Eulogy for my mother

I made it through the service today and giving her eulogy without losing my composure ... although I nearly did a couple of times.

For those who are interested but couldn't be there this morning, here is what I wrote/said:

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Mom’s Eulogy

I may have bitten off more than I can chew with this task, so I ask that you all lift me up so I can get through this with my composure intact— not just for my mother’s sake, but for mine as well.

You see, a couple of weeks before Mom made her way to her heavenly home, she was sitting in the kitchen with my husband and with Lucinda, one of her wonderful caregivers.

She said to my husband, “I wish I were a bird.”

He asked her why. She responded that she would like to be able to fly over people’s heads and poop on them if they annoyed her.  

I don’t want God to let my mom be a bird just so she can poop on my head. I need to do a good job with this remembrance. And the good Lord knows I annoyed my mother greatly in life!

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I am here to celebrate my mother’s beautiful life with you.

But I want to preface my story with this scripture:

From Romans 8:28

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

I ask you to remember that truth as I share.

Mom’s stroke in October was horrifying in that not only did it debilitate her physically, it stripped from her something she valued most in life: The ability to communicate, to hold rational, linear conversations and to take care of those she loved most.

But as you can tell with the bird poop story, the stroke also broke through a communication filter — that previous filter that often kept my mother from sharing her deepest self with us.  While the way she previously communicated may have been gone, she gained a newer, purer and sweeter way of sharing her spirit with us.

Not long after Mom had that stroke and during a speech therapy conversation, she said she believed her life’s purpose had been to take care of my dad, as well as Kim and me, and her grandkids.

I believe she fulfilled her purpose, and in doing so, she ultimately glorified God.

Nicki Wilcoxson – May 13, 2015

Nicki Wilcoxson – May 13, 2015

Nicki Janice Sooter Wilcoxson, 69, of Amarillo, died Wednesday, May 13, 2015, in Amarillo.

Services will be at 11:30 a.m., Saturday, May 16, 2015, at Hillside Christian Church Chapel with Jim McKee and Mike Nuthman officiating. Private burial will be at Llano Cemetery.  Arrangements are by Boxwell Brothers Funeral Directors, 2800 Paramount Blvd.

Nicki was born on Oct. 7, 1945, in Slaton to Joe and Lorene Sooter. She grew up in Clovis, NM, until she moved with her family as a freshman in high school to Childress, where she also met the love of her life, Jim Wilcoxson. She graduated from Childress High School in 1963 and married Jim on Jan. 23, 1965, in Childress.

Nicki graduated in 1967 from Texas Tech University in Lubbock with a bachelor of science in education. She graduated in 1990 from the University of North Texas in Denton with a master of library science.

Nicki lived with her family in Amarillo for 46 years. She devoted more than 30 years of her life to public school education. She taught junior high history and English at Austin Junior High and Horace Mann Junior High; served as the librarian at Fannin Junior High, Palo Duro High School and Caprock High School; and retired in 2002 from Caprock High School as the instructional technology specialist for the Caprock Cluster. Nicki also served short stints with Region XVI Service Center and Perryton High School during the 1985-86 school year.

Nicki was an avid reader and learner. She loved gardening, cats, collecting, baking and preserving family memories. She dedicated her life to raising her two daughters and taking care of her husband. Nicki’s grandchildren were her pride and joy.

Nicki was preceded in death by her parents, and by an infant daughter, Amy, in 1967.

She is survived by her husband; two daughters Kim Migliaccio and husband Vince, of Flower Mound; Jami Wilmarth and husband Dorsey, of Amarillo; three grandsons, Hart Wilmarth of Austin; Jordie Henry of Plainview; and Cole Migliaccio of Flower Mound; three brothers, Roy Sooter of Amarillo; Dwight Sooter of Lebanon, Ky.; and Tim Sooter of Evergreen, Colo.

The family suggests memorials be sent to Amarillo Independent School District’s Caprock Cluster programs, 7200 Interstate 40, Amarillo, TX 79106.

Another leg of this journey has ended

I didn't sleep last night.

I kept writing my mother's eulogy in my head. (Yes, I am going to attempt it and pray to God I do it without losing my composure. Kim's really worried about this ... )

And I'm wondering what Mom's doing. What's her favorite thing about Heaven? Is it even possible to have a favorite thing? Did she get to hear, "Well done, thy good and faithful servant" yet? And how does that happen? And how did she feel? I can only imagine.

As most of you know by now, my mother died yesterday at approximately 3:33 — or maybe it was 3:35 — when the school bell rang. We all thought that was appropriate. For my intelligent mom — the lifelong educator and student — her learning is over, and now she can rest and rejoice and relax and never worry about anything or anyone again.

What a relief and a blessing. But how sad for us. Going home to see her things has broken my heart all over again.

And what a crazy, crazy week we've had. As with Mom's first major stroke (her second stroke), all of our attention was focused on my dad's illness. We knew the probability of another bleed for my mom existed, but I suppose we were all shocked by how soon it happened. My theory is that her heart was already broken by her limitations and the reality of losing my dad. She just wasn't going to be left behind, and I don't blame her.

When we went to hospice last Wednesday after the night in the ER, my dad was in good shape physically. The first night there, however, he had a pain crisis, so they put him on an IV pain drip. The really hard stuff because we discovered his allergy to morphine.

