Thank you all for your kind words. I want to thank all of you for being a support during what is the hardest time I have ever gone through in my life. It has been a long road for mom but she is at rest now.
We had the funeral on Saturday and my family came to stay at the house. Mom's good friends came in from out of town as well. My husband and I went to the funeral parlour early to help the funeral director set up (it just happened that way since we had to stop in to see him. He asked us if we wanted to help and I was honoured to.)
We set out flowers and watched her picture slideshow, just the three of us.
In my many lonely, sleepless night at mom's house, when I was alone for hose many weeks with my husband or baby, I woulld while the time away reminiscing by looking at the things mom kep. I came to realize that she had kept pretty well every single pair of glasses she ever owned. I piled them up as I found them and tucked them in a special drawer.
Two nights before the funeral, my husband and I went through the many pictures mom had; I selected a whole bunch from her entire life so that we could prepare the photo slideshow for her funeral. I decided to select five special photos and five of her glasses to set out as a special display. The photo selected had the pair of glasses mom was wearing in it right there next to the frame. It was very special and made the funeral more personal.
I prepared a eulogy for mom and everyone told me that I did a good job and truly captured her essence. My gradeschool principle helped with the ceremony. My grade two and grade seven teachers were there. Many faces from the church we attended when I was a child. Faces of my childhood friends parents. Friendly old faces I hadn't seen for years and years. How heartwarming.
I found a poem that I read from when reading my eulogy and I want to share it with you. I thought it was truly special. It is called When Death Comes by Mary Oliver.
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom; taking the world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.