Judy Ruppel

My mother died just before Thanksgiving. My current Northminster family already knew that, of course. Here is the eulogy I delivered at the funeral:

So we used to go to the zoo every year, the day before Thanksgiving. Mom, the kids and me. She used to fuss about if it was too cold, if anyone was going to catch the double, triple, or quadruple pneumonia. She used to worry that it would rain. But we always always always looked forward to it, because Mama was so much fun.

One year, we got to the front of the Louisiana Swamp exhibit, and the kids wanted to see the alligator. Mama most certainly did not want to see any alligator. She said she'd wait for us at the entrance to the exhibit.

Well, we took a little longer than she thought we should. When we got back to where we'd left her, she wasn't there. We started looking for her, keeping in mind that she was probably looking for us. Finally, my daughter and Mama saw each other: Mama was in the Zoo Train. She'd gotten all the way to where the Zoo Train loaded, worried that we'd left the zoo without her. The train guy said he'd take her around and see if he could find us. She remembered my daughter was all in pink.

The next year, I made stickers for us. Ours was a picture of Mom with the caption "I'm with Mamå". Mom's had a picture of all of us with a caption "I'm with my grandkids".

And there was the time when I was a kid, a very little kid, and our dog Dixie died, and I was so sad, so hurt that I cried so hard I couldn't see. Mom didn't try to lie to me, she didn't try to explain it, and she didn't try to make herself feel better by telling me it was somehow for the best. She didn't do any of that. She held me tightly and she cried with me and she got me to talk to her. She gave me the respect in my grief that few other adults were willing to give a little boy.

And there was the time I called home from college. It was after the Saints game, because it was always good to celebrate together, or, more often, console each other. In this game, Morten Andersen had kicked a last-minute field goal to win the game.

My Dad told me that he wished he had a camera. Mom was kneeling on the floor in front of the TV, talking to Morten Anderson, saying, "It's OK, baby. You can do it. Don't let them bother you."

And there was New Year's Eve, when she'd come to our house and watch the kids so that Christie and I could get dinner and a movie. The last few years, I'm told it was more the kids watching Mama. And then she'd ring in the New Year with us, and drink her no-sugar-added sparkling grape juice.

And all the times my brother and I would sit in the back seat while she and Bessy would go places, run errands, go shopping, whatever. Bessy and Mom had a way of keeping about 300 conversations going at once, changing the subject every sentence, and keeping up with each other somehow. We would try to keep track.

"I think that's conversation #42, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but now it's conversation #7."

My wife went with Mom and Bessie to Alabama once to go Christmas shopping at the factory outlet mall. I'm not sure she's fully recovered yet.

Mom was always there for us, and we tried to be always there for her.

I'm going to miss her horribly.

At the same time, I always see the wonderful things she's done, the people she's touched, the way she made the world infinitely better, and I know there's so much of her still here with us.