Rest In Peace, Mom

Note: I gave this eulogy at my mom's memorial service earlier today. 

I am your child
Wherever you go
you take me too.
Whatever I know
I learn from you.
Whatever I do
you taught me to do.
I am your child. 

And I am your chance.
Whatever will come
will come from me.
Tomorrow is won
by winning me.
Whatever I am
you taught me to be.
I am your hope.
I am your chance.
I am your child.

Mom heard the petition of this children's poem, and she heeded its call. She parented as if everything was at stake. And everything was: she was a single woman with four children. She had a son with cancer. She faced the loss of her own mother. She had no money, no job, no direction. But she overcame all of this adversity: she graduated from nursing school… and built a full and happy life for herself and for all of her children. She poured everything she had into providing for us and our futures. But what did we know about that.

In 2008, after I got divorced, I lived with my mom for a time, while I got back on my feet. She was the ideal roommate: quiet (-- hard to believe, I know --), clean… she kept to herself when I didn't want company, but she was right there when I needed someone to talk to. I learned a lot about mom as a person that year.
 
So one evening, I came home and asked her about her day. She flashed me her knowing smile and replied: "today while I was seeing an amputee, and tending to his infected stump, the dog was sniffing my crotch. I look over at other side of the bed and I see a mouse crawling up the bedspread, and the cat isn't doing anything about it. So I say to the woman, 'there's a mouse, how come the cat isn't doing anything about it?' and the woman picks up the cat and throws it at the mouse. In the meantime the amputee has shit the bed."

Such is the life of a nurse. In that last year before she retired -- the year I lived with her -- mom, a twenty-seven year veteran who was turning 65, worked Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year's Day, all without incentive pay. She was actually scheduled to work the entire Christmas weekend, but had to call in sick -- which she never did -- because she couldn't get out of bed.

And it occurred to me that this was her *every day* while I was growing up. When you are a child, you cannot conceive how hard your mother works. All of that noise, all of that chaos, all of that hard, hard work - she shielded us from it. We lived inside of her protective armor. All of our pedestrian worries about homework, sleep-overs, clean uniforms… these seemed like the biggest problems in the world to us. Meanwhile, outside of the bubble in which we lived, mom fought real demons: financial hardship, cancer, unsafe neighborhoods, unfair labor practices. And she did it always with a wry and confident smile on her face.

The poem reads, "tomorrow is won by winning me." You did it, mom. I am your child -- and I am very proud to say so.