my words

I spoke at my mom's funeral and for my own recording I am posting my words here. 

I can tell you that I was very close to not doing it. I was ready to hand the pages off to Jordan and have him read it for me. I could never have gotten through it if it were not for 2 of my brothers standing beside me with their hands on my back. 

I can't stand here today without thanking everyone for coming to support us and say goodbye to our mom. We've felt an outpouring of support from so many of you and it has lightened our burden so very much. Thank you. 

I want to share some things with you about my mom and my first thought goes back to eleven years ago when my mom suffered a massive heart attack and almost did not survive. Doctor after doctor told us that she was a medical miracle. They also told us that we would have 10 good years with her. And I can tell you today that we are so so very thankful for the past 11 years we've had…they are have been indeed a gift. 

The last year of mom's life was hard. Hard for her and hard for us. Seeing her decline has been rough. And I personally have had a real struggle with not wanting to remember these harder times over the amazing 66 years she had before this past one. Not wanting to remember my frustrations with her or my attitudes towards her. Wanting to forgive myself for that and to remember the woman who my was…my mom. 

So in speaking to you today my goal is help myself remember all the wonderful, funny, giving, caring things that made up Barb Earle. 

My mom had many talents. 

She was a sort of Jack of All Trades…just like her dad, my grandpa Tope. She could fix just about anything and I was so jealous of this…if the washer broke she never considered calling the repair man…nope she crawled back there and started unhooking wires and jiggling connections and cleaning out drains and before you knew it…that washing machine was running again. 

She was a great gardener…she could make flowers bloom, veggies grow bigger than you can imagine and she loved to be out there with her hands in the soil…again just like her dad, the farmer. 

Yet another way she was like grandpa was her love for wood working. She could even wittle! She could create things out of wood that I could just never understand. 

She loved doing anything outdoors. She adored summer time and the sun. She loved animals..she loved horses, even earning a broken collar bone as a teen due to being thrown from one. She had a pet squirrel as a child named Rocky…she often told us how she fed him milk with a medicine dropper. She endured many 'pets' that we would bring home as kids, from stray cats to countless turtles and toads. She even embraced my dad's beloved dog Maggie, who honestly made it hard for even the biggest dog lover to love. 

She loved sports. She played 3rd base on her high school softball team and brought home the state trophy. She was always, always playing catch with my brothers. She also loved watching baseball - especially her favorite STL Cardinals with my little brother Jordan. She was also an avid Hawkeye fan…imagine her horror when I married a man who loved the Cubs and the Cyclones. 

She loved to be the hostess. She could cook for what seemed like hundreds of people with the greatest of ease. She loved to have her house full to the brim. Like for the ladies bible studies she hosted or how she hosted Thanksgivings at her house for about 50 people every year. 

She loved to experiment with new recipes, spices and techniques in her cooking…in the past few years this has caused my brothers and me to become quite fearful of her cooking! Like the time she completely ruined Thanksgiving by substituting grapefruit juice for pineapple juice in her famous punch….truly, she ruined Thanksgiving! There are certain members of our family who have yet to forgive her. 

Another fun fact about my mom was that she was such a great mom for boys…I think this comes from her being such a huge tomboy herself! She never got after my brothers for just being BOYS. Which means she loved dirt, water, mud pies, gun fights, bows and arrows, wrestling, tree climbing, ball playing in the house, chugging gallons of milk, eating contests, lego building, burping, shoving, superheroes and match box cars. Our childhood homes were full of noise and she never seemed stressed by this. I only remember smiles and laughter from her.

I came to love this even more about her after I had my own son. I loved sending Sullivan to play at my moms…I always knew without a doubt that he would require a bath when he got home and that he would be FULL of stories about what they had done together. Don't get me wrong, my mom was a great grandma for girls too, enjoying crafts, baking, and games with them. But after raising 6 sons, she definitely knew how to create a fun filled day for a little boy. 

As her only girl there were many things that my mom tried desperately to teach me through the years…I think she thought I was her only daughter and she HAD to make sure I had some of her skills. 

However, most of these did not pan out…

Such as…she really wanted me to be a seamstress…to this day, I cannot even thread a sewing machine or barely a needle. 

She wanted me to be good at knitting or crocheting…well I can make you are decent pot holder but no magnificent scarves or stuffed monkeys like her. 

She wanted me to love cooking…ask my husband…that didn't happen!

