My Mother's Remembrances As Shared at Grandma's Memorial Service

[The following are remembrances my mother shared at Grandma's funeral this past weekend. I am grateful for Mom's permission to share her words again here, for her tender descriptions of Grandma, and for her help in understanding that loss of memory does not equal loss of meaning.]

              For some time I have been somewhat troubled by obituaries-not so much at the deaths they represent (because sadly, death is a part of life) but at the lives they fail to represent.   We strive, through mere words, to embody heart, soul, and flesh, but our best efforts cannot really convey what we know to be true about our loved ones.

I’m afraid my efforts here will follow suit.  So I’m just going to tell you a couple of stories  that have come to mind about Mom lately and then I’m going to share three things she taught me in the last years of her life.

Mom had a lot of spirit and on occasion we shared a hearty laugh.  One time, long after everyone had left home, she told me about ringing the large iron bell the folks had erected near the back door to summon Dad for lunch.  (When we were growing up, the children were forbidden to ring it, with good reason!)  On this occasion, after a few strong pulls, the heavy cast iron bell came crashing down at her feet with enough force that it broke into pieces.    It had narrowly missed her head!   About this time, a salesman came driving into the barnyard and, though stunned by what had just occurred, Mom made her way down the sidewalk to greet him.  Leaning down to peer into the car window, she blurted out to a very surprised gentleman, “I almost got killed by a bell!”   She very much enjoyed telling about this later.

More recently on one of her too frequent trips to the ER last fall, I got another precious glimpse of that same spirit.  We were in one of the observation rooms waiting for something or other to happen and to pass the time we “What else?” sang.   Mom had an IV line in her arm and if you’ve been around those machines, you know they go something like this, “Beep,beep, beep….beep”.  After a while, Mom noticed that the IV machine was singing along with us and she started a game of echoing back to it.  Finally, growing tired of the same monotonous tone, with a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye she sang to it, “You can do better than that!”

As most of you know, this last year was not an easy one for Mom.  At one point, my older sister, S, said to me, “I think Mom is still here because she has things to teach us.”   I cannot speak for my siblings, but I would like to tell you three important things Mom taught me in this last year or year and a half of her life.

1.  Mom taught me to live in the moment.  As her world shrank, she still found things to enjoy: going to church, looking at the clouds, petting her little dog, going for rides in her SUV that P. [one of her daughters, & her primary care-giver] once dubbed “The Mamamobile”, watching beautiful sunsets, singing while I played the piano for her, singing with her granddaughters when they came home to visit and, most of all, she enjoyed the love of her family and caregivers.

2.  Along with this, Mom taught me not to make my own judgment on what defines quality of life for others.  Long, long past the time when you or I, as outside observers, would have pronounced her life as not worth living, she would have said to you, as she did to me, “I enjoy life.”  There is a lesson and a caution in this for us.

 A major reason she was able to enjoy her life for so long were the sacrifices P. made in order for Mom to live at home.  I work in the field of aging services and I know that not many people could have carried on with the sheer tenacity and grace P. showed, especially in this last difficult year.  Thank you, P.  And “thank you” to the wonderful team of amazing women who provided consistent loving care for Mom.

3.  Mom taught me that, even though her body was bent, and her mind was diseased, she was still a whole person.  Her suffering in this last year forced me to examine this issue in a deeper way and with the help of the book, Growing Old in Christ, a collection of  essays on the topic, I was able to arrive at a “theology of dementia” that eased my suffering as I bore witness to hers.  To quote from the essay, “Growing Old in a Therapeutic Culture," by Keith Meador and Shaun Henson, “When people suffering dementia in old age forget all that they know and all who know them, those surrounding them do not forget.  We are called to remember for them, reminding the therapeutic culture in which we live that we as a Christian community are one body and are accountable to narrate each other’s lives faithfully.  We narrate our lives and the story of the communion of the saints grateful that though we may forget God, God in Jesus cannot forget us.” Mom’s life reminded me, as voiced so eloquently in another essay in the book, that she and indeed all people, no matter their station in life, are creatures created in God’s image for His praise and, if they know and are known by Him, are destined for communion with Him.  Her story is a part of the bigger story of God’s redemptive plan.   And her story goes on.

Mom asked Jesus to be her Saviour as a young married woman at her wit’s end trying to raise a houseful of kids.  She quietly lived out her faith to the end of her life.  Up until sometime in the last year, she could still participate in worship by reciting The Lord’s Prayer and of course, the singing. She loved to lift her voice in song, even when she no longer could voice the words.  And those who sat near her in church can attest that her tone rang true and her pitch was dead on.   Thank you, to those Scotland Trinity saints who took time to greet her by name on Sunday morning, even when she couldn’t remember yours or even who you  were, and who continued to treat her as a whole person by reminding her of who she was--by narrating her life back to her.  God bless you.  I’m reminded of Jesus’s Words, “Even as you did it to the least of these, you did it unto Me.”  And, sadly, who in society is considered “least” if not old people with dementia?

So, thank you, Mom, for living out your faith in a way that laid the foundation for mine.  And thank you for teaching me about what really matters in life, right up until the end of yours here on earth.  These are the precious gifts Mom left me in the last years of her life, and I will be eternally grateful for them.