Yesterday

Yesterday was my mother's funeral. The family tried to do things the way she wanted, at least as far as we knew. My father, and one of brothers spoke, and my sister's husband read a short tribute she wrote about our mother. There was a full house, and our son Matthew did a fine service for his grandmother, she would have been proud. We played a hymn I remembered her singing when we were young, In the Garden, my siblings remembered it when it got to the chorus ....'and He walks with me and he talks with me, and tells me I am his own...
 I managed to get to almost the end of my tribute before I chocked up just at the end. Sine I get so much practice writing and there was so many things to say about her it was three typewritten pages, but I had to copy it out by hand Friday morning before we went. It is very strange without her here in the house, because she was ...  a caring friend, aunt, mother, grandmother to so many people. Here is a little part of what I wrote about her.

My mother -about 7 years ago

 Mother never forgot anything, she could tell you every story she’d ever heard, every person she’d ever met, everyone’s birthday and anniversary and if she was on your side, you had the biggest supporter in the world. She also remembered when she was upset with someone, but that’s another story. She always put father, us kids and her grandchildren and great grandchildren ahead of anything she had planned for herself. However, even if mother may have spoiled us as much as possible, she did not believe in letting children win at games, she used to play checkers with her grandmother as a child and we could never beat her.

She loved to sew and made everything from clothes- to baby quilts and dolls to embroidering pictures to hang on the wall for her grandchildren, nieces and nephews. When we were young, Sandy, Dee and I got homemade dresses for Easter every year as children and often for Christmas and the first day of school too. Mother taught all of us girls and many other girls to sew in 4-H, where she was a leader, and was proud when we all made our own wedding dresses.

She was a one person welcoming committee, and was a great cook, making meals for every family gathering, planning menus with everyone’s favorite foods when they visited, like Special Chicken, Corn Fritters, Blueberry Buckle, Mama Edith Emley’s Chicken Salad with homemade dressing, and she handwrote the recipes into cookbooks for us. She even got Seth – who hated tomatoes – to somehow eat and love her mashed potatoes with gravied tomatoes, when she had him and Jonah for a month seven years ago (the first time I taught English in Ukraine in July).

Mother always put everyone else’s needs ahead of her own, so when we wanted her to see a doctor when she was having trouble talking, she said she didn’t have time for her, it could wait while she took care of father after he was diagnosed with cancer. Eventually she found out what was wrong with her but didn’t tell us until after coming to Manitoba for Josh and Krissy’s June wedding two years ago because she wanted to wait until after Christmas, so we could enjoy her favorite holiday of the year. She finally told us; however, she told that we were not allowed “to put it on the internet.”

 She didn’t want her children to help her, because she was the one who did things for us, and so we had to try to do only the things she wanted us to do. It seemed like every time I visited for a couple weeks, if I had tried to organize something, she would write father notes asking where I had moved something to which he would read to me on the phone, and I would try to remember, so she could find it.  She came to depend on him more as time went by, she said he signed up for it when he married her, and he did a wonderful job of taking care of her for the last two years as she slowly could do less for herself.

This spring she had a good day at the family Easter egg hunt, but shortly afterwards she could no longer walk around the house with her cane, and had to use the wheelchair for everything, not just going outside. When I came to see her in May I knew it could be the last time I kissed her goodbye, but I had hoped to see her again in August for the Polhemus family reunion (her maiden name)that she was excited about.