My mom's eulogy

 
Hello, everyone and thank you for coming. My name is Amy

Mosiman and, like you, I have many identities. I am, foremost

and above all things, a girl who loves Jesus and am the daughter

of the one true King. I am Brad Mosiman’s wife. Savannah and

Sydney’s mother. I am a teacher. A writer. I try to be a good

friend. I adore my little dog. And I love my mama, Evangeline

Adele Steen DeLong whom most of you knew as Vee.

Unlike us, my mother did not have a litany of identities to proclaim on her resume. 

She was a wife. Mother. Grandmother & Great-Grandmother. 

Singularly, she devoted her life to the noblest of pursuits: Taking care of her family. 

And it was only later that I realized that my mother had selflessly allowed us to eclipse her. I discovered this over the past few years as I frantically attempted to surround her with comfort items. The blonde Oreos that were a signature in her cookie jar? Dad’s favorite. Daisies? Her mom’s favorite. The food she routinely ate favored my father’s palate, her go-to shirt was a twin to his, her favorite Christmas carol, “Silent Night” was her mother’s. Somehow, my mother had gotten lost in the shadow of her family.

And then Dad, the singular celestial body upon whom my mother orbited, fell and Vee DeLong, our shining star, became brightly visible. 

We all know the sadly romantic story associated with swans. They mate for life and, when one dies, the other follows of a broken heart. No one actually said it out loud, but there were a lot of

speculation, that, when Dad passed, Mom wouldn’t be far behind. Turns out, my mama is made of stronger stuff. It was a week ago today where she endured 18 hours, awake and without complaint, in a chaotic emergency room, took 4 staples to the back of her head without a beat, all the time, encouraging me to go home, assuring me that she would be fine. Vee DeLong is a rock star.

I shouldn’t have been surprised …this was the woman had who sat bedside,

next to her husband whose body was practically levitating off the bed in pain

and calmly held his hand for over five hours. I watched as her poor arthritic

hands were crushed in his grasp as she soothed him. My mother was his

medicine.

Although my purpose today is to proclaim that my mother was the strongest person in the world, we have to remember that this is also the love story of Earl and Vee DeLong. I watched it play out my whole life but didn’t really appreciate it until failing health separated them. I was there during one of my dad’s evening phone calls. He’d discovered that figure skating was on TV so he called my mother to direct her to the channel so they could watch it together. My parents, miles apart, watched ice skating and I watched my mother, phone to her ear, eyes glued to the screen, as skaters spun, twirled and jumped and I listened as she responded to my father’s observations about costumes and skills.

How grateful I was for my mother’s inability to throw away greetings cards and letters as I was able to compile many of Dad’s beautiful tributes to his beloved Vee.

Unknowingly, I have been training for this next part over the last few years as my poor mama’s memory failed and I desperately tried to fill in some of the blanks for her.

My mother came from a large family led by my hard-working grandmother whom my mother idolized. My mom and Aunt Sally were the last two remaining of the Steens and I will refrain from telling you what they called their n’ere-do-well father…don’t say it, Aunt Sally…but a story with him offers insight into the hidden strength of my mother. As she told it, my grandfather, who delivered milk for a living, had parked the truck, with my young mother, outside a bar and gone in without properly setting the brake. In his absence, the truck began to roll down hill. My mother got out, watched its descent, shrugged and walked home.

I love my Aunt Sally. My brother and I grew up visiting her and

Uncle Bob’s farm, playing endlessly with our cousins, Sandy and

Todd. Our games were punctuated with the raucous laughter of the

adults playing cards. The vernacular of these games delighted us;

using words and phrases that had evolved from their time to mean 

something entirely different in our’s:  Hearing my gentle mother say 

that her hand had been a “boner” would send us into squeals of 

immature giggling. One of the greatest compliments of my life was 

when my mother, in these last few years, would confuse me for 

Sally…so easy to do…we look so similar. I think it was because we could both make her laugh…we were 

her dandies. Thank you, Aunt Sally, for advocating, protecting, and loving my mother like only you could 

do. 

As my mom’s memory would ebb and flow, surprising moments

would pop up. On our many trips to see Dad in LeRoy, we would

drive over a bridge and my mother would inevitably brighten and

tell me that she’d often swam in the Oatka River that flowed

through that small city. My mother’s childhood would come to me

in other ways, as well. Her friend, Marlene, who had introduced a

teen-aged Evangeline to the good-looking attendant at the gas

station (my dad), recently sent me a letter which included a picture

of my mom with the origins of her familiar elegant script, speaking

of a young man who was NOT my father! Gasp! Is it possible that my mother was a real person?

When my mother would eventually marry that

handsome young gas attendant, he would walk home

to her every pay-day Friday and stop at a little store to

buy her a set of three tiny animal figurines: A papa,

mama, and baby. My mother’s curio cabinet was filled

with them.

So…along came Earl and there was a papa, a mama, and a baby.

And then…Amy.

And a pink house in Wyoming.

I was mad when her memory robbed her of her pink house.

And mornings where she got up insanely early to see my dad off to work. The dark kitchen with the soft light over the stove on. Radio gently playing. Making him breakfast. Putting coffee in his tall thermos. Filling his big metal lunch pail.

To do it again later with Earl and I. Occasionally she would buy Carnation Instant breakfast drink mix, letting us dump our favorite flavor into a tall glass of milk and use the hand-crank mixer to make it frothy. Earl and I would walk down the hill of our driveway to wait for the bus and Mom would stand at the picture window, waving and blowing kisses until we left.

