Favorites

My mother had many favorite things. The following list is not in any particular order, mind you.

• Six favorite children (We each "knew" that we were her favorite!)
• Nine favorite grandchildren
• Four favorite daughters-in-law
• Six favorite siblings
• A favorite husband, with whom she shared 60 wonderful years!
• Only one favorite cat, George
• Song of Solomon -- her favorite Book of the Bible
• Mom's favorite Hymn? Just a Closer Walk With Thee
• Countless classical music favorites by various composers
• A love of travel, both domestic & international
• A good, hot, FRESH cup of coffee (w/cream, please)
• Dark chocolate
• Teaching
• Learning/Researching
• Fox & Friends ;-) Fair & Balanced!
• Crossword puzzles
• Poetry & Classic Literature (too many favorites to mention)

The list could be longer, but these are a few of her favorite things. I almost feel the need to break out in song, because then I won't feel so bad. I am not feeling "bad" today, just a little bit lonely for a good visit with my mommy.

It feels strange to be writing about my mom in the past tense. It still has not quite sunk in yet that my mother, a.k.a. Elizabeth Ellen, Betty, Bette, Mommy-girl, Betty-Lou, Bettykins, Leadfoot Lizzy, Mom, etc., is gone.

We gave Mom an appropriate "sendoff" on December 30th. Thankfully, a goodly number of her favorites were gathered back home again in Indiana to spend time together for the holidays. Mom always enjoyed being surrounded by family and friends, but she also appreciated having her privacy. We respected her wishes to keep things quiet and low-key. Aside from family members, the only other person present was Mom and Dad's pastor. We prayed together, quietly visited, listened to Clair de Lune at least twice, and took turns holding Mom's hand throughout the afternoon. It was calm and quiet as she went to her ultimate "home" at 4:29 PM.

Yowell siblings

Circa 1939

1943

1945

1949

1950

October 29, 1950

1972

1975

Throughout her life, my mother never stopped learning. She loved being a student. Mom amazed many naysayers by starting college at age 40. She completed her degree in five years and was a straight A student. Well, there was that C in bowling, which could probably be attributed to a herniated disc -- the same disc that didn't respond to physical therapy and eventually required surgery. (I am surprised Mom didn't take that PE class over again to eliminate that poor grade from her transcript!) She then completed a Master's degree.

Mom taught jr. high and high school English and Literature classes for 15 years. I even had her as my teacher when I was in 6th grade, but we mutually agreed to not have one another in the classroom during my high school years. "Mrs. Thompson" was undoubtedly my favorite teacher. Oh, and I am sure I was her favorite student! (Wink-wink, nod-nod.)

My mom retired from teaching high school in 1987, the same year that Mr. Smith and I were married. In retirement, my parents had a lot more time to travel. They were free to spend time with their kids and grandkids, who were all scattered across the United States. Mom was always eager to "go!" She wanted to learn new things, see new places, and meet new people. Thankfully, Dad has always been a willing traveling companion.

Although Mom was formally retired, she never really quit teaching others in her gentle way. Being a teacher was a gift. It just came naturally. By observing my mom's actions and listening to her wise counsel, I've learned (but not yet mastered!) how to be a better wife, sister, friend, mother, and Christ-follower.

Spring 2010

We all learned many lessons from Mom during this past year as she "took on" glioblastoma multiforme. She dealt with the diagnosis and the various treatments and therapies with the same grace, poise, strength, and dignity that we all had seen Mom display throughout her life. Oh! I forgot to add determination to that list. (She refused to be labeled as "stubborn!") My mom's steadfast faith allowed her to face difficult situations head on. She taught us that lesson well.

My mother was blessed with endless patience. As I consider Galatians 5:22-23, I know that my mother didn't achieve being a patient person on her own, or take any credit, but she allowed the Holy Spirit to work in and through her life. She humbly displayed all nine attributes, emphasis on the patience and gentleness factors.

