Season of Love...My Eulogy for Mama.

I am posting a copy of my eulogy per my cousin's request.  The picture of the pink post-it below accompanied by eulogy and has attached to it the last "Selfie" we took as a family at Disneyland.  This would be our last trip there together. 

 

Love strongly. Live with gratitude. Never go to bed angry with anyone.  Remember Love. 

 

          ‘Seasons of Love’ is the one song that really helped me through the last few months.  It spoke to me more than other songs usually do.  I have always liked the song, but it wasn’t until my mom was diagnosed with cancer that I truly understood it.  In fact, the day she told me she was stopping all treatment I Just happened to see this quote, “When you’re happy, you enjoy the music.  When you’re sad, you understand the lyrics”.  There are no truer words than those and for me, the song became an unofficial anthem for her journey that brought each one of us along for the ride, no matter how close or how far, especially dad, who took excellent care of her from the very beginning, to her last breath, while he sat by her side and held her hand.

 

I wrote down parts of the song that spoke to me the most during Mama’s journey, purposely leaving out the line about dying, because I had hope, as thinly veiled as it was.  I wanted to believe, because imagining a world without her in it, seemed truly unbearable.

Mama had a way about her as many of you know.   She had trouble with cliché’s and she always made the funniest comments and then would forget about them later.  For instance, one time while she and dad were visiting, she made an off the cuff remark about how she would not stay at this one Hilton near Disneyland, because the light was out in the “I”. This was because, she went on to say, “if they can’t keep that lit, how do I know their elevators work right?”  So for months sis Laura and I joked about not going to places with a light out and when she came back to visit, we did the same thing with her in the car, and she was like “Why? Maybe it’s just out.”  We just laughed and reminded her of what she said and then she laughed too. 

            Mama could be silly like that.  Her laugh was contagious and her smile could light up a room.  She also never said no to a prayer request, no matter how small someone thought it might be and she would remember to check back up on those people with me, even when I had long forgotten.  She was short on memory when it came to funny incidences, but she was long on memory when it came to caring about people. 

On April 14^th I took a picture I later posted on Facebook that would be the last “selfie” my parents and I took at Disneyland.  I captioned it “my eternal heart and soul” with a hashtag of “they make it better”.  That was just weeks before everything began to spiral into the reason we are here today, but I don’t need to tell you how much mama meant to me, because all of you already know this, what I am here to say is to commit the words on the pink paper to memory.  Take a picture if you want to. You tube the song if you like. 

In her heart, mama still had 525,600 journeys to make with my dad, or with her golden girls, or even with me.  I know that while I have measured moments in cups of coffee or in midnights, Mama had lived them.  She had laughter, she had sadness, she had happiness, she anger.  She was human, but she loved and that is why you all are here.  So never let her story end.  Let’s celebrate her.  Let’s take her journeys even if they are our own.  If she pops into your mind, take a picture, because maybe it means for that moment, she has chosen to peek in to see what adventure you are on and has decided to share it with you.

Mama measured her life in love and though I will miss her every day, I choose to remember her in love.  She asked me before she made her journey, “please don’t be sad, be happy for me, because I will be in a good place and I will feel better.”  My response was to cry, because she was being taken away from us to soon, but she just held my hand, told me she loved me and she said she would miss me too, but that she would always be with dad and I.  

Ellen Lucas was dad’s Love and my mama.  She was Puddy and she was Ellen and though in many ways, life will never be the same for us, let us all remember her by measuring our life in love and moments lived, because I feel that is what she would want us to do.  So as she asked, and in time I will be able to do, Do Not be sad, but be happy for her, because I know she is smiling down at the love being shown to her today and at how much her moments counted and all I ask, is that you do what she did and Measure your life in Love.

-Shellymarie