It started with scattering Mom's ashes on Saturday. We drove up into the Catalina mountains. The clouds were ready to burst and the wind was howling. I just hoped we could get her scattered without much rain.
We found a vista point that overlooked Tucson. It was perfect for her. You could see almost all the way to Mexico...had the clouds not been in the way. Mom would have loved this view. It felt right to put her ashes here.
The wind was blowing like crazy. And the sky was threatening rain at any moment. We hiked down a bit and stood in a circle. Mom had a poem she wanted read. I knew in my heart there was no way I could read it...so I gave it to cousin Bruce to read. After we all took a cup full of Mom and went our own way and had a moment with Mom. I tried to say goodbye then, but no words would form in my mouth. She knew. I'm sure she knew.
As I turned to walk back up the path, I got hit in the cheek with a rain drop. A big, wet, cold rain drop. Then another, and another. By the time we got to the top by the car, it was coming down hard. And it was cold. We posed for a quick photo and off we went.
We stopped at a cafe to have a toast to mom...except we had nachos instead. Which she would have loved.
Sunday we had her Celebration of Life at the Voyager. 150 of her friends showed up. It was almost standing room only...dozens of cookies were made and I didn't get a single one.
The service was beautiful, it was long, but beautiful. No doubt Mom would have approved. We had a moment of open mic. Never being sure if anyone would say anything, I was nervous about it. But person after person got up and expressed their love for mom. Each had a special little story. In fact, the Pastor told a story about when he knew he and mom would be life long friends. She had her gall bladder out and he went to visit with her. She SHOWED him her gall bladder. That became the joke of the day. Several people said they saw it...and a few were sad they had not.
This Eulogy I wrote to be read at the service. The reader read it completely out of order and totally screwed up the flow...but the point got across all the same.
Eulogy to Mom
Eulogy by her daughters,
Jennifer Wraspir, Billie and Melanie
Our family would like to
thank you all for being here today to celebrate the life of JoEllen, our mom. For those of you that knew JoEllen, she
was not only the life of the party but often the reason for the party.
She used to always say to us kids "Don't be so serious, life is too short,
just have fun".
We always knew what an amazing, generous and kind woman she was, and in
these last several weeks since she passed, the outpouring of love and support
has proven this to be true. Hundreds, (and that is not an exaggeration), of
emails, texts, calls and messages have come to us kids. She redefined the
phrase “social butterfly.” She’d be humbled at the outpouring of love, and yet secretly
she’d be thrilled to know we were making such a fuss over her. Our one wish is
that SHE knew she was so loved.
We probably don’t have to
tell you our mother was a special woman. She embodied all of the attributes of
a “perfect” mom. She was caring, thoughtful, hardworking, compassionate,
loving, tough on us when we needed it and so much more. It was so difficult to think of all of the
words that described mom as a person and how much she meant to us. Our mom was our
best friend, our idol and we looked up to her all of our lives. We swore as
teenagers we would never turn out like mom. And now we’re proud to say we are
our mother.
Mom was born on Nov 5,
1947 in Grant’s Pass, Oregon. She died on January 16th, 2017
surrounded by her family and friends. Her life, to put it mildly, was something
else.
She was a career woman
her entire life. She started working at the Boeing company in the late 70’s.
She struggled in the “man’s world” of Boeing, but proved time and again a woman
could do the job, and in some cases better than any man. She retired from the Boeing
Company in upper management and was so proud of all her accomplishments during
her time there. She would use her experiences there when giving advice to us as
our own careers started taking off.
When mom and dad married
in 1981, we added to our already large family, the even larger Wraspir family.
We used to joke that we didn’t have a family tree, but a family hedge.
Mom cherished her family
above all. And family to her was anyone from a real relative, to friends, to
members of her community. Her house was always filled with friends and family.
All of our friends called her “mom”, because she was like a mom to everyone. She
would talk to anyone, and any dog, most likely she’d speak to the dog first…
She was the communicator for all of us. If you
wanted to know anything about what was going on with someone in the family, you
called mom. That’s not to say mom shared everyone’s secrets, but she was
definitely in the know. And her family loved her back – tenfold. She was the
one everyone called for advice because we knew she’d tell us how it was. She was happy to dole it out and expected you
to listen. And while we may not have followed all her advice over the years, we’ve
discovered that she really did know what she was talking about.
Mom loved to cook. Together
she and dad would try new recipes and taught us to be open to trying new
things. Entertaining and having people to dinner was one of her favorite things.
Any given weekend you could guarantee someone was coming to the house for
dinner. And no one ever left hungry.
Mom and Dad loved to
travel. They got the travel bug when Dad was transferred to Saudi Arabia in the
late 80’s. That afforded them the opportunity to see the world. And see the world
they did. Together they visited England, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria,
Switzerland, Greece, the Caribbean, Mexico, South America, Australia, New
Zealand, Thailand – to just name a few. And they traveled to every single state
in the United States by RV. While they loved exploring other countries, they
especially loved exploring their
country.
The list of things mom
loved is extensive. She loved to read, to sew, to quilt, to cook, and to play
games on her iPad. She loved her animals. And she loved her Seahawks. If the
Seahawks were playing you knew not to bother calling because you could
guarantee she would not answer the phone.
We feel like we could spend
all day speaking about mom. She was an amazing woman who taught us a lot. The
most important lessons were not verbal; they were in her actions. We know we
are the people we are today because of her influence and guidance. She always worked hard, complained when she
needed to and was there when you needed her. She was our mother, but also our best
friend. We will miss her every day for as long as we live.
