A posting from my dad's cousin eulogizing his mother, my Aunt Peggy:

Our father, our Dad, died in 1999. At the time, I said a few words at his memorial: that he was brave, and strong, and true.

I didn’t say it at the time (although I did to Mom later), the words applied to her as well; Mom and Dad were two halves of the same coin, as corny as that sounds.

Let me see if I can explain.

In 1998, Mom had open-heart surgery. Something went wrong the first time around; thankfully, Donna was right there to jump in and take charge and make sure Mom got what she needed.

(Mom missed out on a couple of months – it was always weird for her once she recovered, knowing that the calendar said one thing, when her soul said another.)

Anyway, what Mom did next was truly astounding. She clawed her way out of her pit, pulled herself up by shear willpower, determined to survive, not let those who loved her down. This enormous feat she did …

… and then her husband of 56 years and one day died.

What Mom did next in the face of this impossibly awful obstacle was even more extraordinary: she took us kids, her four boys, back to Art’s place, and proceeded to comfort us. She did this with both her profound embracement of life, and her incredible sense of humor; she told us stories of her youth, neighbors, anything that popped into her mind that might take our minds off of what had just transpired.

An example (and a favorite story): Mom’s father, her Pop, had made her a wager – or promise, depending on how you look at it – when she was a teen: “I’ll pay you $2 when you reach 100 pounds”. Well, Mom was slender, in the words of our Dad – or scrawny, in the words of her sister – so this was quite a challenge. However, like many challenges in Mom’s life, she overcame this one, although not until her early twenties. Mom confronted her Poppa with undeniable evidence that she had obtained her goal, whereupon Grandfather Reid quibbled that the bet had been “$1 for 200 pounds”! Mom fought back and eventually won – and was paid in Confederate dollars (at the time of the telling of this story, she wished that she had kept that reward).

Of course, she told this story better than I ever could, but God knows, this and others like it helped us through that night and the long days ahead.

Another example of her strength and courage: when I was young (fifty-mumble-de-some years ago), Mom had an operation. The docs gave her less than a year to live; clearly, they forgot to take into consideration her opinion of the whole thing (which must have been something like “the heck with that!”); in any event, they were off by a bit. I’m rather glad about that.

As alluded to earlier, our Mother has a great sense of humor. (She may have inherited this from her parents, particularly her Poppa, who as Chief Rum-Dum-Rip-In-The-Pants – probably a politically incorrect alias these days – would send us kids amusing notes.) She taught us that getting someone to laugh, especially someone you care for in particular, is, well, the Best Thing Ever.

Mom kept a good grip on her sense of humor to the very end.