EULOGY FOR MY MOTHER

MARCH 19, 2022

by Kevyn Bashore

You may have heard the quote from Winston Churchill that he used to describe a dicey political situation: “It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key.”

I think this is a worthy description of my mother. But I might have said it this way:

My mother is a sparkler, wrapped in a firecracker, inside a powder keg; and love is the key.

Standing just under five feet tall, she was a force to be reckoned with.

Small and fierce.

Nothing could stand between my mother and her five-hour energy drink which she advocated with evangelistic fervour as a cure-all for whatever ails you. Ten years ago at my father’s funeral seven family members gave their eulogies and I was the last one to share. My mother’s five-hour energy drink must have been waning because as I was speaking she gave me a sharp signal from the front row, a hand across her neck, warning me to cut my eulogy short and to get off the stage. At the time I was gobsmacked, embarrassed, attempting to sustain my train of thought. Today I share this laughing along with my mother, because I know she's sitting with my father in heaven watching this memorial celebration service with a bowl of glory popcorn and a five-hour spirit drink unconcerned by how long this service goes — because she’ll wait until every last one of us here gets to share our stories about how amazing she is.

I'm laughing with my mother, because she now knows so much more than she did when she was here with us on this earth. She sees everything more clearly without all this earthly baggage.

The last three weeks of my mother’s life found her walking through a profound journey. As her body wasted away, the size of her spirit seemed to expand. Even as we, and she, pleaded in her final days for God to take her home to end her suffering, at the same time the Holy Spirit was inviting each of my family members to expand our spirit through the intentional embracing of pain and suffering. And forgiveness.

My mother was brought to my sister’s home for hospice care about five weeks ago. I arrived on the scene on Saturday, February 19, and after initial hugs and greetings, my mother immediately gave me the green light to organize and clear her home as quickly as possible. I felt an urgency, so I dove straight into the deep end, into her closets, beginning with her 80 designer shoes, 70 belts, hundreds of articles of clothing, and jewellery. Mom loved to be fashionable, and looked stylish and amazing at 82. My nephew's girlfriend even nicknamed her "Glam Gram." I brought every item to her bedside where she quickly inspected them and either dispersed them as a gift to family and friends or passed them back to me to deliver to secondhand stores, Good Will, or as a last resort — the dumpster.

I was surprised by my mother’s sudden ease at giving everything away. I had attempted to help her downsize for the past ten years, but it was only in the end that she gained a freedom and great fervour in doing so. She realized that she wanted the blessing of doing it while she was living. And she came to a profound revelation: what value do earthly possessions have in the scale of heaven? How could she have better spent her time and money here on earth?

I don't know the answers my mother discovered through this purging. That's between her and God. But these are significant questions. Questions for each of us to take seriously before we die. While we’re alive. To consider on a daily basis. These questions became even more poignant when each of my family members were given the freedom to choose something from our mother’s home as a gift from her. What would hold meaning to us after her death? What should we carry with us from those who have gone before us? Physically. Emotionally. Spiritually. And why? For me, among other things, I found a piece of driftwood that my father stuffed into the basement rafters. It has no intrinsic value, but because he stashed it away before he died ten years ago for some undisclosed reason, it has intrinsic meaning to me. From my mother, her silver, Larimar stone bracelet found the greatest meaning for me, because it’s something I can wear as a symbol of what my father enjoyed giving to my mother, as well as a gift that brought my mother joy. This furious desire to release all her possessions came just two weeks before she lost her physical voice and, subsequently, her physical and mental strength to fully function.

It was just sixteen months ago that we received the news that my mother had pancreatic cancer. The doctors gave her six to eleven months to live. They said surgery was impossible for an 81 year old. My mother defied the odds. She decided to go the route of chemo. She surprised everyone by passing through eight months of the poison cure with strength and pizazz and for her 82nd birthday in October the doctors decided to “give her the gift of life” by performing a Whipple procedure. It was hoped that she would continue her upward momentum, but mom wasn’t able to hold onto the recovery and transition from such a drastic procedure and slid quickly down to 83.5 lbs. Sepsis nearly killed her at the beginning of February. The downward spiral never stopped.

I’m grateful for the thirteen weeks I spent with her during that time. She was a fighter. And I’m grateful for the tenacity and faithfulness of my family who has worked tirelessly to honor and serve our mother’s needs throughout this long and painful process. Especially my sisters and brother and nephew Cole. During the final week, it was heartbreaking and horrifying to watch my once vibrant 82 year old mother, who just 18 months earlier was mowing her yard, disappear into the withered body we usually associate with images from concentration camps. She did surprise us all by finally abandoning her wig a month or so ago and embrace the beauty of her white, chemo-cropped hair. She looked elegant and classy. And her vibrant smile popped as the mischievous twinkle in her eye lit up the room.

We were all grateful to God for giving us the opportunity to hold a “living wake” for our mother’s final three-and-half weeks of life as family and friends poured in to visit her, sharing abundant love and gratitude and to say farewell, for now. It was a meaningful way to bless and slowly say goodbye to her until we meet again on the other side. And so with all its sadness and grief, last Sunday morning was also filled with relief for mom to finally be free of her pain and suffering as she’s now in the presence of Jesus and all those who have gone before her, including my father.

