Eulogy For My Mom

below is the eulogy i delivered at my mom's funeral.


Losing a loved one is never easy, but my Mom liked to say that no one ever really dies because even after a person’s gone they live on in our heads and in our hearts.

She also liked to say that death isn’t something to be afraid of. The analogy she always used was that of an unborn child. She’d say that if it was somehow possible to ask an unborn child whether it wanted to be born or just continue living in the comfort and safety of it’s mother’s womb, that it would choose the womb. It would choose the womb because it doesn’t know about all the wonderful things waiting for them once they’re born…the baby would choose the womb because that’s all it knows.

I reminded my Mom of these two things right before she died. In fact, those were two of the last things I ever told her. At the time I hoped that if for some reason she was afraid to leave us and enter into the unknown, then maybe it would help her let go. And now that she’s gone, I keep trying to remind myself that these would be the two things she would say to me if she were still here.

That said, it will probably come as no surprise when I tell you that today is the hardest day of my life. I suppose it’s somewhat fitting then that my Mom’s eulogy was the hardest thing I ever tried to write. Not because I didn’t know what I wanted to say, but because there truly are no words capable of properly describing someone as amazing as my Mom.

When Jason and I were very young, and still shared a room, every night before we went to sleep she used to spray a can of lysol in our door and say, “Hocus Pocus, no bad dreams” and somehow, magically, the nightmares stayed away. Well right now there’s nothing I wouldn’t give to hear her say those magic words, because that’s what this feels like - a very bad dream…one that I keep hoping I’ll wake up from, so that when I do she’ll still be alive.

There’s just so much I’m going to miss now that she’s gone:

- Our weekly recaps about all the TV shows we both watched and what we thought about last week’s episodes.

- The latest information about who got engaged, who got married, who gave birth, and who got a new job.

- Her telling me about some new restaurant she read about or saw on the Food Network, or a great recipe she found for me to try.

- Unexpected packages in my mailbox stuffed with newspaper clippings or magazine articles I might enjoy.

- Boxes of food from Zingerman’s, full of macaroons or hamantashen or whatever the appropriate corresponding food might be so that Jason and I would have something to properly celebrate the current holiday, even if we were all the way on the other side of the country.

- Or just coming home and finding her current stash of potato chips, hidden in the strangest of places (in fact, for anyone coming back to our house later, don’t be surprised if you open up some cabinet or drawer and find a bag).

And, unfortunately, I also can’t help but think about all the things that she’s going to miss out on.

The fact that she won’t be there to see me get married, something I know she desperately wanted to be around for…as evidenced by her regular inquiries into whether I was dating anyone, or in the event that I was dating someone, whether I thought she was “The One.”

That she’ll never get the chance to play with and spoil her grandchildren, which hurts so much because she would have been the most amazing Grandmother.

Or that she won’t be able to see Jason and I (knock on wood) one-day find success with our careers.

But rather than continue to dwell on what’s been taken away from us, I want to celebrate and remember everything I was fortunate enough to be given by being her son.

Everything that I am today is, in large part, because of her: My love of cooking and my love of eating food from all over the world. My equal appreciation of a good book, a good movie, a good concert, and a good Broadway musical. The enjoyment I get out of spending an afternoon by the pool, or in a museum, which comes courtesy of all the numerous museum trips we made growing up (even if at the time they were tolerated only because they came with the promise of a visit to the gift shop at the end, they resulted in Jason and I joining a rather exclusive club -- children under the age of 13 who had the ability to distinguish between a Magritte and a Matisse). My sense of humor. My sense of empathy. My sense of wonder. My sense of adventure. For all these things, I have her to thank.

Yes, my Mom’s life has ended, much sooner than any of us wanted and much, much sooner then she deserved. But as Abraham Lincoln once said, “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” And in this regard, my Mom lived more in her 59 years than most people could dream of living in two lifetimes.

I look out at the dozens and dozens of people in this room, not to mention the dozens and dozens more who couldn’t make it but who are thinking about her all over the country today as a testament to how rich and fulfilling her time with us was, and I see the proof of what my words have attempted to express…She left this world a better place than when she entered it, and our lives were infinitely better because she was a part of it.

I hope to see her again some day, but in the meantime I will go on knowing that she will never be forgotten.