lancs wrote:How's the sharpening going Prof?
Well, right now I am burying my 93-year-old mother, so I am bit distant from my rowing goals.
I was the keynote speaker at the memorial service, down here in Urbana, Illinois.
Nice affair.
About 200 people came to the memorial service.
We also did a family service at the gravesite this morning.
We buried her beside my father.
My nephew and son did a duet with guitars.
We all placed flowers on the grave, making the shape of a heart.
Everyone said something about mom.
This is what I said at the memorial service:
My mother was many wonderful things, and for six decades it has been our great joy and benefit to see her be all of those wonderful things so often and consistently.
My mother was a lady--graceful, coiffure, bejeweled, outfitted.
My mother was a saint--a peacemaker, diplomat, compromiser, a believer and practitioner of the Christian virtues of faithfulness, love, hope, and purity.
My mother was a worker--a believer in the Victorian virtues of self-reliance, self-contol, perseverance, and practicality.
My mother was a craftsman--a painter, a carpenter, a seamstress, a gardener, and a chef.
My mother was an athlete--a swimmer, a tennis player, a canoeist, a sailor, a biker, a hiker, a believer and practitioner in the ancient virtues of courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom.
My mother was a nature-lover--a camper, fire-maker, a lover of the water and the woods and a blazing sunset over a campsite.
My mother was a musician--a piano-player, a singer, and a dancer.
My mother was democrat--a believer in equal rights for all, I never saw my mother look down on anyone and she never expected anyone to look down on her.
My mother was a competitor--a card shark, a scrabble-player, a lover of games of all sort, all of which she trod to win, and often did.
My mother was a believer in sorority and fraternity--a good neighbor, a concerned citizen.
My mother was a host--a lover of parties and social gatherings, a giver, a sharer.
My mother was a jester--a clown, a lover of costumes, rituals, holidays, and masks.
My mother, by the end, although she lived her life in this wonderful and very Midwestern town in an age dominated by local rather than global affairs, was cosmopolitan--a world-traveler, concern with other cultures, other natures.
And yes, my mother, above all, was a mother--a nurturer, a rock of Gibraltar, a retreat and haven, a caregiver, a nurse, a teacher.
In this modern world of ours today, the most astonishing things about my mother were these:
My mother was never bored.
My mother never had an enemy.
My other never did anything willfully to undermine her health and well-being.
And my mother was never disillusioned. She always looked on the bright side of things, no matter how dim the light.
May she ride the wind in her afterlife was as much verve and panache as she walked the earth in this life.
What a gift she was to everyone who knew and loved her.
ranger
Rich Cureton M 72 5'11" 165 lbs. 2K pbs: 6:27.5 (hwt), 6:28 (lwt)
