Lector, Si Monumentum Requiris, Circumspice
Reader, if you require a monument, look around you.
-- epitaph of Sir Christopher Wren, buried in St. Paul's Cathedral of which he was the architect
***
The last couple of days have been icky. I've felt crappy in general -- tired, mostly -- and haven't wanted to be on the phone even to call people I have to talk to. Partly, I've been forgetting what the hell I'm doing right when I'm supposed to be doing it, which is both scary and annoying, and which I hope quits now that the pressure's off. All my energy's been devoted to keeping my shit together where it belongs, and so far, I've managed.
The funeral was good. Good. Friends and family, lots of love. I smell like other people now. Weird.
Dad brought a passel of Mom's paintings to show -- all of our favorite ones -- and I brought the necklace and the book I made for her last year. It was all suitably meaningful, and really beautiful. There were flowers and everything. It actually wasn't cheap or tacky or bad. It was very nice, and did what it was supposed to. Brought us together, moved us on. Yeah. I'm real articulate. Sorry. For two days I've been doing nothing but gnawing every word I speak, and it's just exhausting.
Some friends came from the writers' group, and I almost cried at the kindness of it -- the show of support could not have been for my mother, they didn't know her; it was for me, and that almost sunk my boat. And our resident mad poet gifted me with some poems that I'm SO very glad I didn't read before I had to get up and speak, because I would have been incapacitated with tears of . . . well. Everything, really. From everlasting to everlasting, indeed.
So after being led in by about 20 minutes of our very nice minister mostly entertaining us, I got up and delivered the eulogy.
Five minutes, no stumbles, hitches, stutters, fidgeting, or explosive tears. I did it. And by all accounts, I handled it famously; did the whole eye-contact thing, and the part where you actually talk so they can hear you. But I feel sort of bad. I made my dad cry. Okay. He was wearing shades the whole time, bless him, but he was still losing it a bit.
That's what it's for, though, and I pray this has drawn the thorn enough that we can start to heal.
How the hell I managed to do it . . . well, I'd say I don't know where the strength came from, but I do know. I feel it in every inch of my body. I am exhausted. Now I feel like I can finally relax and let it go. I did this for everyone else, because words mean more coming from someone close to the departed, because I know that, had I been one of mom's friends, it would have meant a lot to me to see a familiar face. Because I'm socially inept, a bit of a tweek, and occasionally a spaz, words are all the comfort I can give, sometimes not even that. This time I could, so I was damn well going to try to ease everyone else's pain. When you have a way with something, you use it at times like this, because what the fuck else is it for if not giving a little hope to those who need it?
And now it's done, and I hope I managed to say something that bore them up a little.
Also, Sargon's parents (Mr. and Mrs. the Terrible) came into town and took us to an early dinner, and we had lots of fun talking and laughing and in general being cool. I had a bad moment for about 30 seconds there when I realized that his mom is my only mom now, but I managed not to melt completely. I'm a big girl and all that.
I'm happy. Tired, but happy. And, hey. Thanks to everyone who's been commenting or calling or writing or coming by to offer whatever forms of support they have. It's all appreciated.
I'm dropping the text of the eulogy behind the cut, both for my own reference and so you can see it and maybe get to know my mom a little better. This wasn't the biographical portion -- thankfully my sister stepped up to the plate and knocked that part out of the park; I'm AWFUL at it, and I'm grateful she did such a bang-up job. It was happy and funny and sad all at the same time -- it was right.
I got the part where I'm supposed to give people something to take home. And that's both easier and harder than narrating the facts of a life. On the one hand, I didn't have to fuss with dates or trying to render dry facts entertaining. On the other, I did have to try to put it all in some kind of perspective -- not just her life and how it affected all of us, but also our lives, and where we're going now, and what we have left after all this.
***
If I had to pick one memory of my mother to embody everything that she was to me, it would have to be taken from the many hours she spent with me when I was just a little kid, playing make-believe. Like every child, I was the hero in my own story -- Robin Hood, most often -- but she played a hundred other parts, from Maid Marian and Little John to The Sheriff of Nottingham. She was friend and villain and confidante in turn, always quick to play whatever role was needed.
I remember this, because as I was putting together the necklace I made for her last Christmas, I read the memories each person had enclosed. Happy memories, funny ones, or bittersweet. And I saw how many things she was to the many people she knew. Not just a mother, but a wife, a daughter, a teacher, a partner, and a friend.
She had a forceful personality. She was strong, even bitter, like the dark chocolate she loved; but that sharpness was never, never without the sweet. And people were drawn to that edge in her, just as much as they were drawn to the sweetness.
