Mom's Lost Eulogy
1-24-09
Hello, and welcome, and thanks for fighting through this cold Iowa weather for Mom's celebration.
I have friends here from Kansas City who never even met my mom, and I want to especially thank them for driving up to Glenwood today. Although Mom hadn't lived here since the early '60's, she was tied to this place just like Batman to Gotham City. She was here for 66 straight Christmases! Even after we provided these "grandchildren" that she'd been clamoring for, she passed up watching them come down the Christmas morning steps to be here in Glenwood, which was truly her home no matter where she lived. She wanted to be here with her mom and dad, her sister Pam, and Susie & Deloma, her "sisters from another mother."
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Last October, just a few weeks before she died, Mom came back to Glenwood for Homecoming, which is an event celebrated here like nowhere else. It was her last big trip and it nearly did her in. She ended up in the hospital in Council Bluffs on the way back and barely made it back home. When I talked to her about it later, I thought she might have regretted going, but she said she had the best homecoming ever! "Robert," she said," they put me in my chair at the Legion Hall and everyone lined up to talk to me. I felt just like a queen!"
To introduce my friends to Glenwood, I can think of no better source than "History of Glenwood", an English paper written Feb 20, 1959 by high school junior Judy Fritz. She mentions the church we are sitting in today on page 2:
"The only church that had not been moved from it's original position is the Congregational. All the rest have been moved to new locations."
This place is truly Fritz hallowed ground. My parents were married here at this altar as were most of the rest of our family.
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I was baptized here, as was my brother and sister and my daughter, Tessa. And, it has been the site for funerals for my great aunt Bobbie, my Grandma and Grandma, my uncle Larry, and now my mom.
I've been thinking about what, if anything, I like about funerals, and there is something. I remember being here for my Grandma's funeral hearing about this vibrant, fun-loving young woman that I had really never met before. I knew my "Gramma Gingia" very well, but I was happy to meet "Virginia" through the stories others told that day.
So that's what I hope will happen today, that I'll hear about a Judy that maybe I don't know, and maybe I can introduce you to my mom, too.
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So, here are 10 things you might not know about my mom, Judy:
1. She was a writer.
Mom worked her way up at Wells Fargo over the years from a clerical position up to a job writing copy for various public ads and in-house promotions. I think she was very proud of that accomplishment and her skill with words. She would give me a hard time if she heard me use a word that she thought sounded pretentious: I have a book she gave me titled The Superior Person's Book of Words (it has words like "flopdoodle" and "natterjack").
The inscription reads:
"Rob- Although you probably already know and use most of these, I thought you might enjoy this "review." With love from your bel esprit mother. (smiley face) 2002"
2. She had an imaginary alter ego.
"Michelle DuFont" - I don't know much about Michelle, but I imagine that she is a beautiful, exotic Parisienne who is a dancer by trade but also a really good jazz singer.
3. She was a hard-working sonofabitch.
This may sound harsh, but it was a phrase that she came up with herself and wore with pride. There is no better example of this than her backyard garden in Des Moines. It began as a traditional grass lawn, but she gradually transformed it into an intricate and beautiful English-style garden with thousands of plants and flowers. Eventually it became sort of an time-sucking vampire and I think secretly part of the reason that she and Jerry moved to Florida! Just before they moved, Cody and Amy were married there and Kelly baptized Mitchell there as the last hurrah for this beautiful setting that she created.
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4. She was a college student.
She had planned to go to college after high school, but a car accident and broken clavicle changed all of those plans, diverting her instead to Barnes Beauty School and a brief career in cosmetology. She returned to college in the late 1980's however, and although she didn't finish her degree, she carried a 4.0 average.
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(Sometimes I think about the random causes and effects in life: If Mom doesn't break her collarbone and goes to college as planned, my parents would never meet and I suddenly don't exist!)
5. She was very creative.
She made clothes for herself and Suzanne. She was a wizard in the kitchen- every weekend visit included a Sunday morning breakfast "egg bake." In the '70's our home was filled with macrame, and at one time she planned to open a booth at the Denver Bazaar titled "Macrame by Jutey, Jutey, Jutey" (think Cary Grant impression, and remember that macrame is made with a twiney type of yarn called jute, then you'll see how hilarious that is.)
