Here is what I said:
When my wife Janice and I announced our engagement in 1990, my mother, pondering her new role at the wedding as a first time mother-in-law to be , jokingly wondered if she would be expected to “keep her mouth shut and wear beige.” While my mother did wear beige from time to time, I’m glad to say she never felt the need to shut her mouth. If her wit, creativity, and convictions had not gotten a chance to be expressed, we would all have been the poorer for it.
Some examples:
My brother James says that Mom “decided his career for him in 15 seconds” at a time when he couldn’t choose between a number of conflicting interests. She suggested he go to cooking school, and the rest, as they say is history. The initial push helped Jim find an amazing talent within himself, and use that talent in a very successful career as a chef.
My brother Dave has the following story:
“In the eighth grade I had a looming deadline for a science project. The project was to be on manufacturing and it had to be related to the electronics industry. Before going to school one morning I mention to Mom that I hadn’t found the subject for my project and I was feeling a little stressed about it.
That day while I was at school, Mom put her incredible research skills to work and found a General Electric plant outside of Waterloo. They manufactured giant transformers for the power grid in Canada. Mom contacted the plant and had arranged a tour for us later that week.
So of we went, Mom, Dad and I for a fascinating tour which was guided by the plant manager and we saw how they assembled these enormous transformers from start to finish.
We left the plant hours later and I had a box full of sample materials and a head full of information to start my science project.
Mom watched quietly from the sidelines as I put together a project that I would later receive 100% on.
Mom you always found time to give help when asked, provide inspiration when none was there, and provide gentle guidance from the side lines when needed. For that I thank you and love you.”
My sister Ainslie and I both have special memories of the many family Christmases. As Ainslie says, Mom “was Christmas.” The care and detail with which she approached that special season made it magical for everyone, from the decoration of the tree with beautiful ornaments many of which she made herself, to the fabulous food, Mom made Christmas what it was for us.
Ainslie and I also have very early memories of being young children in St. Therese in Quebec. Every day, Ainslie and I would watch Mr Dress-up, and then insist that Mom help us make the craft of the day, no matter how difficult or impractical. She always did, although there are times I’m sure she would have liked to have had words with Ernie Coombes.
Halloween costumes were also special, both from my day, through to the amazing Teletubbies costume she made for her grand-daughter Katie. Everything was detailed. everything was precise. Everything was perfect. Everything was beautiful. Everything showed how much she cared.
Everyone who knew our Mother knows of her sense of humour. Jim would rent comedies from the local video store, and they would watch the movies over and over and laugh together. Jim mentioned to me when they watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail, she would laugh so hard she would turn purple. A huge fan of Rodney Dangerfield, when she first met her future daugfhter in law Mary, when Mary said her favourite movie was “Back to School” starring Rodney Dangerfield, her eyes just lit up.
And she could crack jokes and witty comments with the best of them. When the family got a dog in the 1980’s, in recognition to how hard it was to get him housebroken, she promptly renamed him “The Golden Reliever.” And after her anuyrism in 2005, if anything, her sense of humour got even sharper: once, during challenging physio-therapy involving using parallel bars to walk, she said she felt like “a drunk, stumbling between bars.” When I last spoke to my mother on a recent visit, even then she cracked jokes that had me laughing. By her own her own admission, my mother was “a master of the delicate art of locker room humour.”
One of my favourite sayings is by Oliver Wendell Holmes: “Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music still in them”
Thankfully, this saying did not apply to my mother. A lifelong lover of music, a member of many choirs, she sang. In her children, and grandchildren, she sang by installing a similar love of music, and by doing this she continues to sing. In the stories she read to us as children, she sang.
In her crafts and arts she sang through her amazing creativity, and when any of us look upon her work, we will hear her singing.
In our memories of childhood, and the memories of her held by her grandchildren, she sings. And even for her very youngest grandchild Sarah, the one she lived to see by defying the odds for so long, there will be the warm echo of the song of a grandmother who adored her.
And now, finally, she has taken her place in a greater choir, and I know she is singing. May her song never end.