She wasn't just "nice." Extraordinary people might be good, or wise, or full of care, but they are never merely "nice." Mother challenged, provoked, brought out the strong and sharp in other people simply because you couldn't play nice with her -- you'd get left behind. Her girls weren't just "nice" and her friends weren't just "nice." We're strong, and we're sharp. Every one of us.
Mom didn't care much for rules -- she could be a little untame, which is a trait I'm glad to say that many of us share. She wasn't afraid to take chances, whether that was something as extraordinary as throwing herself into the mastery of a new craft, or something as simple as daring to wear purple and green together. She was unabashed about taking risks, and even when she made mistakes (like leaving the sugar out of a cheesecake), she'd try again, just for the fun of it. Or maybe for the looks on our faces.
She had patience, compassion. Her care extended to friends as well as the pets we brought home -- people were drawn to her because it was hard to feel lost or unwelcome around my mom, once she'd decided to let you in. Our couch was always open to a friend, and it was Mom that taught me to set an extra place at dinner, just in case.
I have fond memories of the many friends who shared my mother's life -- I see many of you here, and I thank you again for loving her. The most lasting gift we can give is friendship. We can't pick our families, but we choose our friends, and I've always felt that it was a mark of esteem to be friends with my mother. I have no doubt that, had I not been born into her family, I would have elected to join it as a friend, simply for the good company.
She had a way of making the world around her uniquely her own. Her creativity was boundless and irrepressible. She knew how to do a hundred different things, always had her hands in something exciting and new. Some of those works are gathered here. Pieces of her life, windows into her world. Pictures, paintings, the work of her hands: they are all illustrations for a story that has not ended. It's told in us again and again, because she loved us, because we remember her. Because we will not forget the woman whose cleverness, compassion, and creativity shaped her corner of the world into a place unlike any other.
Caroline was a woman with a unique vision of how the world was, and how it ought to be. After years of knowing her, we have perhaps learned to see the world and each other through her eyes, and perhaps she sees through ours, still. If it is true that works of art are never finished, only abandoned in favor of something new, then I have no doubt that she has moved on to some great new work.
I do not believe this is an ending. Not for her. Not for any of us.
Raise your heads from grief, and look around you. Artists are survived by their works, as fine people are survived by their companions. She could ask nothing better than this: that she has, for a monument, her own works, and her many fine friends.
Thank you all for coming today.
-- epitaph of Sir Christopher Wren, buried in St. Paul's Cathedral of which he was the architect
***
The last couple of days have been icky. I've felt crappy in general -- tired, mostly -- and haven't wanted to be on the phone even to call people I have to talk to. Partly, I've been forgetting what the hell I'm doing right when I'm supposed to be doing it, which is both scary and annoying, and which I hope quits now that the pressure's off. All my energy's been devoted to keeping my shit together where it belongs, and so far, I've managed.
The funeral was good. Good. Friends and family, lots of love. I smell like other people now. Weird.
Dad brought a passel of Mom's paintings to show -- all of our favorite ones -- and I brought the necklace and the book I made for her last year. It was all suitably meaningful, and really beautiful. There were flowers and everything. It actually wasn't cheap or tacky or bad. It was very nice, and did what it was supposed to. Brought us together, moved us on. Yeah. I'm real articulate. Sorry. For two days I've been doing nothing but gnawing every word I speak, and it's just exhausting.
Some friends came from the writers' group, and I almost cried at the kindness of it -- the show of support could not have been for my mother, they didn't know her; it was for me, and that almost sunk my boat. And our resident mad poet gifted me with some poems that I'm SO very glad I didn't read before I had to get up and speak, because I would have been incapacitated with tears of . . . well. Everything, really. From everlasting to everlasting, indeed.
So after being led in by about 20 minutes of our very nice minister mostly entertaining us, I got up and delivered the eulogy.
Five minutes, no stumbles, hitches, stutters, fidgeting, or explosive tears. I did it. And by all accounts, I handled it famously; did the whole eye-contact thing, and the part where you actually talk so they can hear you. But I feel sort of bad. I made my dad cry. Okay. He was wearing shades the whole time, bless him, but he was still losing it a bit.
That's what it's for, though, and I pray this has drawn the thorn enough that we can start to heal.
How the hell I managed to do it . . . well, I'd say I don't know where the strength came from, but I do know. I feel it in every inch of my body. I am exhausted. Now I feel like I can finally relax and let it go. I did this for everyone else, because words mean more coming from someone close to the departed, because I know that, had I been one of mom's friends, it would have meant a lot to me to see a familiar face. Because I'm socially inept, a bit of a tweek, and occasionally a spaz, words are all the comfort I can give, sometimes not even that. This time I could, so I was damn well going to try to ease everyone else's pain. When you have a way with something, you use it at times like this, because what the fuck else is it for if not giving a little hope to those who need it?
