Eulogy
This post is the eulogy that my mother wrote for my grandmother's funeral. Both my mother and my grandmother are pretty amazing women, and I hope this gives you an idea of why...:Wee Hazel, when she drew herself up to full height, stood all of five foot three (and as she insisted) ¾ of an inch. Her stature was the only thing small about my mother she had the most loving heart, most charming personality and the wisest, creative and intuitive mind of anyone I’ve ever known. As a kid, I always hated that intuitive part – I could never get away with anything.
Over the years, people have asked me if I was ever lonely growing up as an only child. My answer was always a resounding “NO”. Mum was my best friend, closest confidant and biggest cheerleader. She had a way of hugging you that made all the problems in the world go away, and if a hug didn’t do the trick, one of her “wee cups of tea” always would.
Mum was a self-professed “softie” and a crusader for social justice long before the term became fashionable. I remember on more than one occasion acquiring an “older sister” - some young woman who had confided in my mother about being abused. Mum would take them into our home and there they would stay until they could manage on their own.
I have also watched 7 foster brothers and sisters grow up and flourish – children from Africa and South America that mum sponsored through Christian Children’s Fund. You may have seen a picture of Hamdu Sulemana in the visitation room. He wants to become a doctor and help the people in his village who have very little access to medical care.
And if that weren’t enough, the Booth household always had a steady stream of animals running through it – hamsters, cats with frozen paws, a three-legged dog, a pigeon, and once, a raccoon I had captured. That lasted about a day, until Mum figured out that there was absolutely nothing wrong with it.
Like I said, mum was smart. So smart, in fact, that homemaking was never enough for her. She went back to work six months after I was born – something virtually unheard of in the early 1950s.
What I never appreciated until years later was that my dad supported her pursuits. I remember seeing him help cook and clean house, while mum would help him in the yard. The modelling they provided have shaped my attitudes about marriage and work throughout my life.
From her first job as a ticket-taker “on the buses” in wartime England, which is where she met Dad, to secretary at White’s Hardware, co-ordinator of Marketing and Advertising for Dow Corning, and her role as President of the Women’s Advertising Club of Toronto, I always felt proud of my mum’s accomplishments and never felt deprived at being the only kid on the block that didn’t have a stay-at-home mother.
That’s because mum’s lasting legacy was her warm and loving nature – we who are lucky enough to be family got to experience that love all the time, but work colleagues and friends were also drawn by her kindness, charm and wisdom. I used to swear my mother could walk into a closet and come out with a friend.
There are many lasting lessons mum taught me, like: if you have a good story, especially a funny one, tell it. If you can ease someone else’s burden by a kind word or a thoughtful act, do it. Take responsibility for all of your actions. (That’s another one I hated as a child, but certainly grew to appreciate in adulthood.) And, there is no such thing as too much education. Guess I took that last one to heart.
posted by Alex @ 2:12 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home