Unmoored

*On April 17th, our mom’s long life and battle with dementia came to an end. Here is the eulogy I gave at her funeral.*

At the beginning of the year, I was in town for my uncle’s funeral and to see our mom at the facility where she has been living these past few years. On the way home, Ann said to me, “Have you started to write Mom’s eulogy yet because you know you’re going to be asked to do it?” I had not because the prospect of describing what it was like to have Gerry Werner as your mom was daunting. The prospect of not having Gerry Werner around even more so.

Our mom was tough – with six kids she had to be, lest the inmates take over the asylum, and Lord knows we tried. The boys once broke one of her plants playing hockey in the family room with a tennis ball – a plant she had nursed from a tiny log with a single leaf coming out of it. She was so proud of that plant and how big it had gotten and then those noggin heads whacked it in half. I thought that they were for sure, that time, going to the orphanage that Dad always threatened them with. Somehow they were saved from that fate but it was just one of a long list of transgressions where we collectively lied, stole, broke curfews, broke the mental health of a certain babysitter, dented cars, dented our heads, dented each other, excelled in school, failed in school, and broke the bank with Catholic school tuition and sports equipment. Though not our intent, I think every day we were a six-man wrecking crew trying to break that woman.

Though she was small she was mighty and we failed miserably. When we had a story to tell her about some mishap she would listen intently, nod, say, “Oh boy, that’s terrible,” then sigh and say as she walked away, “You know I wasn’t born yesterday.” On a Saturday afternoon when I was with a friend and had walked to K-Mart which Mom had strictly forbidden, I came home and she asked me why I was late. I told her we were at the playground at St. Jude’s and then realizing that a priest was at the church hearing confessions decided I should go before I headed home. That night at dinner Mom announced to the table that maybe my siblings should heed my actions and TAKE IT UPON THEMSELVES TO CONFESS THEIR MANY, MANY SINS. Everyone glared at me and after dinner Tom cornered me and said, “I don’t believe for one minute that you went to confession.” How did he know this? As soon as Tom got his drivers license, he and I would leave for church on Sunday morning, say “see you in an hour,” and drive straight to McDonalds for breakfast. Then he’d drive back to the church parking lot where I would hop out, run inside, grab a bulletin from one of the ushers, and check out who the priest was before we headed back home. Tom, most definitely, had the goods on me. The next day I went to Mom and folded like a card table to which she said, “Oh for crying out loud, Kathy, did you really think I believed you went to confession?”

We grew up, managed to stay out of the prison system, somehow got responsible, and Mom finally got to relax. Just when life was supposed to get easier Dad died and she became a widow far sooner than she should have. We all saw her more tenderly after that, as the woman who mothered us through so many trials was now facing her hardest. Like everything about her, though, she quietly and without fanfare wore her heartbreak with stunning grace. She did not complain, she did not want pity, she kept her sense of humor intact, she moved forward. She bought a new house where in no time she knew all of the neighbors, got a dog named, Duffy, who was her constant sidekick, sipped on afternoon wine, and watched most Cubs games. She could tell you about Cody on Sister Wives and ask how all those women could love that idiot. She said Adrienne Arpel who sold a skin care line on QVC had “work” done. “She’s gotta be a hundred years old,” Mom would say, “she’s not fooling anybody with that Aurora Borealis cream.” She was always cheerful whenever you called or stopped by. If, as one of her kids, you were mad at someone and told Mom she fiercely clenched that grudge right along with you. “How’s that idiot Mark works with,” she’d ask me every time I called, not once considering there was any other side but mine. If you were to ask any of her grandkids who they thought was her favorite they would all say, “Oh, it was definitely me,” because she had the uncanny ability to take an interest in their interests and make each one of them feel special.

If we could have had a single wish for our mom, it would be that her last years on earth would have been easier than they were. To watch the cruelty of her vibrant personality be slowly diminished as she searched for words, searched for recognition, or searched our faces felt like a slow drop off a cliff into the unknown. She was fiercely independent and at the end had to rely on help for everything. “Come on, Gerry Berry,” the afternoon aide said to her on that last night when she was giving her morphine and trying to get her to swallow. Her eyes never opened that time or any other, but every person that came in her room told her everything they were going to do to her to make her more comfortable. In the midst of such sadness, we were well aware that there were angels among us.

I once read a story about a man whose mother was in memory care for dementia. “Will this ever be over,” he asked the aide who said, “Why, honey, she’s got the dementia. She’s trying but she can’t find the right door.” Last Tuesday night our mom found the right door and on the other side was our dad, the girls she gave birth to who never took a breath, her mom and dad, her sister, her stepdad who raised her. Their favorite girl was finally home and though we will miss her until our very last day, she is exactly where she wanted to be.

And so, Grandma, Ger, Gerry, Gretchen, Mrs. Werner, G-Dawg, Aunt Gerry, Gerry Berry……we will mourn your loss and the incredible, generous life you lived. Will we be okay? You needn’t worry about us, Mom. We were loved and raised by you. We know exactly what direction to go from here.