My talk at the funeral

 My mom once told me that the happiest day of the year for her was the last day of school and her saddest day was the first day of school. I asked her why, figuring that she would be glad to be rid of us but she said that we were her joy and she loved having us around. A few days before she passed away, all seven of us ended up on my mom’s bed, and she told us that her greatest joy in this life has been her children.  She cried as she said it and we know because of how she lived, that that statement is true. She was our ally against the world. As Emily Dickenson put it, "A mother is one to whom you hurry when  you are troubled."

My mom was an amazing mom.  In the past year that she’s been sick I’ve had the opportunity to think about her and her influence on the lives of her children. She was the type of mom who organized our friends to play games and then played with us—she started water balloon fights or games of freeze tag or hopscotch. She could do the best summersaults of anyone. She had the loudest whistle using her two front fingers. She made homemade cookies for everyone’s lunches—she made everyone’s lunches everyday and often included a little drawn heart on a napkin. She was really good at word games like scrabble and boggle and never went easy on us so usually, she won. She’d stay up late helping a procrastinating child with school projects (I think she learned with me that with early reminders she wouldn’t have to stay up quite so late). During the 1988 Olympics, when I was 9, I had to make a scrapbook for school and I’d like to think that I just didn’t really know how to do it and so I put it off and put it off until the night before it was due. My mom sat on the floor of my room with me until probably about 1am helping cut pictures and glue stat pages together and find extra construction paper. I know she was not happy about that fact that we were up until 1 but I do remember that we had fun finding interesting things to put on those pages.

After they moved back to Utah and we were all visiting for Christmas, it actually snowed and we had our first white Christmas in over a decade. That’s what we get for spending most of our lives in warm Winter places like Tucson and Orlando. Most everyone put on a coat and other appropriate attire to go out and play in the snow but Mom, she was too anxious and excited to bother getting a coat, she ran out the back door into the snow in her pajamas and socks and promptly fell backwards into a drift to make a snow angel. Then, she got up and did it again. Finally, she came in, soaking wet and freezing but laughing. That was my mom.

It’s so hard to put what a mother means to you on paper. The American Author, Washington Irving (author of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, among other things) said, “A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.”

 This statement fits my mother. My mom kissed her fair share of owies. Made slushies when wisdom teeth were pulled out. Gave us 7-11 gift cards for Christmas so we could get Slurpees. She sewed baby blessing dresses. She sewed a wedding dress. She fixed prom dresses. She got us through broken hearts. She kept a stash of chocolate chips in the freezer – intended for baking, I’m sure—but it was a great chocolate treat when you could find them. (Funny enough, those of us who are grown keep chocolate chips in our freezers, too). The year after I graduated from college and moved back to Orlando, she brought Will all the way across town on Valentine’s Day and heart attacked my apartment so that I knew someone loved me that day. It was impossible to know that my mom loved us.

True to family tradition, my Mom often made up songs or sang random songs, just like her dad. She always made us laugh with her little exercises in the kitchen using carrots as weights and dancing around singing “Ya, baby, your momma makes you cry.” One of our Christmas Eve traditions is acting out the Christmas story and inevitably, she would be the one to start singing the scriptures from “The Messiah.” The angel has never just said the words, Glory to God in the highest—it was always echoed by the vocal version, complete with bass part. We have many family jokes revolving around songs and because of her, most of us relate normal life events to some song and will sing them to each other and our friends. She loved the song “Memories, on the corner of my mind. Misty water colored memories of the way we were. Scatter PICtures….” By then we’d burst into laughter and she’d stop. Some of us in the family have the tendency of taking ourselves too seriously, but Mom could always make us laugh and help us not be too serious about everything.

More importantly that all other stuff that comes with being her, my mother had an amazing testimony and was an incredible example of what it means to live that testimony. The gospel wasn’t something we did just on Sunday. The gospel was something that was part of our lives every day. Every day you could find her at some point, sitting down and reading the scriptures. She studied for lessons during the week. She always did her visiting teaching. She practiced church hymns on the piano. When I was little, she’d play primary songs and have us gather around her to learn and practice them. One of her favorites for a long time was “A Child’s Prayer” and we’d sing the duet together.  I realized Saturday morning that I had primary songs running through my head as I did various tasks and I also realized that I knew the songs because she made sure we knew them.

Because of her, I know I lived in heaven a long time ago, it is true. Lived there and loved there with people I know, so did you. I know that I am a child of God and he has sent me here has given me an earthy home with parents kind and dear.  We grew up with my mother kneeling with her family each day. I heard the words she whispered as she bowed her head to pray. Her plea to the Father quieted all my fears and I have always been thankful love was and is spoken there. She taught us to love to see the temple; that search, ponder and pray are the things that we must do; that we should follow the prophet; that the Lord needs valiant servants who follow the teachings of Jesus and serve his people in a loving way. We learned that we can do and say happy things each day for we know Heavenly Father loves us.  

Mom loved the song, “Teacher Do You Love Me,” and now, looking back, we can see how the words, “I need your love, I need your light to show me how to be like Jesus. The Savior’s love will light the path. To lead me safely home,” describe the role Mom played in our lives. Because of the teachings of my mom, I know that Heavenly Father loves me and that Jesus was chosen and as the Messiah he came, conquering evil and death through his glorious name. I know now, more firmly than I have ever understood before that Families really can be together forever through Heavenly Father’s plan.

Before school started, I was in my classroom putting things together, not knowing what was going to happen this week and I was listening to the "Wicked" soundtrack. When the song, "For Good" came on, it made me cry as I put up bulletin boards. The words say:

I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you

 It well may be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart

I know she'll be with us, like a handprint on our hearts because that's what she was while she was here, and why would that change now? The plan of salvation in real; it's probably the most "real thing" on the earth. The plan of salvation is real and families really are together forever.