She wanted me to play baseball and love it….well all it took was one ball straight to my head from my brother Nick and that dream was dead. 

She wanted me to be an artist like her…Im sorry mom, I can barely draw a stick figure, I have zero patience and talent.

She wanted me to have a love for poetry…Again, mom I am really sorry, I never told you this, but I really HATE poetry. 

So many of those things could not be passed down to her only daughter and I admit I don't even try at….but I have many other parts of her that while I had not yet achieved but I am working towards daily. These include the wonderful friend, wife and mother that she modeled to me. 

My mom was a wonderful friend. She always, always put others first. She was perhaps the most selfless person I have ever known. I remember her dropping everything to help a friend who was struggling, I remember leaving bags of groceries on someones steps and leaving before they could not who had left them, I remember her listening for hours to the elderly…just holding their hands and listening. She had a real gift for encouraging the elderly. I remember her talking with friends down on their luck when she undoubtletly had hundreds of other things she could have been accomplishing. 

Others first…that was my mom.

She was a wonderful wife. My mom and dad were the sweetest couple. Real, true love. I've found piles of letters that my dad wrote to my mom. Letters she kept and likely read over and over. She missed him daily. The love my mom gave to my dad was inspiring. She loved him like she was still trying to win his love day after day. Serving him, catering to him, daily trying to make his life easier and better than it might be without her. They were sappy and they would cuddle…so much so that it embarrassed me to have my friends around them at times! I think that was their secret, in 40 years they never stopped trying to win each others' love. 

But I will tell you that my dad was not easy to live with always. I remember times growing up when dad was likely under great amounts of stress and he was grumpy, short tempered and sullen. I vividly remember standing in the kitchen asking, 'but mom, why does he have to take things out on us?' And my mom turned to me and said, 'Becky, do not ever criticize your father in front of me.'

At the time I remember being hurt so badly by her words. As a grown woman with my own husband and children I am so grateful for that moment and what it taught me. To never lose respect for my husband and to never allow my children to do so either. 

My mom was the BEST mom. She gave her life for me and my brothers. She gave up any other dreams she may have had in this life for the dream of being a full time mother to 7 children. She dropped her work for us…played and listened. Let us 'help' her in the kitchen. Was a model of good qualities to us. I remember coming down in my pjs on countless mornings to find her in front of the window with her coffee and her bible. Always making that the first part of her day. Which allowed her to be so patient with us, so encouraging to us, so fun with us, so 100% involved in us. She LOVED being our mom. It is very humbling for me to realize that we were her joy. 

One very special thing she did for us was how she supported our interests. She was there for our events, and acted as if we were stars no matter what, win or lose, sitting on the bench or scoring the winning points. She wanted us to know that our mom was always our biggest fan. An example was the cooler she packed for me before every single one of my track meets in high school. These coolers of food could have fed the entire team. I would pass out the sandwiches and goodies on the bus and everyone would marvel at everything she had packed. Her cooler was a highlight to the whole meet! 

But the food was not my favorite part…because normally she also included a special note just for me. Amazingly I only kept one of these notes. And I have kept it close to me all these years. It was my junior year of high school the day of our district meet. And the day was windy…I mean windy! And I was so nervous that I was not going to qualify for state in my best race due to the wind. Opening that cooler on the way to the meet that day proved yet again what an amazing mom I had. I don't even remember sharing my nerves with her….but she knew. And down at the bottom of the cooler I found this note, simply saying…'may the winds be at your backs. Love mom'.   A note like that does a lot for a 17 year old girls confidence! And even 20 years later…this note does a lot of my outlook, perspective and confidence. 

As I close today I want to share this quote that I came upon a long long time ago. It instantly made me think of my mom. And even way back then I knew it should be read at my mom's funeral. It reads, 

'When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a manner that when you die, the world is crying and you are rejoicing.' ~Indian proverb

That's my mom. She was rejoicing when she left this world - her body no longer worn and her lungs no longer struggling to take full breaths, reunited with my dad and worshiping her Jesus…but she has left behind her 7 children, their spouses, 12 grandchildren, and countless friends and loved ones who will grieve her absence for the rest of our lives. 

Good bye mom. Thank you for the family you created, the bond you solidified in us and thank you for the beautiful life you gave to me and my brothers..we are forever grateful and in awe of you. 

How completely lucky we each were to call you, Mom.