She had worked so hard. She kept a large garden. Could grow any flower imaginable. Canned peaches and pears. Stacked wood with my father. Spent every Fall picking apples for extra Christmas money.  She made staying home sick from school a pleasure as we lay, tucked in on the couch with the plastic TV tray  next to us, loaded down with a box of kleenex and a translucent plastic Kool-Aid Guy cup of 7-Up with a flexi-straw and Bob Barker would join us at 11 so we could watch excited people spin the Big Wheel.

Her first grand-daughter arrived, Fallanne Rae, and my mother was enchanted with that little girl. When Fallanne precipitously, at a very young age, cut her hair, my mother simply declared that the style accentuated Fal’s beautiful eyes. When moving my mother’s belongings to her apartment, it was Fallanne’s orchid with which we took the greatest care. Fal…I always knew when you visited…especially with your boys because Mom would always comment on how good they were…how hard it is for boys to be cooped up in that small room and what good parents you and Colby are. Alexis…I always knew when that guitar showed up too. I played Mom’s music angel over twenty times for her on her last day and I was so pleased when Jen sent me this video. God is good.

VIDEO OF SILENT NIGHT

Five foot tall on her best day, my mother was the measuring stick

upon which every grandchild aspired to beat. Standing back-to-

back with my tiny mom, the grandkids would grin proudly when

they inevitably grew taller.  My son-in-law, Douglas stole my

heart when, visiting my Mom and gathering for a family picture,

my mom lamented that she was the littlest one. Without missing a

beat, Douglas dropped to his knees beside her. I was grateful too,

whenever we visited Aunt Sally, my cousin Todd would interrupt

 the eternal toil that comes from being a farmer to pop in and see

Mom, immediately taking a knee next to her. My mother never realized that we all looked up to her.

My mom excelled at being a grandmother. She was down

on that big braided rug in the living room, assembling

block towers, cities, and highways (I hope someone still

has those blocks), dragging out the Fisher Price barn, art

supplies, playing endless board and card games. She had

so much Pepsi and Mountain Dew in her house that you

would have thought she owned stock. Every grandchild

here can quote “The Land Before Time.” What does

Duckie say? She attended soccer games, volleyball and

swim. Listened to concerts. Witnessed more than her share of graduations. Provided physical, emotional, and

financial support whenever needed. Drove kids to appointments and was in Pennsylvania so many times that

the state offered her resident status. Birthdays were never missed accompanied by special greeting cards

emblazoned with dozens of stickers. Seating charts were employed at every holiday and each child’s place

setting had a special decoration with their name. Remember the nutcrackers?

Only Earl and I remain to remember the special way

she commemorated birthdays: By blowing up balloons,

rubbing them on a nearby head, and sticking them to

our kitchen wall. Our families thoughts, when

remembering my mom, will go to the best chocolate

chip cookies in the world, onions diced up minutely for

the tuna fish sandwiches cut in triangles, Christmas

cookie shapes that included a map of the United States

and Abe Lincoln’s head, fruit salad in a heavy yellow nesting bowl.

My mother was creative and meticulously artistic. She and

Aunt Sally would go to ceramics and one year, my mother,

laboriously painted music box dolls for each girl in the family.

Earl and I both had hand-painted lamps in our bedrooms.

Earl’s was a glossy black and white pinto horse sprinting and

I was so jealous because I was horse crazy. Mine was a

gowned girl with blue eyes and brown hair holding a little

dog. I treasure it to this day. I wouldn’t end up getting a

horse, but Mom knew I’d get the dog.

My mother helped in small ways that turned out to be huge. 

I had just given birth to my eldest daughter, Savannah Evangeline. So tired. The nurse was filling out the paperwork and needed the spelling of her name. I managed “Savannah” but stumbled on her middle name. “Get my father,” I told my husband. My dad was the best speller I knew. But then I heard the softest voice in the world as my mom quietly spelled out her own name for the nurse. 

My mother. Over-looked. Under-estimated. 

My mother. Who lived at home until she was 17 and then married the love of her life…living happily with him for 67 years. My mother, moving into an apartment, alone…like a kid going off to college and chugging stubbornly along for over three years. A survivor.

When I was a teenager, my mom, dad and I stopped for ice cream at Davis’s in Pavilion. My dad got a large twist cone but my mom and I indulged in fresh peach sundaes slathered in peach juice…we let the vanilla ice cream melt a bit and stirred the juice right into it. So good. So many years later, I would try, again and again, to find food that my mom liked…stumbling on a peach cake with fresh peaches at Wegmans. I grabbed plates and utensils for a little picnic and we sat in the shade of a little porch off to the side of her apartment building. She took the first bite, her eyes widening, and said, “Ohhhh. So good.” I felt like I had won the lottery. A week ago, after that long day in the ER, someone handed me a little plastic container of peaches. As she reclined on the stretcher, I fed her the first one and smiled as her eyes widened and she said, “Ohhhh…good.” God is good.

Mom wondered to me once, what would come next and I laughed as I described how she would open her eyes one day to see a good-looking red haired man with one lock falling down over his forehead, leaning against the large rounded hood of an old car, sliding off quickly at the sight of her, his long legs racing to her side. She would hear the sweet sound of her mother’s voice and feel her mama’s arms wrap around her again. “But how do you know?” she fretted and I laughed again. Because I know Jesus. And Jesus loves my mother.

I was given the incredible gift of holding my mama’s hand as she slid from this world and returned home. My parents, when they were dating and in the sweet early years of their marriage, frequented a dance hall and their song was “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White.” I was playing it for her on my phone and one moment, she was with me in a quiet, peaceful room and before I could catch my breath, she was in the arms of my father, dancing to their song. Her poor hands, cruelly bent by arthritis, slid, slender into my Dad’s as he swept her into his embrace. Her vision cleared. Her pain disappeared. The veil of dementia was lifted. My mom went home.