Life's a Stitch

"I get the last word. Something that got me in trouble as a kid.

I was at the funeral of a co-worker several years back and her teenage daughter got up and gave a powerful heartfelt eulogy to her mother. Hating public speaking myself, I thought how could she get up there and speak at such an emotional time? I thought I could never do that. But now I realize how it fits into this difficult part of life and here I am getting my opportunity to talk about by mother and I wouldn't give it up for anything.

My mom had a successful life considering her long battle with major mental illness. Her success was due to two things. Chuck and I look back on the long life of his dad, who when born in 1900, went from a world of horse drawn carriages to witnessing a man walking on the moon. Treatment of mental illness has experienced an equally dramatic evolution. It came from institutionalization and something treated on a psychiatrist's couch to the recognition of it as a chemically based brain disorder, a disease that can be successfully treated with drugs. When treated appropriately you would have had a hard time believing that my mom was afflicted with this devastating disease for most of her life.

The second factor in her success was the support of her extended family, most importantly her brother Bill and his wife, my aunt, Annette. Thank you for providing critical support and the love of family when she needed it most.

And if a blessing can come from my mother's mental illness, for me it was the fact that it put me on a solid career path of 37 years in community mental health and social services. I know the realities of the disease and how bad it can be for families and I am reassured overall at how well my mother did.

My favourite story about my mom was the story of how she met my dad. Two immigrant families, Polish and Puerto Rican, moved to the suburbs of Queens. The day of the first snow storm that winter, my father went to the new neighbour's house and offered to help their son shovel snow. He figured being from Puerto Rico, they had little experience with the heavy white stuff. The son, my uncle Bill, uttered four words that would change their lives forever. They were, “I have a sister.” It was a classic boy next door story and the rest is history the result of which were two Poli-Rican children, my sister and myself. If that cultural love story happened in our town of North Vancouver today, the kids would be called Kor-anian.

 Who was my mother? Here are some things you might not know. She was a professional dancer in her younger years, but she also earned her Early Childhood Education credentials. She travelled in at least ten countries, and drove automatic with two feet, one foot on the gas one on the brake. She preferred dogs to cats. She liked her coffee iced, her wine white, and her husbands Polish. She was widowed twice. She believed that all religions were ultimately united by one God and lived this belief when she, an Eucharistic Minister of the Catholic Church, married her second husband, Nate Brenner, a Jewish man who kept Kosher. She hated perfume but loved the scent of gardenias. She was a lifelong knitter and a dedicated volunteer in a program that matched seniors with second grade pals. She was an amazing grammy.

 My mother had a arsenal of sayings used to help us understand life. Don't count your chickens before they hatch, with friends like those you don't need enemies, honesty is the best policy and practice makes perfect. There was one I didn't agree with. Over the years when we heard the teenage antics of friend's sons, and when my own son had his 16 year old night of drunken trouble, she'd simply sum it up as “Boys will be boys.” She let them off too easy. Hey, Ari, this doesn't give you permission to go crazy knowing that Grammy would have been OK with it. I have my own saying about teenage boys that I heard from a police officer and that is “One Boy One Brain, Two boys half a brain. My mom laughed when I told her that.

I have prepared a video slide show that depicts my mother's life in three minutes. It goes fast, but be assured that there will be a slower version playing on the screen afterwards so you can have a better look. Look closely. I believe that there are 14 people from this room represented in the pictures.

I want to thank you for coming, for sharing in remembering our mother's life. I hope you have some positive memories of your own. Thank you to the Barre contingent for your hospitality and welcoming my mom into your church and her final resting place. Thank you all for giving me the chance to say, with you as my witnesses, Goodbye, Mom."

(My memorial video can be accesed here.)