Shortly after my mom passed away last November, my dad asked me to say a few words about mom (he was very clear on the few) and a little prayer at the service he was planning for the coming summer. i thought that was pretty cool that my dad would ask me to be speak at my moms service and it was obviously a huge honour. On Tuesday August 8th, our family got together and buried my moms remains at Mountainview cemetery, and below are the words is shared in her honour…
When my dad asked me to say a few words at todays service back in November, i said sure I’d love to, and didn’t give it much thought beyond that. I didn’t really start thinking about what i was going to say until a few weeks ago and the process started with, “what do people say at these things? Then it dawned on me, I’ve been fortunate enough not to have been to a lot of funerals in the last 20 years, which also means I’ve also been fortunate not to have lost a many people super close to me.
But then in the last year we lost John and Andreas dads and of course in November we lost Lyds. A couple weeks ago a close friend of a few of us here lost his father as he was here one minute then literally gone the next, the thunder bay coaching fraternity lost 2 cornerstones last week as coach Papich and coach Bovay are now calling in signals for the big coach up stairs. We all know that life is a gift and time is precious, its easy to realize how blessed we are to have had the opportunity gather here today, together.
So with not having been to a lot of funerals lately, I really had no clue what to say, so what’s a guy to do? If there’s one thing I’ve found to be super handy in times like this, it’s the Internet. So I started on YouTube, and as hard as it is to believe, there are a lot of eulogies up on there! I watched eulogy after eulogy, and to summarize the experience, it was a total bummer!!! I had some better luck with Google, as there are actual sites that are basically eulogies for dummies; step-by-step format on how to compose a eulogy. Step one was to talk about what the person meant to you, step 2 is to repeat step one.
Lydia was a teacher, and yup she taught me a lot. When I asked her how to spell something, she’d say sound it out. And when that got me no where, it was get the dictionary, which always confused matters more because if you don’t know how to spell something how are you suppose to look it up?
If I wanted to know who would win in a race between a cheetah or a leopard, she’d tell me to look it up in this magical book called the encyclopedia which we just happened to have a complete set of in the living room. If I asked her who would win in a street fight between Big Bird and Snuffleupagus, a questions who’s answer was clearly not in those magical encyclopedias, she would say you watch too much TV bob, get outside and burn off some of that energy. And she was right because life has a way of answering a lot of questions you won’t find in any book. But why wasn’t the answer watch more TV?
But the end result of this was a guy that knew exactly what to do when he wanted to learn something; do your research or get out there and live. Yes she taught me how to tie my shoes, and for better or worse, taught me how to cook, but most importantly, she taught me how to teach myself. My friends had Ataris I had Encyclopedia Britannica, yup being teachers kid had its own set of privileges.
The idea of doing something wrong at school and my mom or dad not finding out was highly unlikely. I also had the pleasure of having every single teacher I had knowing all about me before I got there, “oh Walt and Lydia’s kid”, and to be #3 after my sisters Trish and Lisa only added to the situation. They expected me to behave AND be smart??? What?
Lydia was strong, not strong in the gym sense, but she was strong willed, strong minded and had some very strong opinions. I can’t speak for my sisters, but she raised me to be an individual, to not be afraid to blaze my own trail, and not to be a follower. It was extremely important to make sure that later in life that I’d be able to take care of myself and not be dependent on a woman to feed myself and take care of my own house.
I was blessed enough later in life to find a woman that had a lot of the same characteristics my mom had, strength, beauty and a willingness to give me her old vehicle after she upgraded. Lucky for me my sister Lisa and my dad carried on that tradition and helped bridge the gap between mom and Andrea.
But above all else, my mom was always there for me, no matter what. She always believed in me, way after most people had given up. When putting this speech together there’s 2 moments that immediately came to mind. When i was in my first 30 days of recovery from a pretty serious cocaine problem, I would start everyday at the gym, then as I took Izzo on his morning walk, I would call my mom and tell her I was ok. I really looked forward to those phone calls and it was probably the best way someone in recovery can start their day. During this time, there weren’t a lot of people in my life that were picking up the phone when I called back then, but mom always did. We would chit chat about what my days were like, the gym, work, Izzo, and some days she could sense I was struggling with something and she’d say “don’t worry bob, everything is going be alright” and you know what, she was right.
The second story was when i was just a little funbobby, 2 years old I’d have to guess. We were in the middle of my nightly bath and for some reason I decided that going number 2 at in the tub was a good idea, I mean it’s right next to the potty, weren’t these two things connected somehow? Like so many things in my life that I thought was a good idea at the time, it was not. So like any normal kid I started to cry I guess like a baby, mom scooped me out of the tub, wrapped me in a towel, dried me off and told me, don’t worry bob, everything is going to be alright. She was right, it was.
Now I wasn’t a momma’s boy, she was 100% sure that wasn’t going to happen, but I love my mom, still to this day. As I look around here today, I see an amazing collection of people that have a little Lydia in them, just like I do. She had a way of influencing us, and a little of her seemed to rub off on everyone around her. Her smile, her laugh, and who could forget all that second hand smoke. When people ask me about her today I say “she was a cool chic, she wasn’t perfect, but she was the perfect mom for me.”
Lets bow our heads…..