christchurch2007

Last Saturday, January 13, 2007, a special service of thanksgiving and celebration of Jeanne Hogan's mother, Amelia Smith, was offered (this photo shows Jeanne and her mother at the Kensington Homes Christmas celebration in 2004). Jeanne has recently moved to New Mexico after being a very active member of this parish and our current vestry. She has also been a member of the EfM (Education for Ministry)program at Christ Church. There have been several of us who were present at Amelia's service who have asked Jeanne to provide us with a printed copy of her eulogy for her Mother because her words came out of her faithful and loving care of her mother, her growing keen sense of vocation as a Christian, and a new and strenghthening understanding of the faith that undergirds our life together.

God's Peace in Blessing Others,
Bob+

The Life and Legacy of Amelia Neebe Smith

Amelia Smith was my mother, my nurturer in childhood, my mentor through adolescence, and my friend in later years. Eventually she became my child. Mother came of age during the depression, waged war in her very special way, and then raised two children on her own. She was a quiet part of that Greatest Generation. She has left a treasured legacy.

The happiest I remember my mother was during the four years of World War II that we spent in Cape May, New Jersey. We were a Navy family and had a world map on the wall in the dining room with stick pins to track my father’s tours of duty – chasing German submarines in the cold North Atlantic, patrolling the coast of North Africa, and, finally, sweeping mines out of the waters at Utah Beach before the Invasion of Normandy. It seemed like a game to me then; I was too young to appreciate the anxiety Mother must have felt with a husband at sea. Mother’s response to the war situation was a simple question, “What can I do?” She found service with the Red Cross, spotting for enemy planes over the coastline and delivering coffee and donuts to the Coast Guard at Cape May Point, driving an all-too-big station wagon – so big that they had to put wooden blocks on the pedals so she could reach them. She always joked that she hadn’t been in line when God was passing out legs. In spite of the war, Mother was happy then, and she remembered those days as her happiest in the later years of her life.

My brother and I learned at an early age not to complain. If we didn’t like what we were served for dinner, we were told that we didn’t have to like it – all we had to do was eat it. When we fell and scraped our knees, a frequent occurrence for her clumsy daughter, the first question was about the welfare of the sidewalk. By second grade, I’d learned that I had not inherited my mother’s arithmetic gene. “Stick with words,” she’d tell me; “you’ll never make a living with numbers.” Her sense of world order must have been deeply shaken when I joined the staff of a public accounting firm.

Mother taught me many things, things that have carried me throughout my life. She taught me to laugh, to see the humor in any situation, and, most importantly, she taught me to laugh at myself. She had a wonderful sense of humor; she always had a smile. It is her smile – always the smile – that I will remember most fondly.

She taught me that it was always better to be out doors rather than cooped up in the house; that God gave us legs so we could walk. She taught me to knit, to enjoy football games, to love reading and great music. I learned through her example that a book and a nightcap are the best recipe for a good night’s sleep. She taught me to have faith, to trust in a kind and loving God. She taught me that the world was full of beauty and splendor and that there’s always something exciting to see or do, that life is a grand adventure.

In her later years, Mother found great joy in her four grandchildren; they were always more delightful to her than her own children had been because, “they went home.” She lavished on them a special kind of love and affection it seemed to me she had denied my brother and me. “Well, of course,” she laughed when I challenged her about it. “I’m not responsible for them; their parents are. I can spoil them if I want to.”

In her early 80’s Mother found herself alone for the first time in her life. Through a series of dislocations, she lost contact with her friends and eventually with the world. As dementia overtook her, she retreated into happier times – summers as a young girl at the Chesapeake Bay, the years in Cape May, the occasional glimpse of something funny or stupid my brother or I had done as children, and, finally, into the solace of long-remembered nursery rhymes and Sunday School hymns. With a quiet grace, she accepted life as it came for her. She never asked for anything and whatever we did for her was warmly welcomed. To the end, there was always that smile and a cheery greeting, even when she might not know who I was. As for herself, she was always, “just fine and dandy.” With mercy, she slipped peacefully away from us all into the arms of the God she devoutly believed in, the God who would finally bring her home. Thank you God for my mother’s life and legacy.

Labels: Eulogy