A Final Farewell to Mom

A few weeks ago we held a memorial service for mom. Since my blog is titled, "Caring for mom in Sun City Center Florida" and I have been writing about her for several years, it seems only fitting to post her eulogy as my final tribute to her.

Janet Elizabeth Roberts Smith

She was born December 17, 1915, and lived a full, rich life of 93-1/2 years.

She graduated from Katharine Gibbs Secretarial School. She loved to tell the story of how she never got paid for her first job as her boss went to the track every day so there was no money left to pay her salary. That was one of hundreds of stories she liked to tell. She married at age 21 and had a beautiful love-filled marriage for 58 years until her dear Dan passed away. She often said how lucky she was to have him, that she got a good one. Even at the end of her life when her memory was gone, she never forgot her husband, her Dan. Neither dad nor mom had any siblings but they built their own family with three children, five grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren.

Perhaps the reason we're so sad at mom's passing is because she was such an extraordinary woman. Janet, Mom, the Gina, Grandma, Gigi...no matter what you called her, she was always available for you. She was a great talker, but also a wonderful listener. She brought comfort and a good listening ear to all who needed support. Whether good news or bad, she wanted to be in on it...she never wanted to be left out of the loop. She was very sympathetic and your pain was her pain. Your joy was her joy. She would listen and listen for as long as you wanted to talk. If you had a problem, she wanted to help solve it. She was like a second mother to Danny and Karen. She supported us all in every situation. If you were a friend or relative of hers, she stood by your side and didn't let you down. She knew how to give you her undivided attention and to make you feel special. She had a thirst for knowledge and loved sitting, listening and learning about people. Because she really listened to what you were saying, she also remembered it. Her grandkids would tell her about their friends. The next time they spoke she remembered to ask about their friends by name. Before Alzheimer's stole it away, she had an amazing memory. Mom could remember things about my life that I couldn't remember...and it was my life!

Because of her great memory, she was the keeper of the family history which she relayed to us with story after story. She could talk. Many of her stories began with, "I'll always remember", or, "I'll never forget." She had a story for every situation. In fact, we secretly called her, "Our Lady of Perpetual Stories." Now I realize that her stories were another way that she shared herself with us and I'm grateful to have heard them.

If I had to choose only one word to describe her, it would be, "sweet." She was a sensitive person who never knowingly hurt anyone. In fact, during the last year of her life when she would yell out in pain or fear when being moved by a caretaker, she would then apologize or even say, "Thank you." Whoever discussed my mother, whether it be friend, family member, or paid caretaker, the word they used was "sweet." Fortunately, I don't have to choose only one word to describe her.

Generous comes to mind. She always said it gave her great pleasure to give to someone she cared about. She was also generous with her time and attention to the family. Even while her health was declining and she was not enjoying her own life, she wanted all of the family to be enjoying theirs. She cared about us and was interested in how we were doing even while she was not in a good place. That kind of generosity of spirit is rare.

Mom was very intelligent and a voracious reader. She often said, "You are never lonely when you have a book." She was an educator. So often she'd start a sentence with, "I read an article" and then would tell us what she had learned. Although she was a fine secretary, she really should have been a doctor. She loved medicine and listened with rapt attention when anyone anywhere was discussing an illness. She soaked up medical knowledge like a sponge and was an excellent diagnostician of all of our family's ailments.

She was the keeper of the rules. She always made us abide by the rules. There was no grey area. If it was a rule or a law, then it was not to be broken. To this day, some of us are so trained to obey the rules that when driving a car we wouldn't dream of entering into an area that was marked as an exit. When you visited mom in Florida, she had a rule that you wear sunscreen at the beach. If you came home with any degree of redness, you were labeled, "Raw Meat!"

Mom was a firm believer in telling the truth. She would not lie. When we were teenagers, if someone called us on the phone and we didn't want to talk to them, we'd ask her to tell them we weren't home. There was no way she would do that for us because she wouldn't lie. She'd tell the caller she would look to see where we were while frantically waving at us to get outside of the house. Even in the dead of winter with a blizzard swirling around, we had to go outside. When we were completely outside and she felt comfortable that she wasn't lying, only then would she tell the caller we weren't there. She wouldn't lie for us or to us. She was trustworthy. She also kept her promises. I can't remember her ever changing her mind about something she had promised. She was as good as her word.

She was a worrier. She worried about everything. She invented a "worst case scenario" for the least remotely possible catastrophe and wanted to warn you to be careful to avoid it. She worried if the sun would rise or the sun would set. She worried so much you would think you didn't have to worry because she had it covered. She worried every day of her life and most of her worries never came to pass. We often tried to tell her not to worry, that she worried too much. When she was well into her nineties, she told us she was trying to change that about herself.

She was strong in various ways. She had strong opinions about right and wrong. she was strong in her love for her husband and family. She had a strong constitution and survived several operations and illnesses late in life. She showed her strength when she became a widow. She was independent as she never insisted on living with her children. She said we had our own lives to live and she would live with her contemporaries.

She was never moody. She had a cheerful attitude and was happy to see people enjoying themselves. She loved doing laundry and would sing at the top of her lungs while doing so. She knew how to make a chore into a good time. She loved animals but especially dogs. She had Mitzi and Penny during her marriage and enjoyed other family dogs as well. Her favorite dog of all is Betty who gave her great joy in the last few years of her life.

She was fun to be with and she was funny, too. She appreciated a funny story as much as anyone and often roared with laughter as she heard it. There aren't many people who could laugh at themselves so easily. She didn't take herself too seriously, and we all loved her for that. Being an only child, she wasn't used to teasing and never really liked it. However, Dave could always tease her and get away with it. One day a few years ago while sitting around the pool, Dave said that she could go in the water but skinny-dipping was not allowed. She roared with laughter. The last year of her life she still amazed us by some of the amusing things she said. For example, I told mom I had gained weight when our friends were visiting. She said, "I'm glad you had plenty to eat." She told me she was cold and I said I would make her warm. She burst out laughing and said, "Don't burn the place down!" Mom loved desserts and chocolate. Carolyn asked if mom wanted dessert. Mom said, "If I ever say I don't want dessert you'll know it's all over for me." Another time I asked her if she wanted a chocolate candy and she said, "That's a foolish question." One day she asked me, "How will we entertain these people?" There was no one there but the two of us so I asked her, "What people?" She thought for a minute and said, "Us!" Then she laughed and laughed at her own joke.

She saw many changes in her life but she always tried to keep up with the modern ways. She was not one for saying things were better in the past. She was accepting of the future and tried to keep up, at least in her attitude. She made a huge effort to connect with her grandchildren and tried to understand the world as they knew it. She had a big influence on all of us in one way or another. Perhaps each of us should remember what we loved most about her and try to meld that into ourselves. She was the most loving person. She just loved with all her heart. We miss her. We loved her. We're lucky to have had her and we won't forget her.

So to Janet, Mom, the Gina, Grandma, Gigi, we must say goodbye until we meet again. If she were here right now, the first thing she would tell us is to drive carefully. Then she would tell us how wonderful we all are. She would say how she hopes we will be o.k. because she doesn't want to worry any longer. That she wants us to find a way to embrace life; to be grateful for what we have and to live out the remainder of our lives happy and contented. Then she would tell us a story about how she has spread a little of herself into each of our hearts so we will always feel her love for us. Then she would say, "I'm with pop pop, my Dan now, and I'm at peace."