The Cancer Observer

Last Thursday, many of my Mom’s family had the chance to join Dad & I at Cleveland State for a beautiful service they presented in memory of Mom and her many professional and personal accomplishments.

While I was nervous about what I was going to say, I was happy to find that I was one of many speakers, including some of Mom’s closest friends and colleagues and we were surrounded by wonderful people wanting to celebrate my Mom.

Sheila had lovely stories to tell about my Mom’s fascination with collecting figurines of old people and sharing them with her, Dorothy shared her gratitude for Mom and her adherence to the Florence Nightingale creed of nurses, Jane shared her love of traveling with Mom, shopping together and sharing stories about the two Davids (her husband and my Dad). It was also great to hear Dad ask some funny questions of the gathered group of nurses and to also tell the story of meeting Mom and marrying her in just a few short weeks, and finding out when acquiring the marriage license that they were both Scorpios, which later meant that the way to work together was to make all decisions as a team, otherwise their two strong personalities could never work in tandem. Lisa read a beautiful psalm she felt related to Mom and the description of the Mom’s voice of reason but always being a Wild Card at a meeting. All the other speakers brought out something special that kindly and sweetly memorialized Dr. Cheryl, a nurse of 45 years and a friend to many in the room for 20 plus years!

I chose to go another route, because of course, Dr. Cheryl to me is Mom. While I can’t even begin to say how much I miss her, I thought I would discuss the revitalized Cleveland and how I thought Mom might appreciate the work being done downtown.

You can see the letter in my Letters to Mom section of the Web site posted Monday. This is what I said to introduce the letter. As always, Dad and I (and my brother Kris and the rest of our family) thank everyone for their support and especially Vida in hosting the memorial service. We appreciate all of your beautiful words, sentiments, stories and love for our family.

Memorial Service: 10/23/08 3:00 p.m.

It was just a year ago I was here in this very place telling you tales with Mom sitting at the table beside me, celebrating her retirement.

As you’ve heard tonight and know from your experiences with her, Mom loved CSU and really had no desire to retire – and she certainly wasn’t ready to stop living her life.

But some choices are beyond our control and I always believe that there is a silver lining within even the worst horrible gray cloud. That has to be my chance to meet all of you, all of her wonderful friends and colleagues and to meet all the people who helped our family and surrounded us with love when Mom’s days were numbered.

While I think I was mostly in a daze the week after we lost Mom, I do remember several things that people told me about her during visitation and services at our church. The two that I share today stuck with me the most. First I was told: Your Mom always had time to help, no matter how small or large the problem. I knew I could count on her to be there. Second, someone told me thank you for sharing your Mom with us. I was so stuck by this. She loved this place! I should thank you all you for sharing her with us!

My Mom gave and gave and over the last two years even when she became increasingly ill and I hope I was able to give back just a fraction of what she gave to me, to you and to our family and friends away from CSU. I hope I will be able to take her caring and kind legacy in my life.

Since May, I’ve written a blog to keep people informed about Mom. As a journalist and public relations professional, this gave me the chance to inform and hopefully entertain along the way. Humor kept me going thru the hard times and I hope it will keep me going for the rest of my life.

Since I no longer can call her and tell her all the things going on, I’ve started a new segment called Letters to Mom – look for it in book stores someday about dealing with grief!

I want to share a new letter that I’m writing to Mom that I think will have special meaning to all of you gathered here to day as we’ve seen the changes in Cleveland over the last few months.

Note: I shared this letter with everyone at Mom’s Memorial Service at CSU on Thursday, October 23, 2008

 Dear Mom,

 It’s a miracle! I know you are not going to believe it, but the RTA new HealthLine system is opening up this weekend! I know, it’s a shock that it is finally here and running, but it is true. I hadn’t seen the changes on the far east end of Euclid, but when I came back to work after Labor Day, there were no more construction barrels, loud noises or anything going on at Euclid by Public Square and East Fourth Street, where my colleagues and I walk to for lunch. In fact, all that I saw were nice, clean streets, sidewalks and the new bus terminals.

While CSU’s area of Euclid was done, we were waiting for the rest of it to be finished and on Saturday it officially opened. I know you’d be proud of Cleveland for making it easier for students to get to CSU from wherever they are with the expanded bus system and the more direct routes. It means the next time I come from work on Public Square to CSU, I hop on a healthline bus, go 20 blocks, and hop off. Much easier, and hopefully a way to see CSU – along with all the other businesses thrive.

It really didn’t seem real to me until last week when I walked to meet Dad at the Palace at Playhouse Square. We went to see the Chorus Line, which was good, but you totally would have fallen asleep during since there were some slow moments. But I digress… I know you would have been pleased to see the construction end and perhaps help the downtown areas revitalize by welcoming some more restaurants and stores to the areas that are now empty.

It is ironic – and maybe even more sad – that by the time I came home to Cleveland and worked downtown, just a few blocks away from your office, we never had a chance – or an easy way – to visit with each other.

If you were still at CSU, I would now just hop on the new double-long HealthLine (which looks pretty cool by the way) and surprise you for lunch.  But, let’s face it, even if you were here, you would smile and be happy to see me, but then not have time to eat because you’d be faced with solving all the issues of the semester in the nursing department.

But, I don’t want you to worry. Your work here on earth is done. Those who are left here have you covered.

Take the rest you deserve, keep an eye on us from above and know that as always, I love and miss you, as do so many others whose lives you touched in your 45 years of nursing – and mostly of caring.

Love,

Mary