Okay, enough of the eulogy stuff. For one reason, Hillary can't handle all this talk and she's going to divorce me from being her Mom.
Today's post will just be a quote I found from John Cleese. "Dying is often a cry for attention, did you know that?"
I don't want attention so this is the end.
Showing posts with label eulogy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eulogy. Show all posts
Friday, September 4, 2009
Thursday, September 3, 2009
LYNNE'S EULOGY ADD ONS
I hope whoever reads my eulogy will say this:
Phil: I can still see him, with a grin on his face, looking up at me from the window of his white Thunderbird. Who wouldn't fall in love with that face? We have gone through some tough times, he has given me more fun times, is the father of the children that I love, is patient, kind and hardly ever says, "I told you so." He worries about his kids, prays about them and loves them as only a father can. He is my rock and I lean on him for all things in my life. He loves the Gospel and wants to serve the very best that he can. I believe he does. I love him with all my heart.
Trent: "Mom, don't take that milk away. It's not even solid yet." Age four. And this one: "I still remember when I figured out math. I was sitting in the hall by my bedroom, looking at the white wall." He was four or five years old. And the day his barefooted friend ran all the way to my house to tell me Trent was stuck on the sidewalk, afraid to move because it was hot and burned his feet. His friend ran on the grass. My Trent. So brilliant and so spacey. He asks me, occasionally, "Does your dog bite?" (From one of the Pink Panther Movies) He has lots of quotes memorized and yes, he really should vacuum the other half of the piano. He drove the Subaru off the road and it rolled a couple of times and only got his pride hurt. Thank goodness. He would do anything for his parents and his siblings. He loves us all, in our undoing and unwinding, it doesn't matter. He loves us.
Taylor: I have a mental picture of him running across the lawn with his hair bouncing every which way--he was about four or five. That kid loved to run. And I will never forget the look on his face when I squirted him with the hose through the screen door. It was worth the mess. And on the way home from Thanksgiving with Cole's borrowed guitar--he fiddled with it the entire time and within a month he could play the guitar. He cleaned my kitchen every day for car privileges and at the time I was fixing four dozen gourmet meals which I sold to businesses. The kitchen was a mess. He walked home from Orem (at 2:00 and 3:00 a.m.) where he worked as a janitor because I slept through the phone when he called for a ride. He was never mad. He always forgives. Always.
Hillary: "I a big goil and can do it myself." And she pulled away from my hand and marched across the street all by herself. She watched as I tried to teach Taylor to tie his shoe. I tried and tried and he just didn't get it. "It's like this," she said and showed him how. She was 2 1/2 years younger. We always ended up in her bedroom, the kids and I. She said because it was the only clean room in the house but that wasn't why and she knows it. She doesn't get mad, she gets even. She fits her name which means happy. She is my get-out-of-the-dumps girl. Just call Hillary and I'll be all right. She cuts our hair and stays and visits instead of going to Target. She lallygags on the lawn swings with me and the girls. She won't speak at my funeral which is okay because I'm not going to die. She loves me. I can't go.
Bentley: The doorknob was broken on his and Hillary's bedroom door. Trent and Taylor and I were playing board games in the kitchen. Bentley couldn't get out of his room. He knocked and knocked. No one came. He went to Hillary for help. She was asleep. By the time we finally went to rescue him he was sound asleep, standing up, with his head on her bed. He jelled his own hair and stuck it straight up in the air at age four. You've never seen a more proud kid. He put himself through college with scholarships. We never once said to him, "Do your homework." He just did it. He drove the Suburban into the creek at Sundance and only got his pride hurt. Thank goodness. He makes me laugh and laugh. His first batch of chocolate chip cookies took 2 1/2 hours but he is quick to tell you they were the perfect cookies. He saves all his receipts and could start the Chicago fire with them, which he wouldn't do because he is in love with Chicago. That's how he lives his life, doing things to perfection. And if anything, that kid has the perfect laugh.
Elizabeth: She made herself a bed in Hillary's room on a shelve in the closet. She wanted to sleep in her big sister's room. She was all bedded down when Hillary came in to get dressed from a shower. The scream can still be heard. She told Hillary's friend, "Your mother doesn't love you," for no reason at all. She told me a string of insults when I made her eat her soup including, "This is swamp soup." And the ultimate insult, "Jesus doesn't love you." She wants to be named for Mom, who died a year before she was born. One day I may legally change her name. She sometimes looks just like Mom and I think there is a special bond between the two of them. I have asked Heavenly Father to "send Mom." to watch over Elizabeth and I think she does. She now says, "I love you too," when we hang up the phone. It makes me happy. She is tender and strong, all at the same time. She always forgives. Always.
