Birth date: Sep 1, 2010 Death date: Sep 24, 2010
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Let me start off by thanking all of you for coming today to join us in saying goodbye to my Mother. My Mother had many good friends that she cherished and a family that she loved. To all of you I say THANK YOU and I honor you for being an integral part of her life (bow).
Many of you are local and some have travelled long distances to be here. For that I am grateful, honored, and humbled.
This one is not going to be easy because I think everyone knows how much my mother meant to me so please smile and be happy because it will take the village of Claremore to get me through this.
I have to admit I didn't expect to be back here so soon after the passing of my father in February.
I received literally hundreds of emails, text messages, and Facebook comments about my mother's passing.
We are here today to lay my Mom to rest, next to Dad, whom she's missed so terribly for the past eight months and one day. She missed him every day, and especially the days around the monthly anniversary of his death, during Father's Day, and his 80th birthday this past Sunday. But Mom was always too proud to let anyone really know or understand her sadness.
I do believe my Mom believed in the eternal life and that would allow her someday to rejoin her loved ones. Because of that I know she's happy now to be with her mother and sister that she loved so dearly, the father that was taken from her far too early in her life, and the husband of almost 50 years who left her recently.
Someone recently asked me how I was feeling and I said "It kind of makes me mad." And that pretty much sums up my feelings about losing her so much sooner than we had expected. And I think that's okay, because her loss has left a large hole in my heart and in all of our hearts. So, go ahead. Be mad that she's gone. But don't let that get in the way of being thankful for the blessing that she was to all of us while she was here. I was blessed with having my Mom in my life for 45 years, one month, and 18 days and I wish everyday that I could have another day to call her and check in on her, which I did everyday and sometimes two or three times a day…. I think the child in us all craves the comfort of our parents regardless of our age.
There is a Shakespearean saying that we have all heard from Romeo and Juliet that goes "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet". Many people don't know but our "Rose" for whom we are all gathered here today used to be known as "Rosel from the Mosel" when she was born and raised on the banks of the Mosel River in Germany. But I AM sure almost everyone in this room remembers her as "Rosa from Roosa" for her tenure at Roosa School where she touched literally thousands of children that passed through that school. My father called HIS "Rose" "Rosey". My brother and I referred to OUR "Rose" as "Mom" and our children simply called their "Rose", "Omi".
Regardless of when you interacted with Rose or what you called her, her infectious smile and warm personality smelled oh so SWEET to all of us.
We were all blessed to have had her in our lives. Although that time was cut too short we should not, no matter how tempting it is, to focus on what COULD have been in the future but rather on the blessings we had by having our "Rose" in our lives.
In our house my mother played the roles of the matriarch, the referee, the bouncer, and the loving parent…all with equal skill…allowing my brother and I to reach adulthood without permanent injury, well with the exception of my brother who I am convinced has suffered some form of cerebral damage.
During the course of that upbringing I am reminded of five lessons that my "Rose" taught me.
1. First my mother was an extremely proud woman, maybe even too proud to a fault. Even if she wasn't feeling well and you said "Mom how are you doing?" she would say "great". Or if you called her on the phone she would muster up every ounce of energy left in her body to make sure when you hung up you didn't worry about her. She never wanted to burden you with any of her issues. The lesson I learned
