For my mother

Five years ago today I gave this eulogy for my mother. She was 69, just 16 years old than I am now. She died from cancer. I have been a cancer survivor for 12 years. People, embrace your age because you are living!

April 16, 2004

Good morning and thank you so much for being here today. It is a great honor to share a few words with you – our beloved family and friends – to celebrate my mother's remarkable life.

I am officially here as a pinch hitter. My family shares many traits, but perhaps our most infamous one is what my dad refers to as "the leaky gene." What he means is that we have a tendency to get teary – to cry – very easily.

So my dad, in deference to his own very, very leaky gene, asked me if I would say a few words about my mom on his behalf. I will try to summon my more stoic matriarchal side – my mother's side – to temper my own tendencies to "leak."

When mom learned she had cancer, she faced her disease with the strength of faith, gracious dignity, and selfless fierceness that was so characteristic of her life. She absolutely did not want to die. Yet she rarely talked about her own personal grief. What she talked about was, in her words, "feeling so badly that I am putting you through all of this."

When she was diagnosed, the doctors gave her three to six months. That simply was not acceptable to her – she had too much yet to accomplish. So she took up the fight and lived for two more years.

With my dad at her side, she embraced the time she had left – first and foremost to spend it with family and friends. They went to their grandchildren's sporting events. They spent time at the lake, weekends in Fargo, and kept a calendar full of lunches and dinners with their many dear friends. (And she always called you her "dear friends.")

This winter they made one more trip to St. Thomas to see friends there, be with family, enjoy watching the ships coming and going from the harbor, and to walk – holding hands – along the beaches they so loved.

But mostly, Mom worried about Dad and not being there to take care of him. She fully embraced her role as wife and mother and tended after my father throughout their marriage, supporting his career, cooking, cleaning, and keeping their house a loved-filled family-centered home, even when she was running the horse farm or pursuing her master's degree and career at the University.

So… my mom set out on a mission to train my dad in the mysterious ways of the microwave, the dishwasher, stove, and laundry machines. I'm pleased to report that he is now an ace at using home appliances.

But she didn't stop there. She put her affairs in order, and left little notes everywhere to help Dad after she was gone. Just yesterday my dad went to get a tablecloth and found a note – "Use this one. It can go in the wash and if you pull it out of the dryer right away, you won't have to iron it."

My mom absolutely loved and cherished my father every single day of their 49 years together. They were best friends, and built their marriage on shared, unconditional love and commitment. Dad, that love will carry you forward.

And what a mother! She lived by and instilled in us powerful lessons for living, and strong values to guide us along the way. She had the clearest sense of right and wrong of anyone I knew – and of how one should conduct oneself in the world.

Mom also instilled in us the belief that the future was wide open to our own sense of possibility and that we could accomplish anything with hard work and determination. She wanted us to reach far, uphold high standards, and to make a contribution to the world.

She taught her children to be independent. So when we made very surprising or unexpected choices in our adult lives, she would say to Dad, "Well, what do you expect – we raised them to think for themselves and they do."

Mom found something special to love in each of us – and in each of her grandchildren.

She was selfless in the most positive sense of the word. She spent her life giving to others – often quietly, and never for acclaim. My guess is that all who knew my mother have stories of kind things she did for them. And if you sent her a thank you note for an act of kindness, I'll bet you got a thank you note right back saying, "Thank you for the lovely note." The focus was always on the other person and never on herself.

When my brother needed his first kidney transplant, the whole family was jockeying to be first in line to offer one up. My brother says it was no surprise to him that she landed in front, and then said, "Oh honey it's nothing -- just an extra organ I don't need anyway." After she woke up from the transplant surgery, the first thing she said was, "How is he?" The second was, "Has everyone had lunch yet?"

I think in dying my mom would want to pass on to all of us one of her lessons for living. A poem, which is in your program, says it well:

"When I must leave you for a little while, please do not grieve and shed wild tears, or hug your sorrow to you through the years. But start out bravely with a gallant smile and for my sake do all the things just the same."

Mom, we'll try.