When all is said and done...and is it ever EVER all said and done...I've had a great life because of the great people in it.
Phil: I can still see him, with a grin on his face, looking up at me from the window of his white Thunderbird. Who wouldn't fall in love with that face? We have gone through some tough times, he has given me more fun times, is the father of the children that I love, is patient, kind and hardly ever says, "I told you so." He worries about his kids, prays about them and loves them as only a father can. He is my rock and I lean on him for all things in my life. He loves the Gospel and wants to serve the very best that he can. I believe he does. I love him with all my heart.
Trent: "Mom, don't take that milk away. It's not even solid yet." Age four. And this one: "I still remember when I figured out math. I was sitting in the hall by my bedroom, looking at the white wall." He was four or five years old. And the day his barefooted friend ran all the way to my house to tell me Trent was stuck on the sidewalk, afraid to move because it was hot and burned his feet. His friend ran on the grass. My Trent. So brilliant and so spacey. He asks me, occasionally, "Does your dog bite?" (From one of the Pink Panther Movies) He has lots of quotes memorized and yes, he really should vacuum the other half of the piano. He drove the Subaru off the road and it rolled a couple of times and only got his pride hurt. Thank goodness. He would do anything for his parents and his siblings. He loves us all, in our undoing and unwinding, it doesn't matter. He loves us.
Taylor: I have a mental picture of him running across the lawn with his hair bouncing every which way--he was about four or five. That kid loved to run. And I will never forget the look on his face when I squirted him with the hose through the screen door. It was worth the mess. And on the way home from Thanksgiving with Cole's borrowed guitar--he fiddled with it the entire time and within a month he could play the guitar. He cleaned my kitchen every day for car privileges and at the time I was fixing four dozen gourmet meals which I sold to businesses. The kitchen was a mess. He walked home from Orem (at 2:00 and 3:00 a.m.) where he worked as a janitor because I slept through the phone when he called for a ride. He was never mad. He always forgives. Always.
Hillary: "I a big goil and can do it myself." And she pulled away from my hand and marched across the street all by herself. She watched as I tried to teach Taylor to tie his shoe. I tried and tried and he just didn't get it. "It's like this," she said and showed him how. She was 2 1/2 years younger. We always ended up in her bedroom, the kids and I. She said because it was the only clean room in the house but that wasn't why and she knows it. She doesn't get mad, she gets even. She fits her name which means happy. She is my get-out-of-the-dumps girl. Just call Hillary and I'll be all right. She cuts our hair and stays and visits instead of going to Target. She lallygags on the lawn swings with me and the girls. She won't speak at my funeral which is okay because I'm not going to die. She loves me. I can't go.
Bentley: The doorknob was broken on his and Hillary's bedroom door. Trent and Taylor and I were playing board games in the kitchen. Bentley couldn't get out of his room. He knocked and knocked. No one came. He went to Hillary for help. She was asleep. By the time we finally went to rescue him he was sound asleep, standing up, with his head on her bed. He jelled his own hair and stuck it straight up in the air at age four. You've never seen a more proud kid. He put himself through college with scholarships. We never once said to him, "Do your homework." He just did it. He drove the Suburban into the creek at Sundance and only got his pride hurt. Thank goodness. He makes me laugh and laugh. His first batch of chocolate chip cookies took 2 1/2 hours but he is quick to tell you they were the perfect cookies. He saves all his receipts and could start the Chicago fire with them, which he wouldn't do because he is in love with Chicago. That's how he lives his life, doing things to perfection. And if anything, that kid has the perfect laugh.
Elizabeth: She made herself a bed in Hillary's room on a shelve in the closet. She wanted to sleep in her big sister's room. She was all bedded down when Hillary came in to get dressed from a shower. The scream can still be heard. She told Hillary's friend, "Your mother doesn't love you," for no reason at all. She told me a string of insults when I made her eat her soup including, "This is swamp soup." And the ultimate insult, "Jesus doesn't love you." She wants to be named for Mom, who died a year before she was born. One day I may legally change her name. She sometimes looks just like Mom and I think there is a special bond between the two of them. I have asked Heavenly Father to "send Mom." to watch over Elizabeth and I think she does. She now says, "I love you too," when we hang up the phone. It makes me happy. She is tender and strong, all at the same time. She always forgives. Always.
When all is said and done...and is it ever EVER all said and done...I've had a great life because of the great people in it.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
LYNNE'S EULOGY
On Colette Amelia's blog today she talked about death and eulogy's and how we don't really know the other person. No one really knows the real Colette Amelia, not really. She suggested we write our own eulogy and so I did. It's a funny little piece, and would be totally different tomorrow, but here it is.