And now it's done, and I hope I managed to say something that bore them up a little.
Also, Sargon's parents (Mr. and Mrs. the Terrible) came into town and took us to an early dinner, and we had lots of fun talking and laughing and in general being cool. I had a bad moment for about 30 seconds there when I realized that his mom is my only mom now, but I managed not to melt completely. I'm a big girl and all that.
I'm happy. Tired, but happy. And, hey. Thanks to everyone who's been commenting or calling or writing or coming by to offer whatever forms of support they have. It's all appreciated.
I'm dropping the text of the eulogy behind the cut, both for my own reference and so you can see it and maybe get to know my mom a little better. This wasn't the biographical portion -- thankfully my sister stepped up to the plate and knocked that part out of the park; I'm AWFUL at it, and I'm grateful she did such a bang-up job. It was happy and funny and sad all at the same time -- it was right.
I got the part where I'm supposed to give people something to take home. And that's both easier and harder than narrating the facts of a life. On the one hand, I didn't have to fuss with dates or trying to render dry facts entertaining. On the other, I did have to try to put it all in some kind of perspective -- not just her life and how it affected all of us, but also our lives, and where we're going now, and what we have left after all this.
***
If I had to pick one memory of my mother to embody everything that she was to me, it would have to be taken from the many hours she spent with me when I was just a little kid, playing make-believe. Like every child, I was the hero in my own story -- Robin Hood, most often -- but she played a hundred other parts, from Maid Marian and Little John to The Sheriff of Nottingham. She was friend and villain and confidante in turn, always quick to play whatever role was needed.
I remember this, because as I was putting together the necklace I made for her last Christmas, I read the memories each person had enclosed. Happy memories, funny ones, or bittersweet. And I saw how many things she was to the many people she knew. Not just a mother, but a wife, a daughter, a teacher, a partner, and a friend.
She had a forceful personality. She was strong, even bitter, like the dark chocolate she loved; but that sharpness was never, never without the sweet. And people were drawn to that edge in her, just as much as they were drawn to the sweetness.
She wasn't just "nice." Extraordinary people might be good, or wise, or full of care, but they are never merely "nice." Mother challenged, provoked, brought out the strong and sharp in other people simply because you couldn't play nice with her -- you'd get left behind. Her girls weren't just "nice" and her friends weren't just "nice." We're strong, and we're sharp. Every one of us.
Mom didn't care much for rules -- she could be a little untame, which is a trait I'm glad to say that many of us share. She wasn't afraid to take chances, whether that was something as extraordinary as throwing herself into the mastery of a new craft, or something as simple as daring to wear purple and green together. She was unabashed about taking risks, and even when she made mistakes (like leaving the sugar out of a cheesecake), she'd try again, just for the fun of it. Or maybe for the looks on our faces.
She had patience, compassion. Her care extended to friends as well as the pets we brought home -- people were drawn to her because it was hard to feel lost or unwelcome around my mom, once she'd decided to let you in. Our couch was always open to a friend, and it was Mom that taught me to set an extra place at dinner, just in case.
I have fond memories of the many friends who shared my mother's life -- I see many of you here, and I thank you again for loving her. The most lasting gift we can give is friendship. We can't pick our families, but we choose our friends, and I've always felt that it was a mark of esteem to be friends with my mother. I have no doubt that, had I not been born into her family, I would have elected to join it as a friend, simply for the good company.
She had a way of making the world around her uniquely her own. Her creativity was boundless and irrepressible. She knew how to do a hundred different things, always had her hands in something exciting and new. Some of those works are gathered here. Pieces of her life, windows into her world. Pictures, paintings, the work of her hands: they are all illustrations for a story that has not ended. It's told in us again and again, because she loved us, because we remember her. Because we will not forget the woman whose cleverness, compassion, and creativity shaped her corner of the world into a place unlike any other.
Caroline was a woman with a unique vision of how the world was, and how it ought to be. After years of knowing her, we have perhaps learned to see the world and each other through her eyes, and perhaps she sees through ours, still. If it is true that works of art are never finished, only abandoned in favor of something new, then I have no doubt that she has moved on to some great new work.
I do not believe this is an ending. Not for her. Not for any of us.
Raise your heads from grief, and look around you. Artists are survived by their works, as fine people are survived by their companions. She could ask nothing better than this: that she has, for a monument, her own works, and her many fine friends.
Thank you all for coming today.