The talk I gave at my mother's funeral - February 2010

Here's a copy of the talk I gave at my mother's funeral on February 27, 2010. The talk was given at a Mormon meeting house.

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The daughter of a sheepherder and dairy farmer. From a small parched town in central Utah. Growing up in a nice house with a good view of the temple. Climbing on the hills and mountains above Manti. Moving to Salt Lake during World War II. Learning to be a nurse. Meeting her husband at a dance. Marrying and living in Orem, California, Jamaica, and Cottonwood.

If you could stand up here on this podium I am sure that there are many things you could choose to say.

All of us have special memories of Helen.

Whether as a wife, a mother, a grand mother, a great grand mother, a sister, an aunt, or a friend.

How would she like to be remembered?

How do we remember her?

And what did she leave behind?

She would want to be remembered as a mother who created a very nice family. As someone who had many children and grandchildren whom she loved very much.

As someone who had many good times, visiting with many friends, persevering through trails, and having a fruitful life.
   
Here are some excerpts from some documents she wrote:

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    I was born June 13, l926 in a small home about 4th south and main street in Manti, Utah.  It was a home delivery.  The evening prior to my birth, my Dad worked on a crib for me.  It was a crib for all 5 of my parent's children.

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    While very young, my mother entered me in the most beautiful baby contest at the Sanpete County Fair.  I was a winner until they saw me sucking my thumb and that eliminated me from the contest.  I'm sure my mother was very irritated.
   
    I must have been quite a thumb sucker.  My little friend next door, Pauline Cox, had a splint on her elbow so she could not get her thumb up to her mouth.  Apparently I felt sorry for her because one of our parents took a photo of Pauline sucking my thumb and she was sucking mine.  Our parents never let us forget this incident.

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    I was 3 years old when my mother gave birth to my brother, Ray.  It was a home delivery with Dr. Sears attending.  It was at this time when the Dr. said that if I didn't stop sucking my thumb he was going to cut It off. This stopped my thumb sucking habit.  I remember his big black bag to this day.
   
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    Grandma Keller had dark hair and most of her children had dark hair.  Grandpa Keller teased her and said that Westenskow really meant Eskimo.

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    Aunt Bernice had profound influence on me. 

    She was always kind and taught me to enjoy classical music, fine literature, and the arts. 

    She was an excellent teacher and always lifted people to higher levels of  thinking.  I remember her discussing Elbert Hubbard's philosophies with both my mother and aunt Maggie in grandma Barton's kitchen.
   
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The above stories come from documents typed up by Helen. If you would like copies you're welcome to email me or you can find me on Facebook.

Here is how I remember my mother Helen:

That she enjoyed sewing & knitting. When I was younger she worked in the Mormon Church Office Building in the health unit. She very much enjoyed giving vaccination shots to the occasionally visiting big wigs. She also liked to go on vacations with Jack. Later she became a teacher at a couple of local high schools teaching students about careers in health.

In retirement she had the opportunity to care for and love many grand children, and to continue to go on vacations with Jack, many of which in her later years were done in association with the Flying Tigers Army Air Force reunion group.

In the last ten or so years of her life she had congestive heart failure. But modern medical science was able to keep her alive.

She was a liberal democrat. She was more religious than Jack. She believed in the value of science, the fact of evolution, and much of what came to us from key events like the Renaissance and The Age of Enlightenment. She was not a hard line literalist nor an angry fundamentalist.

In the last years of her life she went to the hospital many times. But she remained relatively spry and alert for someone her age. And she continued to venture out with Jack on vacations as she was able.

I would say that overall, even during the years when her health was failing, she remained relatively upbeat. And when I saw her newly allowed-to-go-gray hair, I realized that maybe she should have let it go gray a bit earlier.

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What is the baton we have been passed by Helen, and what will we do with it?

Hair which has yet to go gray; a dickey ticker; a propensity for epiphanies; sometimes unpleasant moodiness; stubbornness but also determination. Helen also directly passed on ideas to us, and she gave us the opportunity to learn from the world we were born into.

Since it is a common tradition in buildings such as this to make a statement of belief as part of a funeral talk, I will make one of my own - with the caveat that I think the best way to honor a person is to be honest about what they really thought about life, the Universe, and everything.

We're here to honor Helen. Part of her legacy is what you believe and feel in your heart. Part of her legacy are the children you've borne. And part of her legacy are people like me in this family who believe the following:

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As far as I can tell, relative to our position in the Universe, we're rather like some moss growing on the top of a mountain.

As moss we're very intelligent. And maybe some day, being the smart green moss that we are, maybe we'll find a way to extract ourselves from the mountain top.

In a few years our lone peak which is the only place we can live is going to get scorched. And we happen to be so smart in fact that we have predicted the future scorching.
                       
So if we are very lucky & very smart indeed, our science & technology may save us.

Or perhaps we'll fade away to dust like most life has on the mountain.

It's either the sky god or the volcano god, or the real truth about our rather humble state.

Noble & beautiful, yes, but if we're going to make it in the long term at least a few of us have to take a longer view.

There is no Christian Armageddon waiting. But in about 500 million years our Sun will be 10% brighter thereby causing the oceans boil off. So our descendants either need to re-engineer the Sun by then, or get us off of this rock. And we've only known about this for ten or so years. And there are other huge risks to our survival.

What we teach our children about science may save humanity.

There's no heaven or hell. But that means we have an added responsibility to care for what we have here. To make this life here & now into a heaven or a hell.

We are related to other animals. We are animals, and our morals come from a combination of genetics and socialization. Whether such a fact is good or bad, it doesn't matter. That's simply the way it is.

Being concerned about legacy is an issue. Who will care that you lived in 100 years? Make a contribution. Be a great artist or a great scientist or have kids. And if you have kids, teach them the value cutting edge art and science, and of the value of taking the proverbial red pill as from the
film The Matrix.

Those of us in this extended family who share these views are part of the legacy of Helen. And she shared many of these views.

May she rest in peace. We have the baton now.

Thank you for coming to honor the memory of Helen and your place in this story.