How do you say goodbye to someone who knew you first, more intimately, and in ways no other person could possibly know you? How many ways can you say “thank you” to someone who was always there, unassuming and watchful at the same time, endlessly forgiving of missteps, ready with a patch or a hug or whatever the occasion called for, better at defending and forgiving you than you deserved, precisely because no one else would?
How do you say “thank you” and “goodbye” to your mother.
Of all the moments we use to measure our lives, the hatch marks we need to keep track of who we are, what we accomplished or fell short of accomplishing, and who we might have been, none is more defining, inescapable, or demanding of our attention than the death of this woman who gave you life.
There will be no grand public commemorations of Mom’s death, no pictures or paragraphs set aside for nameless others to read and use to take account of their lives. That’s not who she was, and she would have been embarrassed by the fuss.
What you will recall most at first was the seemingly endless parade of children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren who came to pay their respect and remind Mom of all the lives she helped make and touched, the noise and chatter of people who also wanted to say “thank you” in meetings that were all-too brief and insufficient to capture all she had meant to them.
What you will recall later are quieter, private moments you had shared, reminding you that this great pain, this hole in your heart, was the price you had to pay for having loved and been loved back, without reservation or regret, by this woman, your first great love.
In recent years, Mom took time to write her story, or at least fragments of it, writing it down the same way we recall our own, in bits and pieces brought back by memories both fond and sad that ought to be shared, that she needed to share after she was gone. Her last words and what we make of them will be up to us, the ones she leaves behind. But her intention was clear. There are lessons to be learned from a life well lived.
And Mom lived her life well.
Generous beyond her means, she put leftover meals on her walker and wheeled them to neighbors, much as she had as a child at her mother’s instruction to men displaced from their lives by the Great Depression, halved loaves of bread her family could barely do without. Mom called family and friends and wrote and kept up with families whose children she had cared for to supplement our family’s sometimes thin reserves. On occasion she cared for these children for free because their single working mothers couldn’t pay her. They all touched Mom’s life and reach back even today, more than half a life later.
Our mother, Daisy, made a good life with our father, Dan. Two years younger than Pop, they met in high school. Their first date brought Mom her first pizza dinner, one of hundreds they would share with us. Grandma Smits approved of the match (and the pizza), telling Mom she would never be hungry or without a home with this young man. She was right.
Mom and Pop’s love and shared labors made a home that protected their children and welcomed everyone fortunate enough to know them. They met illnesses head-on and never wavered in their commitment to us and each other. Mom and Pop did not have an easy time while we were growing up. But they made sure we never knew long stretches of bad times.
The picture of so many family members at her side this past week, of the unfailing dedication and aid provided by her daughters-in-law, Dolores and Annette, of David and Donald who lived with her and close by, of Rosemary, who was more daughter than sister-in-law, the visits by Dennis and Dean, and even the occasional drop-ins by me, all of these were testimony to her well-lived life and our good fortune.
The immigrant part of Mom and Pop’s stories are almost at an end, a little more than a century after they began. Their legacy of love and hard work is their greatest gift to us. What we make of it will be our gift to those who follow us.
Thanks, Mom.
I have known Daisy my whole life. She was there at my birth on December 27, 1943 along with my brother Dan. Dan was home on leave from WW II at the exact time of my birth, the birth he wished for. He asked our Mother to have a baby girl when he joined the Navy. Nana didn't know she was pregnant but my big brother got his wish and I got a second family with Daisy as my big sister and a family of nephews to grow up with. I was so very fortunate to have Daisy in my life.
Love,
Rosemary
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