My Mother’s Will

I am flying from San Diego to Buffalo today to be at my mother’s side as she prepares her final journey. My six sisters and two brothers along with all of their children have been there keeping vigil. I pray that I make it there in time.

They tell me that she is holding on for all of us to be there.

My sister Mary asked me last week to write the eulogy and I was honored.

I wrote it the next morning. It was easy. Sweet and nice and it made me cry.

The next morning I wanted to add more. And all through the day thoughts of my mother and what she meant ran through my head. And the next day. And the day after.

Each day it became more and more difficult as I was attempting to capture her 80 years in a five minute speech.

I only needed to mention the last 59 years though as that is when our little family began with the birth of her first born, our brother Mike.

Actually I only needed to talk about the past 57 years because that is when I came on the scene. So now my task was getting easier.

I wondered why was it becoming more difficult as I gave it more thought?

Then in my quiet still moments I really thought about her and how she viewed life.

Her life wasn’t easy, ten wonderful children including myself. And not even one set of Octuplets or even twins.

She was a stay at home mom. Money was so scarce that I think that it stayed away in fear that it would be eaten. But we always had a roof over our heads, clean clothes to wear and three meals a day.

Her toughest moment came when Mike was taken from us at the early age of 34.

Her unconditional love of her children, her growing legion of grandkids and a strong faith in God led her through that difficult time.

Fast forward many years as health declined but her love continued to burn like a blast furnace. She became wiser yet simpler.

Throughout the struggles and issues that you can imagine with a family that size she remained a steady example of how to live life.

She led by example ”If you can’t say anything good, don’t say anything at all”, was one of her sayings.

Speaking about sayings, we had a saying about her sayings called Momism’s.

Like” I’m going to piss my pants laughing” and often times she would.

Because I didn’t live here in the later years my siblings are a better source of the Momism’s

She is leaving us however with a nice Simple Will.

Just like she led her life simple, with love and laughter. No matter what was going on around her she was always able to keep it simple. She had to, that’s the hand she was dealt and she played it perfectly. She gave us, through her example unconditional love and always had us laughing our butts off.

The Will doesn’t contain any actual money as one would imagine but it contains something much more valuable. It contains her philosophy on life and how to live it.

She showed us how to love and how to laugh.

Money that is spent is gone.

Her gifts however when given continue to multiply.

Think of what happens when you give and share love. It comes back, grows and spreads.

Love is eternal and we know that but we don’t always act on it.

The same is true with laughter. It is almost impossible not to laugh when everyone around you is laughing unless of course they are laughing about you ( but that’s another story)

When I think of her now I will think of her Will with the letters W I L L

W stands for her Wish for us

I stands for how she Inspired us.

The two L’s are what she inspired us with, Love and Laughter.

Life goes on and we will all have our challenges, our ups and our downs.

That’s just what life is all about.

But if we invest her lesson from her WILL,  we will always be rich and surrounded with as much love as she was in her life and will continue to be loved forever.