One of my mother's favorite poems, i thank You God for most this amazing, was written by e.e.cummings, a poet who pretty much made up his own rules for writing. It's been said that Cummings reveled in breaking the rules of grammar, punctuation, orthography, and lineation, so it always amazed me that my English teacher mother, who valued proper punctuation and capitalization, loved this poem that violated all of the conventional rules. It is rather ironic, I think.

Mom especially enjoyed reciting the poem in springtime, for obvious reasons. Seeing the "leaping greenly spirits of trees" emerge from their winter slumber, for my mother, gave great hope that the cold Indiana winter was finally gone.

Ahhh, the season of spring should be added to that list of favorites. :-)

i thank You God for most this amazing

i thank You God for most this amazing

day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth

day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any--lifted from the no

of all nothing--human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Mom's ears are now awake and her eyes are opened to unimaginable joy! :-)

I am sure Mom is compiling an entirely new list of "favorites" as I write this entry. I can only imagine...

My brothers, Todd and Jay, shared some thoughts at Mom's memorial service, and I want to share them here, too. FYI, Todd was Mom's "favorite firstborn son." ;-) He also is known as the family genealogist, so it only seems fitting that he has a more historical view of where my mother came from. Jay was Mom's "favorite middle child."

Eulogy to Mom

January 3, 2011

Todd J. Thompson

I am happy, this morning, to share a few thoughts about events and experiences that shaped the personality and life of my mother. Most of those present this morning knew something or other about the past 60 years of her married life here in Shelburn: as a wife to Dad, as a housewife and mother, as a friend and good neighbor, as a sister and aunt, as a college student and then high school teacher, as a Sunday school teacher, and then as a mother-in-law and grandmother.

For the most part, Mom remained a student throughout, continuously interested in learning something new. Then as a teacher, she helped us all to become life-long learners.

I would like to discuss some of the events of Mom’s early life, before she became all of those other things to us, which helped shape her life. As with all of us, events that she had little control of were met as challenges and learning opportunities.

Elizabeth Ellen Yowell was born in 1927, the second daughter of Leroy Yowell and Lois Miller in Plymouth, Indiana, near her mother’s homeplace. In the mid 1920s her father had left his hometown of Bridgeton, in Parke County, to seek his fortune in the big city of South Bend. There he met an attractive, lively and strong-willed young lady from the nearly railroad junction town of Lapaz. The young couple fell in love, eloped, and began raising their family. Mom was a two-year-old when the Stock Market crashed, and left her father without a job. The young family moved to Rosedale in Parke County where her family was able to get by. Despite their own economic hardships the family thrived, and were also able to take in Mom’s great grandmother into the household. Her teen-age years were coincident with the 2nd World War, during which the family moved to Terre Haute so that her father could be closer to the war-related construction jobs. At the very young age of 16, her own mother became seriously ill and died. Her family then moved back to Rosedale, but Mom was able to complete her schooling at State High Lab School in Terre Haute. Without economic opportunities to go to college, Mom left for Indianapolis for work as a long-distance operator.

It is hard for those of us of later generations, who have had so much, to fully appreciate the difficulties that those of Mom’s generation had to cope with.

Through all of the hardships, the joys and the tragedies of her early life, mom collected enduring lessons, friendships and memories that she drew upon throughout her life.

It is sometimes said that when a person dies, a library is lost. In Mom’s case, she has been effective in passing on many of her stories and lessons to all of us. The final lesson she taught us was how to endure illness and death with dignity and grace.

Thank you, Mom, for everything.

January 3, 2011

Jay S. Thompson

Eulogy to Mom

I want to talk a bit our mother in a celebratory way - and pass on some things we all learned from her. Mom was not only a gracious and forgiving lady, but she loved to travel. We all gave her a lot of reasons to take trips, but I think we all got that gene from her.

While Todd went through some of Mom’s past history that you may not have known, I will try to do the same. I may not get all the stories correct, so I apologize for that in advance.

