Saying Good-Bye to Mom ...

On Saturday, April 7, 2 o'clock p.m., at St. Stephens (Episcopal) Church in Pittsfield, Mass., members of the family of my mother, Prudence Estelle Osborn Dyer, 1919-2018, gathered for her memorial service. We sang hymns she had loved, heard music that she loved, heard a recording of her late husband, my father, singing "The Lord's Prayer." Our son (who had come with us to Mass.), my nephew, my niece did the readings.

All three of Mom's sons spoke about her during the service--as did Joyce. Below are the words I wrote--most of which I managed to deliver through some pauses for ... you know ...

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Memorial Service: April 7, 2018

St. Stephens Episcopal; Pittsfield, MA

Prudence Estelle Osborn Dyer

September 9, 1919–March 10, 2018

In Enid, Oklahoma, in the 1950s, our mother painted our front door pink. In Hiram, Ohio, later in the 1950s, she painted our kitchen cabinets pink. And her sewing cabinet. When she worked around the house, she often wore what were called “pedal-pushers.” One pair was pink. It was almost as if she were saying, “Yes, there are four males in this five-person house—but y’all need a reminder!”

Mom was quick like that—and not just in a pink, silent, symbolic way. When she turned 40, Dad—joking—told her he was going to trade her in on two twenties. Mom replied—as quickly as light fills a dark room—“Ed, you’re not wired for 220.”

That impressed me, although by then, 1959, I was already a very wise 14-year-old, confident—positive!—that I already knew everything worth knowing. So I had long before learned about Mom’s quick intelligence.

As you can tell, Mom’s tongue could have an edge, too. About twenty years ago or so she was visiting us in Ohio, and we went for a drive to see some old family sites. We were on a very rural road that took us through a state park near our home. Mom wondered why so many Canada geese were lingering around these days. And I, feigning knowledge (always a mistake with Mom), said that, for one thing, the predators had greatly diminished. Very few foxes, for example.

No sooner were those syllables out of my mouth than a red fox danced across the road right in front of us. Mom looked at me, and … “I thought you said there weren’t any foxes around here anymore?”

And here’s the thing: I’d not seen a fox on that road—ever. I’ve not seen one there since!

When I was younger and even dumber than I was at 14 (hard to imagine, I know), I once complained to Mom—“Hey, there’s a Mother’s Day and a Father’s Day. Why isn’t there a Children’s Day.” And—once again—at the speed of light—she said: “Every day is Children’s Day.”

Well, in our house it certainly was. Children’s Day, every day. As my life has moved along, and as I’ve realized I needed to learn a little bit more than I knew at 14, I’ve come to appreciate not only the enormous good fortune I had to grow up in the home of Edward and Prudence Dyer, but I especially have come to marvel at the amazing achievements of my mother.

Throughout my boyhood years I had food, clothing, a bed (and, later, even a room!), safety of all sorts. My parents believed deeply in education—and taught their boys to share that belief. They supported all of us—even though, in ways, we three seemed hatched from the eggs of three wildly different avian species. They taught us about love and respect and kindness. At our table no one ate until Mom took her first bite; we said please and thank-you—and  May I please be excused? We had to clean our plates before dessert—or (just ask Richard) sit there until we did. And when the phone rang? Dyers’ residence—Danny speaking. You see the picture? Hear the soundtrack?

When our son was born in July 1972, Mom flew out from Des Moines to help us out for a few days—and, oh, did we need help! Her visit was disaster relief, pure and simple. We were clueless about parenthood. She brought into our home a calm that our infant son felt immediately. And he settled down. It was amazing.

And how about this? A year later—in the summer of 1973—Joyce and I dropped off Steve at Mom and Dad’s in Des Moines—our Grandmother Osborn was there, too—and headed out to Wyoming and Montana to see some of the Wild West, where Joyce had never been.