Then, he had three really good days, so he was weaned back onto oral meds. And then, he had some really bad ones as my mother's death became nearer. Frankly, my family and the BSA Hospice staff were quite baffled as to whether my dad was going to pull through enough to go back home with us. That's how quickly his health deteriorated while we were there. We had begun to think he was going to go with my mom. It was somewhat logical thinking because my mom kept hanging on, long past what the medical staff believed she "should" have.

But Dad woke up yesterday with a good day. He was able to sit with all of us and hold my mom's hand while she passed. When it was over, he wanted nothing more than to get the heck out of there and come home, so my family took him home. I had already left to get Mom appropriate burial clothes. She is so tiny now that none of her clothes fit. (She is now exactly the size she was in high school and when my parents married.) And I wanted a Childress Bobcat blue dress that matches her eyes. I found it. (Don't worry, though ... open caskets are banned in my family with threats of future hauntings.)

Last night, we were together as a family — although I did my typical isolating thing. I don't know why I do that. It's just my reaction to grief, I think. It's hard to be around everyone when I'm trying to get myself together. I wrote my mother's obituary, Dorsey got her picture ready, and we tried to further complete funeral planning.

We are meeting with Brad Boxwell this morning at 9.

It's all so very fast.

Services will be at 11:30 a.m. Saturday at Hillside Christian Church's main campus chapel.

Barrie's Memory of my Dad

Here is another super fun memory of my dad, reminded by Barrie Boxwell Tapp.

When Hall and Oats "You Make My Dreams Come True" was one of the songs overplayed on the radio for months, any time we got in my dad's truck with him, or I suppose the other car, too, and this song came on, he'd stomp his feet and raise his hands to the beat of the song.

It was just the thing to do. And Dad did it while driving. All of us girls giggling.

Thanks for the memory, Barrie!!

(P.S. After I received Barrie's message, I pulled the song up on Youtube so we could do it all over again. :-) )


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_I4wtNPv5w

What do YOU do with all those memories?

Note: This is another blog post my mother wrote, this time in 2007. Now I know where my deep affection for memories and things of sentimental value have suddenly come from!

I'm finding it fascinating that as I read through some of these old posts, all of which can still be accessed online, I am facing some of the same thoughts and issues my mom encountered. These are the things that make me feel closer to her, but also to realize that not all about aging is a bad thing. There's a lot to be said for wisdom and for gathering one's priorities into their rightful places. 

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http://childresshighschool-classof1963.blogspot.com/2007/08/grandmas-attic.html

AUGUST 31, 2007

Grandma’s Attic

Today I took advantage of a cool morning to do something that I had been putting off. Some time ago I created memory boxes for each member of our family. In the girls boxes, I put special toys such as Jami’s Toddie Bear, (JAMI: OMG, HOW I ADORED TODDIE BEAR!) Kim’s Kiddles, newspaper clippings, knick knacks, pictures, Barbies and other items only they could love and hopefully treasure. 

I did the same for Jim and for me. I knew that those boxes contained long forgotten items from our high school days in Childress including our annuals. These boxes are stored in the attic and can only be accessed when the temperature allows us to, so we always plan our trips up to that dreaded area when it is cool. 

(JAMI: All of the attic items were moved to a storage unit last year. I'm itching to get to those memory boxes.)

Even though I put most of the items in our boxes myself, I am still amazed and surprised when I open them up and see what is there. Each item invokes a whole new trip down memory lane. There are pictures of Jim playing basketball along with yellowed and tattered newspaper clippings from his bulletin board that hung in his old Childress bedroom forever. Programs from past banquets and plays, all of my Trixie Belden and Bobbsey Twins books, my kindergarten work and the list goes on. 

(JAMI: Somewhere, maybe in a comment, my mom said she regretted that we didn't love her books the way she did. I beg to differ. MOM, that I read ALL those Bobbsey Twin books and loved them ... and I WANT them!)

Had I been a better person, I might have organized all of these items into carefully labeled acid free scrapbooks, but that never happened, the task having fallen victim to lack of time and other priorities. 

(JAMI: Give me time, Mom, this is my new goal.)

Now the task of preserving the past has grown even more daunting. Filling my attic, along with 16 containers of Christmas decorations and 14 more of Fall/Halloween decorations, are the boxes filled with the relics representing the pasts of our mothers and fathers and even grandparents. You know what I mean — labeled and unlabeled pictures back to the 1800's, report cards, letters, enough memorabilia from Jim’s Dad’s one year at Maryville College to convince us that his partying took precedence over studying, military items, and other “stuff.” These are the kind of things that grab our hearts each time we try to get rid of them and pile on guilt trips that cause us to close the boxes and vow to try again another time. 

(JAMI: OK, I'll make all of this my new "job," even though I won't make a living from it.)

The questions today are these:

What does one do with the items from the past that no longer have value beyond the sentimental? What is our responsibility in preserving the past of our families? Of course, we want to remember our families from the past, but what is the best way to do this? What would our parents say to us today if they could about these items? How would they want them handled and passed on? Do we close our eyes and the lids on the boxes and leave it all there for OUR children to deal with as our parents have done for us?

(JAMI: I'll do it; I know this is why God has put this exact desire in my heart the last few months.)

I know that Jim and I are not alone. This seems to be a common problem for many of us at this time in our lives. I would love to know how you, my former classmates of '63, have dealt with these issues. Talk to me!

For today, I am dusting myself off, closing the attic door, and perhaps I'll read a good book!

Nicki