On Sept. 15, 2015, my mom died unexpectedly of heart complications. She was 67. Her death was sudden, and came too soon. As the surgeon shared with me and my family in the hospital waiting room that they couldn’t save her, I felt an urgent need to write her eulogy. I was the last family member to speak with my mom before her death, and I felt sharing some words about her would have been what she wanted. Here is my eulogy, read at her funeral on Sept. 19, 2015.
A eulogy for my mother
The night before my mom died, I called her at St. John’s Hospital in Springfield, where she had been transferred early that morning for observation. I felt an urgent need to talk with her, to hear her voice, to make sure she was OK.
It was a wonderfully typical conversation. We talked a bit about the food at the hospital, about our family and abou
t what life was throwing at us at that moment. My mom was an amazing, strong woman who spoke through her actions and how she lived her life. She has had a profound impact on me. She taught me to cook, to always be compassionate and to chill out when life swerves from the normal path.
My mom enjoyed cooking. Dad, you make a mean breakfast, and I love your cheese omelets, but mom was the lead cook of our family growing up. Behind the old cookie jar in our kitchen, she kept a small notebook in which she wrote down dinners for each day of the week, usually four to five days out. She had to do this to make sure there was enough food in the house. My brother Andrew and I, only 17 months apart, devoured food at an alarming rate during our teen years, but mom always made sure there was food for us to eat.
I learned how to cook by watching my mom. I didn’t ask a lot of questions. I have many fond memories of Sunday family meals, when we would have Dad’s mother over to eat. While mom made pork roast or beef roast with all the fixings, I would study her preparation. At the time I’m sure she thought I was just hovering around the food hoping to get a sample. I was taking in more than scraps. I was absorbing her knowledge.
My mom had a knack of knowing when other people needed attention. Sure, that’s a trait of every mother, but my mom took it many steps further. The compassion she showed others is what I admire most about her.
While we were waiting to hear about my mom’s condition on Tuesday, my dad said my mom went to the store once a month to purchase cards for people. In a world where most messages are sent electronically, my mom still had the desire to mail messages to people. In the mail. She often sent cards and goodies to Kalena, Ryan, Kayla and Peyton, and more recently, Eric and Michael, just because.
I was still in college when I started receiving those cards. My mom groaned when her mother passed along articles to her she found in the paper, so I gave my mom the same flack for doing it to me, but as I continued to get them, I realized, my mom wasn’t consciously trying to be like her mom. She was doing it because she cared about others and when they were happy, she was happy.
On Sept. 14, one day before she passed, I received the last card from my mom. It read: “Hi Jim and Michelle, I figured you could use some of these coupons. Some are for baking, school supplies, and other items. How did Eric do when he started on Tuesday, Sept. 8? Did they win their football game? See you on Oct. 15!” We won’t see you then, mom, but rest assured, we will see each other someday.
For as much as my mom had on her plate, she was the most chilled-out person I ever knew. Regardless of what life was throwing at her at the moment, she had an amazing ability to not let it get to her.
In our last conversation, I wanted desperately to make sure she was OK. I asked about her ordeal, and, like mom does, she was at ease about it all. She talked about the helicopter ride from Decatur to Springfield. It was her first time in a helicopter, and she said it was neat, and all the city lights below were so beautiful. Here’s a woman being transferred to another hospital to face a possible life-threatening situation, and she was taking pleasure in the simplest of things, her mode of transportation.
That was the last example of my mom’s ability to be cool, calm and collected in the face of adversity. Her life during the 40 years I had the honor of being a part of weren’t always easy, or perfect, but I never once saw my mom buckle under the pressure, or not put life’s greatest challenges into perspective with a laugh, smile or funny story about a completely unrelated topic. Nothing got to her. She didn’t let it. She once told me life is too short to worry about things that aren’t for you to fix.
Throughout my life, my mom was my coach, literally and figuratively. With my dad, she helped coach many of the T-ball teams I played on. She didn’t know a whole lot about baseball, but she knew she wanted to give her sons the best experience they could have, and she did that with flying colors.
My mom was a vital part of my life for 40 years. Baseball has been for 35.
I would like to leave you today with the words I wrote on this baseball, a baseball I gave my mother on May 11, 1997, the day I graduated from college and began a new journey as a man ready to go out into the world. As my mom begins her new journey, I think these words written more than 18 years ago are still perfect today:
“Mom, For 17 years you have been my fan, my coach in baseball. For 22 years, you have been all this off the field, too, but more. Whenever I needed someone to talk to, you were there. I don’t know if I would have succeeded on the field or in life without you there waving me into home … I was safe at home because you were always there for me. Thank you mom, and I love you.”
WINTER WONDERS 