These are the things …

… that I want you know to about my mother. (eulogy — sept. 22, 2012)

I want you to know how many people have said to us, “that mom of yours, she was something.”

Because she really was. She was something more than you expected. Maybe not always easy, but always rewarding and indelible. She left you feeling better about yourself, if not right then and there, then she left you at least having been asked, maybe nagged, to be a better version of yourself — one that she believed in regardless of whether you did yet or not.

Because of that loyalty and love of hers for friends, colleagues, classmates, patients, and students, we all took our orders from my mom more willingly than anyone would normally take orders from others.

*I want you to know that her strength shows through in the ways that you all have told stories about her to us, in the ways so many of your faces show something more than just smiles between the tears, as if simple smiles haven’t been enough. As if in recalling memories of her, she’s edging your smiles to be more, maybe smirks without the scorn, or at least accompanied by a shaking of the head. It’s been as if in retelling your favorite stories of her, you’re also asking yourself how’d she get away with that, or maybe, how’d I let her get away with that.

It’s easy to imagine her in Heaven right now making them laugh and giving them hell. My mom has the kind of strength that pushes you to smile.

* I want you to know about my mom’s strength more than her kindness, more than her smile, more than her sense of humor, more than anything else about her … because I owe everything I am to her strength.

If I’m kind, if I’m funny, if I’m anything positive, it’s because her strength meant that I didn’t have to be strong myself, that I was always safe and always protected, that I was free of having to be more than a kid when I only was a kid.

She was strong in the face of my sister’s illness. She didn’t choose between fight or flight, but something else. She stood firm where she was to absorb any pain that came to our house in order to give all of us the best chance at happiness. I never had to hold everything together. She did that. She didn’t ask of me, but just gave, constantly.

* I want you know that my mom’s love for my father was absolute.

In so many ways this was true. In her own way, she taught me this by teaching me who he is. “You know your father…,” she’d start in a passing manner, and, 4 out of 5 times, she’d finish, saying “he’s so stubborn.”

But one out of every five times, she’d say something else. “You know your father, he’ll wake up at 3 in the morning and sit in the kitchen when he worries about Iya.” Or, “You know your father, if you ask him to pick you up or pay for something, he always will, so please consider that before you ask.” Or, “You know your father, he always wants to be here next to me even when I tell him to go home.”

And it’s true, some of these things, I did know. But others I didn’t. And I know only because she taught me, time and again, sharing with me the depth of my father’s love for each of us.

My father’s love for my mom is a stubborn, insistent love.

And, isn’t that the perfect type of love for the strong stubborn independent woman my mom was?

* I want you to know that my mom’s love for my brother was unrivaled.

When news spread that my mom was pregnant again 11 years a”er I was born, many of us thought, clearly Sohk and Sari are hoping lightning strikes twice. What’s better than the son they already had? … two of him, of course.

Lightning didn’t strike twice, Mark is not me.

Instead, Mark is the best our family has to o#er. You’ll find all the positive qualities of each of us — my sister, my mother, my father — all in him. I look up to him as much as I look out for him.

And, Mark, I know you feel the pain of Iya and mom’s passing so deeply.

I’m not strong enough to say something to you when I hear you crying alone, I wasn’t when I heard you crying even months after Iya passed, but I know you hurt. And I know that you cry, in part, because you think you need them … but the crazy thing, Mark, is that … Iya, mom, dad, and I have always needed you so much more than you ever needed us.

You were to mom exactly what she called you only jokingly before you were even born, and whenever I called you an accident … you were her surprise gift from God.

* I want you to know that my mom never gave great gifts. It felt like she somehow ended up returning more things that she bought for us than she actually bought for us (picture lots of out of season, oversized clothes from TJ Maxx and Marshall’s).

I share this because what I really want you to know about my mom is that she changed everything up these past several years.

My birthday is in late October. Apparently, the high school where my mom was a nurse, Maria Regina, takes their photos for their yearbook sometime before that. Because, for my past several birthdays, my mom would send, as her birthday gi! to me, her first son, a copy of the school photo of herself.

It started o$ as one wallet size photo that she would mail me in a card. %en, the following year it was a bi&er photo. It ended with hand deliveries of half page sized photos of herself … framed.

She would send them to me every year.

And, every time she visited, I pulled them out and put them in the most conspicuous place I could. She’d walk in, and there they were, prominently and awkwardly displayed. And, that’s what we did.

I want you to know this about my mom … because this makes me smile.

* And, I want you to know about one of the last mornings I had the chance to spend with my mom. It was in July, towards the end of the month stay she had at Memorial Sloan Kettering — a stay, it should be noted, that brought all of us together, like she always wanted.

For a few weeks, I was lucky enough to be able to be the first one to see her each morning, laying in her hospital bed. “at morning, I walked in even earlier than I usually did, around 7:15am or so. She was sitting in her bed, and when she saw me, she had an expression that was something between disappointment and anger.

She said … “You’re late.”

I was so exhausted at this point. And, partly because of that, this comment made me so angry inside. Who says that when someone shows up at 7:15am?

But then, she continued …

“I woke up at 530 this morning. I got a shower from the nurse before shi# change. I combed my hair and asked to sit in the chair. I was waiting for you … so you could see me sitting out of bed.”

She said, “I wanted you to be proud of me.”

I want you to know that this was my mom … all strength, and all heart.

And, I want her to know and I want you to know that I am and my brother and my father are so so so very proud of her and grateful for all that she was to us.