by Melanie Dorsey
These Reflections were read by Melanie at the end of the Memorial Mass.
Good morning!
Thank you all for being here with us to celebrate mommy and the very FULL life that she lived.
Mommy was something else! 😊
If you knew her you probably understand what I’m talking about. There is one other female in my life now that I say that about and that is my youngest daughter, appropriately named after mommy, Victoria Annmarie. And if you know Tori you probably understand what I’m talking about too. 😊 They are very much alike – so on a regular basis it is clear to me that mommy’s legacy lives on!
As I was preparing what I was going to say today, I thought a lot about what she taught me and what I learned from her life. As important as she was to me and my brothers, I recognize that she was also important to you. She wasn’t just our mother. She had a full life as a woman outside of that role. She was a daughter, a sister, a wife, an aunt, a friend, a neighbor, a parishioner, a coworker, a mother-in-law, and a grandmother. We all had a different relationship with her and our own stories and memories.
But when I think about what I learned from witnessing her life there are a few lessons that stand out to me and that I wanted to share.
1. Never grow old
She never thought of herself as old. She always seemed more youthful than some people 15-20 years younger. She had a really fun and active spirit. I remember when she started going to the senior center for exercise classes in her 80s, she would comment on how there were only old people there. She did not see herself in them. 😊 She had a lot of energy and enjoyed living life and doing things that were fun. She loved to walk and get in her exercise. She loved spending time with babies and kids, and that energy and spirit kept her youthful and full of life.
2. Always be up for a new adventure
Just as you heard, mommy had been on adventures since she left her home of Trinidad at the age of 18 when she moved to Jamaica to stay with her sister. From there she went to England to study nursing and then came to the U.S. to continue her career and start her family. She always encouraged us to be adventurous. She told me that her mother had encouraged her to go out and see the world and she wanted the same for us. During her 70th year she did several things to mark it. She started off with the Midnight Run in Central Park that was a 5K race on New Year’s Eve with her two sons. She walked a marathon in Ireland for arthritis and dedicated it to her niece. That year she also travelled to Australia and tried hang gliding in one of those little powered gliders!
When she finally retired from full time work as an anesthetist in her late 70s she did two stints as a traveling nurse because she wasn’t finished trying new things. 😊 Then at the age of 80 when her first grandchild, Sophia Rose, was born she was FINALLY (as she would say) able to enjoy the new adventure of being a grandmother, and she jumped right into that and cherished all the time she got to spend with Sophia. She was able to accompany me to Wisconsin for a work trip which allowed me to bring Sophia with me when she was only 8 months old. She spent the days with Sophia and was the first to witness her sitting up for the first time. 😊 At that point in her life with all of her accomplishments, I think she probably considered the birth of her granddaughter to be one of her greatest achievements!
3. Cherish your family and friends and make sure they know you love them
My brothers and I KNEW we were loved. There was not a single moment in my life where I felt I wasn’t loved. Mom and Dad loved us a lot and they showed it. If mommy loved you, you KNEW it. I’m sure many of you can attest to that. She loved to hug people and was always excited to see those she loved. She was a mother figure to our friends, our friends’ children, her friends’ children and grandchildren. She was always present for her family, her nieces, nephews, great nieces and nephews. She always remembered birthdays and sent a card or made a phone call. I was always amazed at how she kept in touch with so many of her family members. She would travel the country and the world visiting family and making sure they knew she was thinking of them and that she loved them. She made time for her family and cherished the time she spent with them.