Lynne's Eulogy
Lynne, as you all know her, isn’t the Lynne she was. She was a little girl who would watch the jet trails in the sky and wish with all her might she could be on that plane, going somewhere, it didn’t matter; she wanted to see it all.
She wanted to meet people in robes and saris and loincloths and business suits. She wanted to sit on riverbanks with strangers and talk in foreign tongues and laugh, throwing her head back. She wanted to cry with strangers, and put her hand on the arm of the grieving woman. She wanted to share the stories and laughter and a bowl of steaming food, cooked over an open fire. You’d think that since Lynne didn’t do these things that it would just be a dream but it wasn’t. To her it was real--as real as dreamer's dreams can be. Someday, she’s always said to herself. Someday. So what if it doesn’t happen in mortality, it will happen.
She wondered things. How did the earth stay in its spot in space? How does God know her thoughts and the thoughts off all his children? Who orchestrates the coincidences that, in retrospect, aren’t coincidences at all? Why were some people born beautiful and some not? Did God love everyone equally? Her mom said so. Her mom was an optimist, a worker, and a believer. Should she take the opinion of her mom or form her own. She formed her own but formed them from the live coals of her mother’s faith.
She grew up to find life wasn’t what she thought it would be. She laughed when she didn’t want to, and found that it was almost as good as being really happy. And most of the time she was happy. She loved her parents and sisters and eventually had a husband and children that she loved more than she could imagine. She cried when the children went back to school in the fall and cried when the children had troubles. She never wanted anyone to suffer even though she knew suffering brought growth. She wrung her hands and people wrung her heart.
She hated that people defined who she was by the way she looked. No one knew, not really. So she wrote and in some of her words the real Lynne was revealed. Maybe a granddaughter will read the words in the future and will say, This is who Grandma was. And it might be. And then when that grandchild finally breathes her last, at age 95, Lynne will be the first in line to greet her and weep for joy at having more family join her, for that’s what it really is for Lynne. Family. Family and God and the Savior and her faith.
And then she will take her granddaughter by the hand and introduce her to people in robes, and saris, and loincloths, and businesses suits and say to her, These are family, too. Wait until you hear their story. For, as Lynne has always said, it is all about the story.
Lynne's Eulogy
Lynne, as you all know her, isn’t the Lynne she was. She was a little girl who would watch the jet trails in the sky and wish with all her might she could be on that plane, going somewhere, it didn’t matter; she wanted to see it all.
She wanted to meet people in robes and saris and loincloths and business suits. She wanted to sit on riverbanks with strangers and talk in foreign tongues and laugh, throwing her head back. She wanted to cry with strangers, and put her hand on the arm of the grieving woman. She wanted to share the stories and laughter and a bowl of steaming food, cooked over an open fire. You’d think that since Lynne didn’t do these things that it would just be a dream but it wasn’t. To her it was real--as real as dreamer's dreams can be. Someday, she’s always said to herself. Someday. So what if it doesn’t happen in mortality, it will happen.
She wondered things. How did the earth stay in its spot in space? How does God know her thoughts and the thoughts off all his children? Who orchestrates the coincidences that, in retrospect, aren’t coincidences at all? Why were some people born beautiful and some not? Did God love everyone equally? Her mom said so. Her mom was an optimist, a worker, and a believer. Should she take the opinion of her mom or form her own. She formed her own but formed them from the live coals of her mother’s faith.
She grew up to find life wasn’t what she thought it would be. She laughed when she didn’t want to, and found that it was almost as good as being really happy. And most of the time she was happy. She loved her parents and sisters and eventually had a husband and children that she loved more than she could imagine. She cried when the children went back to school in the fall and cried when the children had troubles. She never wanted anyone to suffer even though she knew suffering brought growth. She wrung her hands and people wrung her heart.
She hated that people defined who she was by the way she looked. No one knew, not really. So she wrote and in some of her words the real Lynne was revealed. Maybe a granddaughter will read the words in the future and will say, This is who Grandma was. And it might be. And then when that grandchild finally breathes her last, at age 95, Lynne will be the first in line to greet her and weep for joy at having more family join her, for that’s what it really is for Lynne. Family. Family and God and the Savior and her faith.
And then she will take her granddaughter by the hand and introduce her to people in robes, and saris, and loincloths, and businesses suits and say to her, These are family, too. Wait until you hear their story. For, as Lynne has always said, it is all about the story.
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