November 10, 2011
Thursday

Today, November 10, is the day before the anniversary of my mother’s death, as well as the day before the observance in the United States of Veterans’ Day. In the past, I have used this space on November 11 to repost either the eulogy I wrote for my mother and read at her funeral in 1993, or the piece I wrote in 1999 about my father’s military service. This year I have chosen not to choose, and will present both, one today, and one tomorrow.

My mother died eighteen years ago tomorrow, and once more, the post offices will be closed. (See the eulogy that follows to get the reference.) She was an infant when the magical 11-11-11 came around in the last century, probably a second grader the day the armistice was signed. The day she died her grandchildren were 8, 10, and 13. I wish she could see them today, strong and successful young adults who have done their homework and practiced their instruments, and who do not use their credit cards for frivolous purchases.

When she first came to Harrisburg from Mahanoy City in 1936, my mother lived in a room in the home of a family her family knew. This was typical for single women of that day. They took breakfast in that house, and had lunch and dinner downtown, where they worked as secretaries and department store clerks. Over these last 18 years I have from time to time opened the newspaper to the obituary page and seen a name I remember from my childhood: Miss Och, my “Aunt” Gerry, who I know was Miss Denney then but whom I never called Mrs. Hamilton, and. just last week, Miss Reuwer. She was 98. I suspect I won’t be seeing very many more.

My mother’s first Harrisburg home was on Second Street, above Division. The end of the bus line was at a small general store, the 1930s version of a convenience store, about two and a half blocks from the house where she lived. She sometimes talked about the walk to and from the bus stop, something of an ordeal to be on time for in the morning, since she was, like me, scattered and rushed from having lingered long over makeup or a magazine. The evening walk, though, could be leisurely and pleasant, even in the winter darkness.

A few days ago I took that walk about mid-morning, under leaves going loden to ochre to scarlet to gone. The little store has been closed for a long time, the building given over to another use. The house my mother lived in is among the oldest on the block, a substantial brick structure with a broad porch and a side yard. I stood across the street and looked at it, trying to guess which room my mother might have had, which window was hers, trying to imagine her the age my daughter is now. Did she stop for coffee at the little store, the way Lynn stops at Dunkin’ Donuts? Did she read Time at lunch, the way Lynn does? (Chiang Kei-Shek was on the cover near this date in 1936, and the “Milestones” page noted that David Goodrich, the chairman of B.F. Goodrich, had married his ex-sister-in-law two weeks after divorcing his wife.)

My mother was 36, my father 31, when I was born. and. I suppose like most children, it did not occur to me until many years later, that they had had a life together before me, and separate lives before they met each other. I have very little of my mother in that “before” time: a book of Chinese poetry in a slip case, a postcard from her father sent not long before he died, a trophy from a violin competition. I wish I had more. I wish I knew more.

November 11, 2008
Tuesday

You think a life can end?
Mind knows, nor soul believes
How far, how far beyond
The shattering of the waves,
How deep within the land,
the surge of sea survives.
— Archibald MacLeish, 1892-1982
American poet

(This is the eulogy I gave for my mother at her funeral. It seems fitting to present it here again today.)

Rose Dwyer Yakimoff
February 13, 1911 – November 11, 1993

Rose Dwyer was born on February 13, 1911. It was a Monday, and every post office in America was closed that day because a mail carrier’s daughter had been born (so her father told her) and only incidentally because Lincoln’s Birthday, a federal holiday, had fallen the day before. She died on November 11, 1993, Veterans’ Day. Once again, every post office in America was closed. I’ll remember that the next time I define irony for my students. My mother was born before women could vote. She had a career in government and married after thirty-five before such a course became fashionable, and she was a working mother before there were microwave ovens and other social supports to help.

Who can find a capable wife? Read Proverbs 31 and you will read about my mother. Her worth was far beyond jewels. She kept her eye on the doings of her household, and she did not eat the bread of idleness. As a homemaker she was frugal, clever, and generous. One Christmas she gave our teachers handsome wool blankets.

“How very nice!” said Sister Mary Nicholas. “Did your mother go together with another family for this?”

“Oh no,” said my sister. “She used Green Stamps.”

Margaret are you grieving? asks the poet. Indeed I am. But, as Hopkins said, it is Margaret I mourn for. So is it ever with tears. Whatever their outward cause, it is we ourselves for whom we weep. My mother takes with her stories I have not heard, secrets I have not discovered. Remembering is all that we can do for her now, and the way that I remember is the way she will continue to exist in this world. I remember her neither in the pain that she felt nor the sorrow that she lived in her final years, but in the joy that she dreamed. Look at my sister, look at me, look in our children’s eyes, and you, too, will see what she truly was.

The lessons I’ve learned this fall are hard. As Frederick Buechner reminds us, “We find by losing. We hold fast by letting go. We become something new by ceasing to be something old.” Like Buechner, I know no more now than I ever did about the far side of death, but I am beginning to know that I do not need to know, and that I do not need to be afraid of not knowing. God knows. That is all that matters.

ttttt

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