But here’s the thing. Our son had become ever more … frisky? … when it came time to change his diaper. He would flop around on the table like a sea lion on speed, laughing, ignoring our feckless efforts to get him to lie still. It was becoming exhausting. So … we were a little concerned about what Mom and Grandma would think—not of him, but of us.

But when we came back, and it was time to change him? He lay perfectly still, perfectly placed, perfectly happy (huge fatuous smile on his face), his little perfect legs upraised to make it perfectly easy for us.

What the—?

I asked Mom what had happened. Oh, nothing really, she said. It was that really part I never found out about. And throughout the remainder of his diaper period he never again did anything but what we’d seen that first day back in Des Moines. Calm. Willing. Happy. Cooperative. … Perfect.

Go figure.

You’ve heard—and will hear—some of Mom’s many achievements rehearsed here, and you can read about them in her obituary. But just let me talk about one, one that astonished me more and more as I grew older.

Like Mom, I was a career school teacher. So—as a younger colleague—here’s what amazed me about Mom.:

In the 1950s and 60s Mom was teaching high school English in Garrettsville, Ohio (where one of her finest students was my younger brother, Dave, from whom you’ll hear shortly). She had decided that she wanted to earn a Ph.D., and Dad—bless him—had supported the idea with enthusiasm. He knew how talented she was.

So … during the school year … Mom would teach all day at Garfield High School, then—two days a week—after school—drive 100 miles to the University of Pittsburgh, take her night classes, drive home 100 miles again, get up the next day and go teach another full day of high school English.

And somehow—how?—she stayed prepared for her teaching (planning lessons, grading papers, etc.), kept up with her graduate school classes (all A’s, by the way), remained a wife, a mother of her three sons—three very understanding, empathetic, appreciative, cooperative, warm sons.

And as she moved through her life and career, Mom continued to present herself as quite a model for me. Into her 70s she was hiking Oregon trails, swimming every morning, designing two homes they would live in out in Oregon, reading books-magazines-newspapers, using her personal computer, taking care of Dad, who was declining (to say the least). She arranged their move back here, drove them back East after their house sale, helped Dad until his death in November 1999.

She lived on her own as long as she could, then began moving through the stages-of-care at Kimball Farms.

Here’s an image of Mom I will never forget—and one I’ll end with:

It was near the end of her time in independent living. She knew it. And she hated it. During one of our visits we had lunch with her in Kimball’s dining room. Then started walking back to her apartment, which lay at the end of, oh, about 150 miles of labyrinthine corridors.

As we left the dining area, she was in third gear, moving as briskly as a teacher late to class (which, by the way, I’m pretty confident she never was). As we got to one of the turns in the hallway—and thus out of sight of the other residents—she slowed—a lot. And a few feet farther on, at one of the little social areas, she sank, breathing heavily, into a chair. After a while, breath regained, she was ready to move on, much more slowly, to her place.

As I think about that, I am incredibly moved. She might as well have been wearing a neon sign that glowed with the message: I AM NOT GIVING UP! (AND I’M CERTAINLY NOT GIVING UP IN FULL PUBLIC VIEW!)

And she didn’t.

She clung fiercely to her life, even when she could do virtually none of the things she’d once loved to do—except, of course, consuming chocolate. Always room for that in Mom’s worldview—and mouth! My brothers kept her well supplied. So I’m fairly certain chocolate was one of the last tastes in her mouth—and wouldn’t she have just loved knowing that would happen?

**

Let me give Edna St. Vincent Millay the final words. This is a short poem she wrote about the death of her own mother in 1931. Millay and her mother are both buried now over in Austerlitz, NY, on the grounds of her final home, Steepletop, where she died in 1950. The place is now open to the public by the way. Joyce and I took Mom there in 2002.

The courage that my mother had
Went with her, and is with her still:
Rock from New England quarried;
Now granite in a granite hill.

The golden brooch my mother wore
She left behind for me to wear;
I have no thing I treasure more:
Yet, it is something I could spare.

Oh, if instead she’d left to me
The thing she took into the grave!—
That courage like a rock, which she
Has no more need of, and I have.