My mother's funeral was today. I gave this eulogy:
She was a woman of her time, and also a woman out of her time.
Like thousands of other girls in the first half of the last century, she was the daughter of immigrants, and went to Catholic schools in Rochester. Unlike them, unlike most women of her time, she went to college.
Like women of her time, she was a stay-at-home mom, until things changed, and she took a job as a substitute teacher, where she could work a few days a week, but still be home to be a homemaker and at-home parent. She was beloved as a substitute, by her students, by the teachers she stood in for, and by, god help us, her administrators.
While at the teacher’s college, she met her husband, like so many women in college did. They were together for decades, until the end of my father’s life. Although they claimed they never liked Long Island, where my sister and I grew up, she was involved in many projects there: she volunteered at the school, at church, in women’s clubs.
As soon as they could move away, as soon as my father retired, they did; they moved to Asheville, North Carolina. The plan was to visit several cities to see if they could find the best to which to retire, but after going to Asheville, they looked no further. She loved Asheville, and probably considered her time there the best time of her life. She got involved in the community there. She was a docent at a historical site, and at the art museum. She was an officer in the newly-formed College for Seniors (I seem to remember she was its first president). She was a member of several book clubs (and started at least one).
She loved to travel; she loved everything about it. In the pre-computer, pre-internet age, she would do hours and hours of research on places she wanted to go or upcoming trips, using dead-tree resources like books and magazines. While on the trip, she would collect all kinds of memorabilia and ephemera; once home, she would display what could be displayed. The pictures would all be printed out (before computers, this was a cost-inducing process), and, along with the printed matter she collected, would be put in a binder. She had a shelf full of binders, one for every trip. In Asheville, I remember perhaps a dozen binders on her shelf.
My mother had a gift for making friends, and for social engagement. When she lived in Freeport, she made friends that she kept through her years in Asheville. And in Asheville, she had a busy, active life. When we visited, she knew people everywhere we went. She participated in the wedding of at least one couple who met and married when they each moved to Asheville. She loved her life there. I remember hearing how sad one of her friends was that she was leaving.
And now we are here to remember her in her death.
As my old friend Bill Shakespeare might have written, were he writing about her rather than Brutus and Antony, “Her life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in her, that Nature might stand up and say to all the world, this was a woman.”
Thank you for coming, and for hearing me.
I gave the eulogy I could. I spoke about what I could, and left out what I needed to leave out.
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