To remind everyone, I was the third child behind Todd and Blake and was a “Preemie.” In other words, I was out in the world early – obviously wanting to get going. There are stories about my delivery where Mom was well dressed with make-up at the hospital. Her lipstick was not even smudged after having me - and she didn’t look like she has just had a baby. She was that way in all aspects of her life quite naturally.

Her other trait was that everything was about Dad, us kids, our spouses, their grandchildren, her relatives, our friends and their friends. Both Dad and Mom made fast friends - and most people loved them. One desire was to go visit any and all of the friends and family as often as they could for any reason, which gets us into the rest of my comments.

I was often teased about motors and car and truck noises as a kid, but I guess that was a precursor to my life in transportation. I also do think that came from her – and her brother – our Uncle John. It had to be in their genes.

While she had traveled some before marrying Dad, all of us kids of pretty much put a stop to that for a while. It’s hard to believe that she got her first drivers license around the time Jani and Dwight were born when she was about 30 - but then the wheels started rolling for her. She developed a reputation on leaving everyone in the dust – as she said she had places to go. She did the same with the walking she loved to do - she’d likewise leave everyone in her dust.

We all joked within the family that her middle name was GO! G-O. Dad’s middle name in that same vein was OK. In other words, Mom said, "Let’s go!" and Dad said, "OK."

I was the first child to move from Shelburn to go to college. Of course, Mom and Dad traveled regularly to Lafayette to visit me, which was followed by many more trips there for the rest of the family who went to Purdue. The real travel started when brother Todd moved to St. Louis and the grandchildren started coming.

Longer trips came more regularly when Dwight and Jean moved to Oklahoma and me to Colorado 30 years ago. When Dwight was driving his college car to Ponca City, it broke down and Mom was ready to jump in their car and go help him. Dad had to remind her that Dwight was 600+ miles away. She was ready to go help whenever and wherever she could.

Mom retired soon after Dad did from Pfizer. A major reason was that Dad had taken a solo trip to visit Jani and Alane in California with a stop in Colorado – without Mom. It looked like he was having too much fun, which she was not going to miss.

Even though she didn’t like mountain roads and cliffs with big drop-offs, she rode up Pikes Peak numerous times, visited ski resorts, even wore snow skis (in my living room), rode up and down the hills in Greece and had several similar stories with Dwight, Jean, Mitchell, and Russell in Scotland and Turkey. She just shrugged off the mountain roads getting to Robin and my home in Arizona a year ago.

Even though she would get motion sickness, she rode in small airplanes with me. Even though she did not care for car racing, she hung out in the pits of an Indy car race – during a race. She went 4-wheeling riding behind Dad in the Colorado mountains. We have pictures!

She traveled for the births of all of her grandchildren, as well as attending graduations, holidays, and reunions, seeing new homes, or for no reason at all. As each of her kids families grew, there were frequent trips to St Louis, California, Washington, Texas, Scotland, Turkey, Oregon, Hawaii, and too many others to mention. They put 100,000+ miles on several new cars well before anyone else did – and had her favorite airlines by name to frequent.

In the last few years, there were frequent trips to the west coast to visit her Smith grandchildren and her daughters. Her last overseas trip was with Dad and Jani to visit granddaughter Molly in France, and to visit sites where Dad was in WWII. Another recent one was to Rachel’s in Pittsburgh. The day before she passed, she told Alane she was ready to go to Hawaii and the Smith’s new home in Keller, Texas, she’d only seen once.

All the time she was a lady – and a lady always knows when it’s time to leave. So she has. She is now on the ultimate trip to anywhere and everywhere she wants to go. Mom is with our Lord and visiting everyone else there she was missing.

We all love her and miss her already, but loved that about her! Happy travels, MOM! And you will always be with all of us in our travels!

I'll echo Todd's closing sentiment by adding, "Thank you, Mom!"

'Nuf said.