Eulogy

Letter on Another Occasion

Sea Fever

My mother was born Arline Maguire, the first child of Alice Thorsen and Jim Maguire. She had three younger brothers, Mickey, Denny and Doug, and she loved them dearly. They all grew up as gypsies, my mother would say, moving about in New Jersey and Florida. This became something of a habit for her. She and my father, Ted, her high school sweetheart, have had their footloose life, first because of my father's career, and then by choice as they retired to begin a life of cruising. I think, though, that we could as well call my mother a Viking as a gypsy for her Scandinavian heritage, her love of sailing and her adventurous soul.

Although my mother moved around a lot in her life, she took with her wherever she went the people she loved, and they were many. My mother's friends include people from girlhood and college, Navy wives, old neighbors, new neighbors, cruisers, friends from her years of involvement with the Unitarian Church. As my sisters and I were growing up many of my parents' friends were our honorary aunts and uncles, their children our cousins. Mom wouldn't make a friend just to leave her or him behind with the next move: that friend came with us to our next house.

Wherever she traveled, my mother was never without a home: she took her home with her. My three sisters and I grew up in a home my mother made for us. I took a part of it with me when I left her house and began my own wanderings. I've made a few changes, but it's still pretty much the home she made for me.

My mother was a homemaker. That word captures so much of what I loved and valued about her, and what she shared with all of us who honor her memory and celebrate her life. Mom would be incensed when anyone suggested she didn't have a job; when asked she listed her occupation as “homemaker.” When her youngest children were leaving home for college my mother began working in a homeless shelter. She told me she did it because she was a homemaker, and as her children left home she wanted to make homes for other people.

In houses, trailers and apartments, in tents, boats and motel rooms, quite often in a big Dodge station wagon, my mother made a safe, comfortable, loving home for her husband and herself, her children, parents, brothers, and all the many people linked to her by blood or friendship.

The home she made offered delicious food and good conversation, a well-mixed drink and a mean game of cards, a place to put your feet up or lay down your head. This is what my mother did for most of her 63 years, and she did it beautifully.

My mother was someone who loved people very deeply, and I'd like to tell you about a beautiful symmetry I see in two relationships that were special to my mother. She was her Grandmother Astrid Thorsen's first grandchild, and so was special to her grandmother. When one of her brothers was very sick, and the other children had to stay with family for half a year, Arline stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Thorsen, and she loved it. She got to be an only child for a while, and loved the pampering and closeness she felt from her grandmother. Years later, when Arline turned eighteen, Grandma Thorsen made her a birthday cake, as she'd used to do, and flew from New Jersey to Florida with it perched on her lap. That's the sort of thing a granddaughter never forgets. Mom took all of us children to visit her Grandmother many times, we all knew her and her cats Buttons and Bows very well.

Arline became a grandmother herself last October. She was present for the birth of my daughter Emma, whose Hebrew name is Ester. She was named Ester both for the Jewish heroine and for Astrid, mom's grandmother, her great-great-grandmother: Ester and Astrid both mean “star.” My mother was so happy to have Emma here at last, that now I think she must have been waiting a long time for a chance to be a grandmother. Mom took tremendous joy in Emma. She told us that when she had to have a particularly nasty test, or an especially painful procedure, she would think to herself, “I'm doing this for Emma, so that I can spend some more time with Emma.” I am so grateful that mom could enjoy Emma most of this summer, and that Emma could have her grandmother's love as long as she did.

I can't finish talking about my mother without talking about her love for my father, and his love for her. Four years ago Mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Pretty soon we all knew what that meant. If you met Mom in these four years you know that my father has been devoted to her, spending every possible moment working to find the best treatment, and then the next-best treatment, and then whatever would help to make Mom's life as long and well as he could make it. But those of you who have known Arline and Ted longer, who've known them twenty, thirty, forty years, know that Dad's devotion was part of the unbreakable partnership of love they'd had their entire lives together. Mom's love for Dad, her fierce protection of him, and his absolute reliance and trust in her were the rock upon which our lives were built. Mom's death leaves us empty and longing for her, but the life, the home she and Dad made for us with their love will stay with us wherever we make our own homes.

My daughter Emma probably won't have her own memories of her grandmother Arline. So to make sure that my mother lives on through us, I'll make the best home I can for Emma whenever and wherever we gather with our family and our friends. We'll talk about Arline over a gin and tonic and a hand of come and get me. We'll share freely the shelter and peace of our home as my mother did hers. I hope that each of us who've known her love will do something of the same.

Written by Ted & Angela and read by Ted

More photos (coming)