Mom's Eulogy

My mother passed away after a very long battle with Alzheimer's Disease this past week. Her obituary is here (at least for a while; I should probably move that over here as well). I was able to give a eulogy for her at her funeral service, and that is available to read below for people who were unable to attend.

Thanks again to everyone who were there for us, both this week and over the last decade. I hope this eulogy does her justice and gives you some insight into who she was - I made some on-the-fly changes when I was presenting it, but this is really just intended to close the book on this portion of my life and allow others to experience it as well.

Eulogy for Joan Raymond: 18 July 2018

My mother, Joan Raymond, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in the spring of 2007.

I know that a eulogy is not designed to talk about what takes our loved ones away from us, but instead about what made them our loved ones to begin with. But in the case of my mother, I feel like we can’t fully appreciate the life she lived without a firm grasp on what was taken from her, and what was taken from all of us.

For example, my mother was dedicated to her community. She lived in Millbury for nearly her whole life, growing up in part [near the Grafton line], living the first half of her married life on the Sutton line before moving to the last house she would know on the other side of town. Millbury gave her a home, gave her an education at Assumption School, and gave her a place to raise her family with her husband, Doug, myself, and my brother, Kyle. The community she loved to live in, she gave back to as well. She worked for the town for many years, serving as the head clerk, as the secretary for the Town Planner, as the secretary for the police department (under my uncle and her brother Laurie, who some here today know as former police chief Richard Handfield). And she served on the Planning Board for a number of years - my very first opportunity to vote, in fact, was in a town election where I could cast a vote for my mother, which is still pretty cool - as well as the Redevelopment Authority. When she couldn’t work anymore due to the Alzheimer’s, she helped out at the after-school program. Her desire to do good for those around her stuck with her even when other things could not.

Her dedication to her community, however, was secondary to the dedication she had to her family. I was born in 1981, my brother in 1984. She stayed with us as a stay-at-home mom until we both went to school, and throughout our times at Assumption and later Holy Name, she not only worked a full-time or near-full-time schedule, but she took on extra jobs, overtime, and other side gigs to make it work. My father did the same, even taking a more difficult job with a more demanding schedule to get us through. They both did what they could to make our lives easy, and my mother didn’t have a lot of negative things to say about it that I could remember, even as I recognize the sacrifices that were made now that I’m an adult. And while those sacrifices allowed us to have a nice house and a good education, it also allowed us to move closer to my grandmother and grandfather. Her father was sick as well after a debilitating stroke, and being next door to them, and then my grandmother as she got older, couldn’t have been easy, either, but speaks to who my mother and who my parents are. Even toward the end, Joan’s concern about her mother persisted even as her mind started to fade away. And it’s no wonder - my childhood is littered with memories of Friday evenings with my grandmother, Joan’s sister Gail, and later Gail’s children. No matter how difficult things were, how hard things may have gotten in ways I’ll never know, the constant for her was staying connected with those she loved the most.

The basic thing to know about my mother, though, is that seemingly everyone knew her. I don’t quite know how she got to know so many people in town, but even to this day, a week rarely goes by where someone either asks “aren’t you Joan’s kid” or asks how she was doing. It took a long time for my wife to get used to being stopped at a restaurant or grocery store with those questions. Why was this true? Part of it was just the bubbly, outgoing personality my mother showed everybody - growing up, I had a friend who constantly referred to Joan as the “cool mom” - or perhaps the lack of a consistent filter which meant you probably knew EXACTLY what Joan was thinking at a given moment, but I think the key was that she was genuine. Once she fell ill and wasn’t seen around town as much, I would run into her old friends and colleagues and they would tell me a story about my mother doing or saying something (often being an inappropriate thing at that), and none of it came as a surprise. I feel like I knew my mother as she truly was, and I know a lot of kids can’t say that about their parents.

That is ultimately why I led this remembrance of her off with her Alzheimer’s diagnosis. The truth of the matter is that the disease doesn’t strike fast, but instead just takes and takes and takes. And what started out as a sort of flighty forgetfulness devolved into a situation where her personality was sort of laid bare, until that situation devolved until there was nothing of what made Joan Joan left. My wife and I had moved to New Hampshire when we got married, and her diagnosis came shortly after we signed the paperwork on our new home. We moved back here a couple years later to be closer, later permanently moving into the house I grew up in - the house she and my father built to be close to her mother and HER ailing father. Even in her decline, I have some good memories. For a while, she could still crack a joke at the dinner table, still make an inappropriate comment, and still tell incredibly ridiculous stories that we could never be sure whether they were a figment of her illness or of a woman who had lost the ability to filter.

Today is bittersweet because today is the day we say a final goodbye to my mom, to Joan, to Joanie, to whoever she was to you. But for me, while I never got a chance to truly say goodbye in a meaningful way, the fact of the matter is that I had internally, mentally said goodbye to her years ago. That while her body was strong and her willpower stubborn, the woman we all loved is a woman we lost long ago. And so many people took time out of their lives to spend a little time with her before they couldn’t anymore because of the state she was in, much like she fought hard to stay with us in mind and in body until she couldn’t anymore because of the state she was in. She may have forgotten a lot, but she held onto those relationships as long as she could.

Shortly after my wedding, after I had moved, before things got really rough, she and I had talked a bit about the future and her illness, and she told me she never wanted me to change my life around for her. I promised her that I wouldn’t, but I broke that promise to her very quickly and, ultimately, with no regrets. Left unsaid was that she probably knew I couldn’t keep that promise, because everything she had shown me in her life is that you do what you must for those who can’t. You give back to those who will never understand the gift they receive. You work hard and sacrifice to make the world a little better not only for your kids, but for your family, for your community, for the world around you. And you might stumble, and you might fail, but you don’t stop, even when you’re presented with what looks like an insurmountable roadblock, or even when you’re struck with a disease you can’t control. The last five years of her life were not easy on her physical existence, but something in there wouldn’t let her give up. Was it painful? Absolutely, but there is an admirable bit of strength there as well that I can’t ignore.

As we leave today, I know everyone is capable of acknowledging what my mother went through in her final years, but I hope we can all remember who she was to us. The lives she touched, the people she helped, the ways she made you laugh (whether it was an appropriate time to laugh or not). But when you go home tonight, I want you all to consider what I believe is Joan’s true legacy in life - maybe it means something as small as giving your kid an extra hug next time you see them, or maybe it’s something bigger like running for office next spring. I know the sacrifices and choices Joan made are not terribly different than the sacrifices and choices millions of people make on a regular basis, often when the stakes are much higher, but you are sitting here today because my mother touched your life in some way, directly or indirectly. There is value in stepping up and doing what needs to be done, and I hope Joan can be that inspiration for you at some point in your life, the way she has inspired me for so many years. Thank you.