She was also the slowest crocheter in the world- she to this day is, I'm sure, still working on an afghan for me that she began about 25 years ago, and eventually became sort of a running joke.
6. She was very beautiful.
As you'll see later in a slideshow that we'll have running at the reception at the Legion Hall...
7. She was a mountain climber.
Mom exhibited an amazing strength and resiliency throughout her life, I think. She was born into an era and environment where women were largely defined by their relationships with men. In looking through her old papers and diaries now, it's clear that she wanted the whole American dream, the white picket fence, 3 kids and a dog, the whole nine yards.
Well, as often happens, it didn't turn out that way. Nobody's fault, it just didn't work out. It was a tough time for her for a long time, but she bounced back, figured out who she was as an individual, made her own friends, went back to school, and eventually fell in love again.
Her biggest comeback was yet to come. She was diagnosed with cancer in 1995, and went through surgery and chemotherapy, and bounced back from that, too, apparently cured. Four years later she got married again, and later that year on a family vacation in Colorado we all climbed Deer Mountain. At 10,000 feet It's not the tallest peak in Rocky Mountain National Park, but it's a challenging three-hour uphill climb, and she did it like a champion.
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So there we are, all standing at the peak taking pictures and eating lunch, and I notice Mom standing off to the side, softly crying. I then had this great nearly non-verbal conversation with my sister. I gave her a look that she correctly interpreted as "What the heck is up with Mom?"-- and she replied, "Cancer," which meant "she's overwhelmed by this accomplishment after the cancer scare she had four years ago." I remember thinking, "Wow, I'm surprised that she still even thinks about all of that, since she was cured back in 1995."
(And I'm the family medical expert.)
Of course, I was dead wrong. In 2003, the cancer came back with a vengeance. She began extreme radiotherapy to her spine, which was riddled with painful metastatic tumors. A side effect of the treatment was severe esophageal burning and swelling. She couldn't eat, lost a lot of weight and became very weak and frail. There were times during those months that we would go visit her in Florida, and then return home wondering if we would ever see her again.
And then, she bounced back again! She got better, moved back to the midwest, toured New York City, London and Paris. She lived a full life in those five years and eight months, and every single moment was hard-earned.
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(Here she is reaching the summit of another peak the following year.
It's called Estes Cone.
Elevation? 11,000 ft.)
8. She loved her family.
She had a huge, generous heart, and I always felt loved no matter what had happened or how badly I'd screwed up. I'm a mama's boy and proud of it!
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She told me about the time I was 4 years old and she dropped me off at Sunshine School preschool for the first time, and I had to be torn away from her, crying and screaming, clutching her wrist. (Made me appreciate when I had to drop Tessa off at the preschool for the first time, and they had to pry me away from her, and I was still crying and screaming, clutching her wrist.)
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I miss her so much, but I see her when I look into the eyes of people who love her and whom she loved. She is still here in the memories I carry of her, times we've spent together. I see her when I look at my brother and sister, who are the best parents I know, and who are both hard-working SOB's. She's there in her grandchildren, who have demonstrated their own ability to bounce back through tough times.
She's still here, never more than today. She loved all of you, and would have loved to have been here with us. I look forward to hearing all of your stories about my Mom later on at the reception.
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9. She had a beautiful soprano singing voice.
10. Dancing was her life.
And that truly says it all!
Thank you for listening (and reading)
Rob Smith
Kansas City
1/26/2009
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Mom's wreath at her memorial site:
I stopped by there on the way back home Sunday and saw Suzanne's boot print from her visit just an hour or so earlier.
It was tough to leave, but it's comforting to think that she's truly home, now.
If you'd like to see more photos like these that were used in the party slideshow, you can click on this link to connect you to the galleries: HERE and HERE
The pastor at the service talked about mom's love for sunsets, and how cool it would be to see a nice one on Saturday evening.
We were busy at the reception and forgot to look outside at sundown, but I've since heard from my friends who drove up from K.C. that while driving south on I-29 through the loess hills of western Iowa, they watched the sun drop down into a break in the cloud cover just above the horizon, filling the sky with a brilliant purple glow.
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