Eulogy for Mother :: Eulogies Eulogy

Eulogy for Mother The Cost Death is not too high a price to pay for having lived.   Mountains never die, nor do the seas or rocks or endless sky. Through countless centuries of time, they stay eternal, deathless.   Yet they never live! If choice were there, I would not hesitate to choose mortality.   Whatever Fate demanded in return for life I’d give, for never to have seen the fertile plains nor heard the winds nor felt the warm sun on sands beneath a salty sea, not touched the hands of those I love – without these, all the gains of timelessness would not be worth a day of living and of loving; come what may.† - Dorothy N. Monroe - It is hard to give a eulogy for one’s parent.   More than the death of a classmate or sibling, the death of a parent is not only a loss, but also a reminder that we are all following an inevitable path. We are all â€Å"Outrunning Our Shadow† as her friend Fred Hill so provocatively titled his book. As Dorothy N. Monroe’s poem, printed in your program, says:   â€Å"Death is not too high a price to pay for having lived." When my father died, I was too young to participate in a meaningful way, so at some level this is my eulogy for him, too. Mother was born on November 7, 1917 in Louisville.   Her mother was an unmarried 17-year-old and Mom was put up for adoption.   That may be a surprise to you.   It was a surprise to me when I learned about it as an adult. As an infant Mom was adopted by Clyde and Maude Johnson, who named her Doris Eileen. When Mom was about ten Clyde abandoned his family, and she and her mother moved in with Maude's sister in the Port Fulton neighborhood of Jeffersonville.   My Unc and Aunt Smith became Mom's surrogate parents, and she lived with them until she married.   A few years later Maude was institutionalized at Craigmont, where she lived for the rest of her life.   There is a third marker on the cemetery lot where Mom and Dad are buried for our Grandmother Maude Johnson. Mother never talked much about this or other aspects of her life.   Nor did she want to know the details of other’s lives.   She practiced â€Å"Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell† long before it became a catch phrase.