My Mother's memorial service had about 50 people there. Many neighbors I had grown up with, cousins and extended family, people who worked for my mother, her very first manager when she was a secretary at Eastman Kodak, a high school teacher I was close with and some friends I grew up with came to support me. I am grateful to the extended family who brought some dishes to pass. I am incredibly grateful for a former neighbor of mine who I was not very close with, but who totally set up and broke down the food for the memorial service so that I could visit with people. It turns out, she was a convert to the Mormon church about nine years ago. Leave it to the Mormons to throw together a party and chip in and just be so helpful....
I was so buried with responsibility the week of her service, that I took about five minutes to write her eulogy. Thankfully, I had about a month to ponder it, so it came rather quickly. After delivering it, I recalled about 34 more things that belonged in there, but I think she would have been happy with my words.
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Thank
you everyone for coming to my mother's memorial service tonight. For those I haven't met yet, I am Heather
Whitley – Linda's only child and mother to her five grand children.
We live in Utah.
I
want to first thank her brother Todd for helping her so much around
her house in my absence the past couple of years as her health
deteriorated. I also want to thank Sylvia and Gerry Fitz who worked
with my mom on everything from getting her bills paid, to
helping her manage her email, to purchasing a new computer to running to
doctors visits and keeping her day to day life in order – again in
my absence. I also want to extend gratitude to her other brother
Terry for helping me with the larger decisions over my mother' care
in the final weeks of her life. It was wonderful for me to reconnect
with him. After her passing, I have been so grateful for the help of
my Aunt Beth on my father's side for helping me get mom's things
organized and packed up and for my cousin Whitney and uncle Terry for
spending a couple hours yesterday working in her home. Terry brought
his much needed dry sense of humor that brought some laughter into
the kitchen. Thank you for those who flew in from out of town to be
a part of this. I am so grateful to reconnect with you as well as
meet some of you who knew my mother long ago and learn more about her through you.
I so
wish I could have brought my five children, but I had much to
accomplish while here and they had not seen their father in a very
long time, so we took this time to allow them to reconnect.
Because
of the nature of her illness, there has been much focus on the
illness itself and what got her there. But what's been nice about
having some time since her passing go by before I could get here, I
could take the space to reflect on all of her amazing qualities and
aspects of her life that touched me and everyone who knew her.
A
single mom of five, I haven't had a lot of time to do hard grieving
while caregiving for my own children over the past month - it was so
interesting that as soon as I boarded the plane and it pulled away
from the gate, the tears started streaming down my face as I had just
enough alone time and no immediate responsibility that I could
actually ponder my mother. In fact, my neck hurt from straining to
keep my head turned toward the window so as to not startle the poor
man seated next to me... My mother is gone. It is a difficult
reality to get my mind around.
One
of my earliest memories is of her holding me facing her, rocking me
in a large rocker in my nursery. I think I must have been up with a
fever or teething and I have this memory of her holding me and
playing with my hair… To this day, if anyone plays with my hair,
I'm instantly relaxed and sleepy...a conditioning brought on by my
warm mother. It's really a shame that she did not have many more
children. I know she would have loved to.
She
loved to entertain. I have lots of memories of her cooking and
preparing the house for guests. Lots of memories of her loud giggle
that filled the house. If I was up in my room getting ready for
company, I always knew guests had arrived because my mom would greet
them with some cute remark and her giggle would carry up the stairs.
She
always had candles lit for guests and her home decorated for the
holidays and cleaned like crazy to show her appreciation for the people she
hosted and her gratitude that they were there. She would dress up
for having guests for dinner. I was always in awe of her ability to
arrange flowers. These are the things that made her unique and
special.
She
would not always have the patience to teach me how to cook but she'd
always make me a tiny pie in a custard cup I could fill with jelly.
In fairness, I wasn't that interested in cooking as a little girl.
But it was my junior year in college, when I had an apartment of my
own, I would frantically call her and ask her how to make something
because I was hosting someone for dinner or a small group of friends.
So our mother-daughter bonding in the kitchen occurred entirely over
the phone and she did a great job.
When
I was in high school, my mom worked full time at Eastman Kodak while
simultaneously attending Syracuse University. She earned dual
finance/accounting degrees which would change her career. Mothering
five children, I can say that it's the teen years where our children
ironically need us the most. But my memories and experience of her
doing that were only positive. I'd often come home in the evenings
from school/sports or friends and she'd be buried in her school
books. I felt proud of her though. Not abandoned in any way. She
lost her mother during this season as well. Her career would end up
culminating into Finance Manager for global internal contracts of ITT Space Systems which
took her all over the world. I was very proud of her. She was proud of her "government classified" status on ITT satellite systems.
I
think the culmination of events in her life during this time were
more difficult on her than any of us could imagine. I feel like
sometimes we women, carry the entire world on our shoulders and try
to do it with grace for as long as we can.
After
I left home for University as a young adult, we talked almost daily
- it seemed as though she was trying to fill the void in her life
left by her own mother. After two and then three, four and five of my own children, both our lives evolved in ways that would reduce our
contact with each other substantially. But I missed her calls. I
missed the closeness that we once had.
It's
been cathartic to go through her things and get to know her again, a
bit. She always did have great hats. She has about 34 pairs of
designer sunglasses, some prescription, some not. She always had
good lipstick. I sat by myself this week, packing her up and felt
like a little girl trying on her sunglasses, hats and lipsticks –
searching for signs of her in all this “stuff”….
I
feel my absence and geographical distance during the end of her life
may be misunderstood by some… Please understand that I am honoring
my mother in the very best way I know how...by raising and mothering
her beautiful five grandchildren in ways that would only honor her
and make her proud.
Her
and I have done some healing this week, as I have been in her space
and had the responsibility of being steward over her belongings. We
have had many little conversations and I have strongly felt her
presence here. Yes, she is still giggling.
I
want to invite any one who has even the tiniest of memories of her to
please share them with us. It is healing for me and these are things
I can share with her grandchildren….
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At this time people came forth with things they loved about her...her cooking, her immaculate yard and flower gardens - thought to be the prettiest in the neighborhood, her leveling the wage playing field for women she supervised at ITT Space Systems and her love of her dogs - Flatboat retrievers - she was a breeder of champion show dogs for many years in her retirement. Lastly, she was a doting daughter and my grandfather's "go-to" person in every sense.
Ciao!
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