Friday
February 16, 2007
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Unfortunately I find myself once again writing in this journal. Writing was always Deb’s strength, not mine.
I apologize for the lag in getting this posted. I am sure that many of you know by now that Deb’s battle with cancer ended last month when her body could not maintain the same intensity of battle as her mind was committed to.
Deb passed quietly on Sunday, January 14, 2007; almost three years to the day from her first diagnosis.
By request, I am posting below a copy of the eulogy I read at her funeral, as well at the information about the book that Allie read at Deb’s funeral.
Her Brother,
Andy
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Eulogy
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They say that every cloud has a silver lining. While I am not sure that I am far enough through this cloud to see that lining yet, I have been able to at least catch a glimpse of it.
Deb definitely inherited traits from the rest of the family, although, at least until recent years, she would not admit it.
From her grandmother and mother she got her determination and will power.
From her father she got her steadfast desire to “be the best mother she knew how to be”.
And from me, her brother, I think that she got the understanding that being told “no”, or “it can’t be done”, usually means that you have just not found the right person to ask.
To these family traits she added a few that were uniquely her own, or at least I don’t see them as having come from her immediate family. These include a spirituality that allowed her to replace day to day worry with an inner assurance; the ability to talk to anyone anywhere; and the ability to confront people she didn’t agree with and frequently did not like, not only in a disarming manner, but in such a manner that she ended counting some of these people among her best friends.
When, three years ago at the age of 37, she was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer, she began a new life mantra: ‘My girls deserve a mother’. To that end, she began a determined journey to achieve the goal of giving her girls not only a mother, but the best mother she could be. She enlisted the help of Howard, and together they leveraged both of their strengths, never taking no for an answer, always believing that tomorrow will be better, drawing strength and support from their large circle of family and friends, to achieve her goal of beating the cancer so that her girls would have a mother.
She began her treatments with a surgery where the odds of survival were against her, and having survived that, continued pursuing any and all options that would help her achieve her goal, never considering defeat, always looking past the impossible. Somehow throughout her difficult and frequently painful journey, she managed not only to keep her spirits high, but also do the same for her friends and family. It was she telling us that everything was going to be OK, not, as one would expect, the other way around. Through both her words and actions, she managed to encourage others to have hope, many of them in much less tenuous situations than her own.
While it is entirely too easy, especially today, for us to focus on her not having achieved her secondary goal of survival; it is important to recognize that survival was her secondary goal. Her primary goal was to provide her children with the mother that they deserved.
This, her mantra and mission she succeeded in achieving. In too short a period of time she has managed to impart the quality of more than a “normal lifetime” of motherhood to her girls, in a far smaller quantity of time. I think as she watches over Allie and Rachael from above, she can be, should be, and will be, proud of the way her teachings guide them through their lives.
The glimpse of a silver lining I see, and I am sure that I will see more as time passes, is that all of us that have known Deb are better for the time we had with her; and that we too have benefited from the increased quality of time she provided when she knew the quantity of time she had was limited.
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