Wednesday, June 5, 2019
I want to acknowledge here our debt to Dan and Margaret, Dave and Marion, Scott, the grandkids, and Kathy, for attending to her in the last months and years of mom's life. They gave their love back to Mom and it showed. Eldonna--you called her by her name, but I and my brothers knew her as Mom. Remember when she greeted you? She called you, Honey. She loved everyone, right from the start. The cool thing about this was that she meant it; she genuinely loved everyone. For this, she was a model to us. Mom had several remarkable qualities beside the spark of love she flashed when she greeted everyone: She was the first one to laugh and her laugh was gregarious, infectious and genuine. Her sense of humor could turn on a dime--a pun, an impression, a silly joke. If any of us was in a funk, she knew she could lift us up with humor, self-deprecating humor, or a snappy retort. The Sunday before she went to be with the Lord, Scott asked her what time she had awoken. "I'm just glad I woke up," she replied. Mom loved us with a love as deep as a canyon. In the fifties, sixties and seventies, she was a homemaker for us. This means she shipped us off to school, made our lunches, ironed our jeans for school, and was home when we came home. She got us all to meeting on time. And her cooking always filled our plates nicely. Mom was very loyal to her family to a fault. After the four of us sons had grown and gone, all of us could feel her praying for us. For our wives. For our children too. For me, personally, growing up, I mostly knew her through my brothers; I mean, they were always present when she was. I didn't have much time alone with her. She sensed this and did something about it once--it must have been in late spring of 1964, before I started Kindergarten, a newly-minted five years old, and she took me--just me--on a picnic lunch to Long's Gardens, just a short walk from our house on 14th Street in Boulder. She spread out a blanket under a black walnut tree and we had lunch. I don't remember much else about that event except I thought the black walnuts were cool but there is a residue of the emotion that lingers to this day--an emotion that said she made me feel special and wanted and cared for. Just me. The thing I will miss the most about is not only her laughter and not only her generosity and not only her faith. I will miss her heart. She missed being born on Valentine's Day by two days. But I also got to see her love my brothers. And I also got to see her love her husband, Don. And I got to see her love her grandchildren. And I knew she loved her sisters. And I knew she loved many of you. She will miss you. We already miss her. Until then!
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