For Momma

On September 20, 2012, my mother passed away after a long night of battling heart attacks and related complications. On September 25, 2012, I delivered the following reflections as part of her Celebration of Life. If anything or anyone could have prepared me for such a thing, it was her. 

I don’t know my mom’s favorite color. 

It was always the color of the dress one of her girls was wearing for a big occasion or the color of the flowers we had picked out for her to plant on Mother’s Day. It was the color of the crayon one of her grandchildren had in hand when they offered to draw her a picture and the color of the first tulips to break through the ground and bloom in the spring. It was the color of the sunset reflected on the lake, the color of red velvet cake prepared for her family, and the color of the words I’d splattered on a page for one task or another.

I don’t know my mom’s favorite color because she was, without a doubt, the most selfless and giving person I knew. The spotlight was never a comfortable place for her, simply because she’d rather be the spotlight shining on another person. Her best work was in bringing out the best in others – students, colleagues, family and friends. She was everyone’s biggest fan and could fill a room with confidence in a matter of minutes.

My mom had a way of making you feel capable and strong no matter the task before you: childbirth and parenting, making a complicated meal from scratch, and overcoming the unthinkable – in whatever form it revealed itself in. Even today, I stand here in awe of her efforts to prepare me for the unthinkable. In her last months, to no one’s surprise, she was planting the seeds of strength I’d need to be able to stand before you.

For years, she’d gifted (and gifted again) a copy of Lee Ann Womack’s “I Hope You Dance” to everyone in our family, just to make sure we got the message. For Christmas, she gave me a plaque that read, “I can’t promise that I’ll be here for the rest of your life, but I can promise that I’ll love you for the rest of mine.” She taught my friends how to support me, encourage me, and love me. She had designated several people to step up when she knew I would need it the most. And just over a week ago she highlighted my ability to stay strong and stand tall when faced with a challenge, and the ability to speak in high stress situations as a strength I’d call upon for the rest of my life.

My mother’s heartbeat created my own and likely fueled yours at one time or another, and I am fully convinced that the only reason hers stopped was because it had reached its capacity to love. She devoted her life to those she loved most, and I’d like to think each of the heartbeats she sacrificed has found a new home in each of us. She left no love to spare, and for that I will be forever thankful. 

No, I don’t know my mom’s favorite color, but I do know she had delegated each of her roles in our family to one of us: relentless optimism and a talent for decorating Christmas trees to Staci, the ability to speak up when no one else will and a well-trained talent for taste-testing the Thanksgiving turkey stuffing to Sarah, an appreciation for the little, random, and often overlooked simplicities – along with the gift of clutter - to me. And to my dad, inconquerable strength and the strangely admirable ability to exude love, even in bickering. And in all of us is a bit of the Hilltopper pride that sparkled in her, a passion for life and all the people around us, and – let us not forget – a taste for margaritas.

We share compassion, loyalty, and a passion for life. And I can only hope that one day someone will be able to say I was half the woman my mother was and had touched half the people’s lives her sun-spotted hands had, because her legacy is - and always will be - unparalleled.

The sorority I joined in college taught me to “strive for that which is honorable, beautiful, and highest.” Today, standing before you, I realize that was the challenge I’d been gathering the strength to chase since I was born. Today, I am most certain that the sorority command I’d recited for so many recent years might be appropriately restated: “Let me strive for that which my mother was.”