4. Laugh and dance often, whenever and wherever
Anyone here ever been to a party with mommy? So then you KNOW she loved to dance. She used to embarrass me as a teenager in this very church bingo hall downstairs at the parties we had here in youth group because she was ALWAYS dancing with my friends. And they would encourage her and go and get her to come dance with them. As I got older I enjoyed it a lot more. 😊 She would dance everywhere and anywhere for anything. We would be out shopping for clothes and as she was trying them on she would be dancing! When I asked her why, she said she had to make sure the clothes fit her when she was dancing. 😊 She knew there was probably a good chance that she would be dancing in those clothes! If there was good music playing somewhere she was dancing. If there was a party, she was probably one of the first ones on the dance floor. Tori is now our family dancing queen and just like her Gang Gang she is the party starter- she organizes our family dance parties any time of the day or week. If there is good music playing, Tori is dancing – and she’s got those Ann-Marie moves. 😊
At the assisted living facility, Sunrise, she danced all the time. She was known there for her dancing. Some even called her the Dancing Queen. That was how they were always able to reach her as she went through the various stages of her Alzheimer’s. If she was agitated or sad they would play some music and dance with her, and she would get happier and dance along. Many of her caregivers would just dance with her whenever they were with her – whether they were getting her ready or taking her somewhere, because they knew it would put her in a good mood and she would respond. There were several events there where there was live music, and she was always up in the middle dancing – lots of people sitting around in wheelchairs and there was mommy with her cane or walker doing a little shimmy. 😊
She danced all the time. She danced until she literally could not dance anymore. The last year or so when she was unable to walk or move much on her own, I would play calypso music and dance for her or sing for her and she would move whatever she could – a hand and arm. I would sing her songs that she sang to me as a little girl and that ALWAYS made her laugh or smile. Her caregivers would always leave her music on in her room because they knew how much she enjoyed it. She always managed to find a way to dance, and she did it until the very end. Music and dancing were part of her soul and kept her in touch with who she was. It also gave us a way to connect with her when she no longer had any words.
5. Always trust your gut
This is the most important one for me. It has been an essential guide in my life. She always told me to trust my gut. If something doesn’t feel right, pay attention. I didn’t always appreciate it growing up and was bothered when she wouldn’t let me go to a party or a friend’s house because it “just didn’t feel right”. 😊 As a mother now, I completely understand it! But what I learned as I got older, even before I was a mother, was that it doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else, not even to me. I learned to trust that feeling, my inner wisdom. It never steers me wrong. That is where God is. It was one of the reasons my oldest daughter is named Sophia – which means wisdom in Greek. Mommy taught me that when I trust my inner voice and that inner wisdom it will always lead me in the right direction, and I wanted to pass that on to my children.
Mommy always found a way to live fully at every stage of her life. Even during the last stages of her Alzheimer’s. When she was unable to walk on her own, confined to bed or chair and unable to converse, she smiled at music, laughed and danced or moved as best she could. She found a way to live fully to the very end. And she was at peace. After she took her last breaths her face and her body were at peace. Her skin was flawless, not a wrinkle in sight! She looked radiant and peaceful. I like to believe it was because she lived a full life, she loved, and she was loved and at the end of her life she knew that. 😊
I am certain that she joined a huge party that was waiting for her, with her husband and all of her siblings, and there was dancing and laughing and joy, just as there was when they were with us. She and her sisters no doubt have continued to cause commotion wherever they are.
But I feel her presence regularly and I know she continues to guide me and encourage me.
Mommy’s legacy lives on through me and my brothers, and most certainly through her granddaughters who will continue to learn from her life and example. She will also live on through all of you.
If we remember how she lived and what she brought to our lives, then we celebrate her life in the small everyday moments of our own lives. I am sure there are lessons that you learned from loving mommy and being loved by her. I hope those lessons and your memories of your time with her bring you comfort.
At the funeral for one of our relatives a few years ago, a friend of hers said something that stuck with me. I’m not sure if he got the saying from somewhere else, but I just remember him saying it. What he said was “No one ever really dies so long as someone remembers them”.
So let’s remember mommy and celebrate her life by remembering:
- to trust our inner wisdom,
- to laugh and dance often,
- to cherish our family and friends and make sure they know we love them,
- to always be ready for a new adventure, and
- to try something new so that we never grow old.
Mommy, we love you, we miss you, and we know you are near. May you rest in eternal peace.
~ Melanie