On the dawn of Sunday, March 13, 2022, my sister Crystal entered my bedroom at our sister Jana’s home and whispered, shell-shocked, “I think mom has passed.” Although it was imminent, the words sounded surreal. I took just five steps from the bed to the living room to see my mother on her hospital bed at the end of the room. I knew instantly from the pallor of her skin that she was gone. The same colour of my father’s skin when I found him dead in the woods at night ten years ago. My mother died in her sleep after three-and-a-half weeks of hospice care, the snowy landscape from a blizzard that had swept across the hill the day before laid a highway of white to lead my mother heavenward. The first daffodil bud from my mother’s backyard that I had brought to her two days prior reached full bloom that morning in a vase behind her head, glowing gold with the kiss of sunrise.

Mom had asked God, maybe even bargained with Him, if she could live long enough to die in her flower garden in Spring. She loved flowers. And her garden. God allowed her to die among her orchids at the home of her daughter, Jana, and son-in-law, Tom, who were asleep in their bedroom down the hall. She died with her grandson Ryan sleeping on the nearby couch. And with her daughter Crystal and me sleeping in nearby bedrooms. Though we had all been on a 24/7 death watch for more than three weeks, especially my sisters during the nights, somehow, and for reasons yet unknown, our mother slipped away when none of us were fully present. Even after numerous close calls where we stood for hours around her bed holding her hands, singing, crying, sobbing, confessing, laughing, waiting, honoring, and releasing her, she still managed to have it her own way by passing into the great beyond while our backs were turned. But God honored mom’s request in a way she didn’t expect: she didn’t die in her garden, her garden was brought to her.

A lone deer visited mom the night before she died. It roamed into the yard in front of her window and lingered. A deer can symbolize spiritual authority, piety, devotion, and God taking care of His children. Cardinals visited the yard for weeks before she died. They can be signs from heaven of transition. The first morning dove any of us saw settled in the snow outside the window moments after mom died. It is a symbol of mourning and sorrow. But also of peace, love, and faith.

My father died two-and-a-half months after my brother's 40th birthday and two-and-a-half months before my 50th. My mother died two-and-a-half months after my brother's 50th birthday and two-and-a-half months before my 60th: ten years and ten days after our father died. My sister, Crystal, and I immediately were drawn to John 10:10 where Jesus tells us, “The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I have come that you might have life, and life abundant."

The thief always comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

Jesus always comes to give us life — and life abundant.

There’s a story, maybe a myth, about my mother being born two days before Halloween in 1939 and the doctor was called away from a holiday party dressed as a devil to deliver her into this world. Isn’t that the image of death attempting to snuff out the purity of new life? Three years later the thief came once again to my mother’s home and took her one-and-a-half year old sister, Sandra Jean, who died.

Steal, kill, and destroy. Always what the enemy does.

But Jesus always brings life and life abundant.

Maybe that’s why my mother sang music her whole life. Throughout the day. Anywhere. In the car. Working. Mom sang hymns. Gospel. Christian praise and worship music. Broadway tunes. She was singing truth to keep the thief away. To keep the thief from returning. Calling on Jesus to bring His abundant life through joy. Maybe that’s one of the reasons my mother was grieved that I stopped singing. She grieved that most of our family stopped singing.

A line from one of my favorite poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins reads:

“… for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men's faces.”

Today, I bare witness that I have seen Christ play in ten thousands places, especially during this past month. I have seen Christ lovely in the limbs, lovely in the eyes, hands, feet, voices, and faces of each of my family members and all our relatives and friends who so faithfully supported, helped, and loved my mother in seen and unseen ways throughout her life and in her final hours to help her enter through the gates of heaven.

I now know more than ever what Christ playing in ten thousand places looks like: it looks like Eskimo kisses from seven-year-old Colten to his 82 year old great grandmother. It looks like waking up every night at 2:00, 3:00, 4:00, 5:00, 6:00AM to humbly feed, wash, wipe, clean, soothe, quiet, or sing to our mother, as my sisters did. To weep in exhaustion and sorrow, as we all did. It looks like taking off many weeks and months of work to fulfil commitments as my mother’s POAs and medical POAs, as my sisters, brother, and nephew did. And as I did. It looks like building fires in the wood burning stove to keep my mother warm, as my brother-in-law did. It looks like daily visitations from my sister-in-law, nephews, niece, grand nephews and nieces, aunts, uncles, cousins, relatives, and all the friends who cared enough to stop their daily lives to visit the woman they loved, the mother, grandmother, great grand mother, sister, and friend.

We are all the hands and face of Christ.

We each reflect a dimension of His nobility, grandeur, authority, kindness, and love. Something that permeates the very name we carry from the day we are born.

My mother’s name is Loretta Faye Hartman Bashore.

Loretta means victory. When we remember my mother, may we remember that we are victorious in Christ.

Faye means loyalty or belief. May my mother’s life inspire us to stand in faith before God.

Hartman means hard, strong man. May we all stand strong in truth against the evil tide that comes.

The meaning of Bashore, is a mystery, so may we each choose to live in the shadowland of life’s mysteries, not demanding answers from God before we trust Him. There is some evidence that Bashore might mean "one who kisses." May the words we use be like spiritual kisses to all we meet. And may we receive the daily kisses from God Himself.

If we remember and do these things, my mother’s life will fulfill the gift she was born to give to us all.

May it be so.

“For Christ plays in ten thousand places.”

In my mother.

And in us all.

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