that day. All I can say is that it must be hard for parents of just one child. Oh . . . I can say this too . . .

Thanks Mom. I think you did a great job, considering what you had to work with. I just hope that I can do as well with my kids as you did with me.