As I mentioned, last week we attended the funeral for Betty Darling, who is our son-in-law Bill s mom. Below is the text of the wonderful eulogy Bill gave. As you can tell from Bills words, she was a very special person. Our six grandchildren that we share together with the Darlings are very lucky to have her as their grandmother. My mother was from Vandalia, Illinois. It is a very special place in the hearts of my sister, my brothers, and me. It’s a small town about 100 miles north of here, probably not unlike a lot of small towns in the Midwest. Not a lot of exciting things tend to happen in Vandalia. It’s a town that is most famous for what it used to be – the capitol of Illinois during the time of Abraham Lincoln. But the reason it is so special to our family is that it is a town that produces wonderful people – people that look after their neighbor, that are faithful, and loyal to their friends. People like the Staffs and the Rademachers and the Brookses. People like my mother. My mother left Vandalia in 1952. She lived in St. Louis, Chicago, California and, for 52 years, right here in Carbondale. She travelled the world but, in so many ways, she never really left Vandalia. She never changed. She never strayed from the small town ethics and values that were instilled in her by her parents, Coral and Opal Brooks. It’s why we love Vandalia and why we feel that even though we were raised here, we are also in some ways from Vandalia. And something I need to say to my children and my nieces and nephew: no matter where life takes you, whether it’s Washington, DC, New York City, Paris or Rome, you’re all Betty Darling’s grandchildren. And because of that, in some way, you’re all from Vandalia. My mother was a teacher. She taught third and fourth grade from 1952 to 1960, and they were some of the happiest times of her life. She looked back fondly at her days in the classroom and she never really stopped being a teacher. She always looked for opportunities for the teacher in her to come out. One of my memories about this… We used to go St. Louis all the time when we were kids. It might be to a swim meet (where my parents might sit for three days in a hot natatorium to watch 25 yards of backstroke) or a Cardinals game, or something else. We went to St. Louis several times a year. When we returned home, we always crossed the Mississippi River on the Poplar Street Bridge, the one south of the Arch. When you reached the Illinois side of the river, there was a sign there, put up by the Illinois Department of Transportation. The sign read: Buckle Up For Safety Its the Law in Illinois The “Its” was spelled I.T.S. No apostrophe. And my mother just couldn’t let it go. Every time she’d say, “I think that’s terrible. To think of how many people cross that bridge – there are three interstates that feed into that bridge! And the first thing they see when they enter our state is a sign with a grammatical mistake on it.” Finally, my mother decided she would do something about it, so she wrote a letter to her state senator telling him what she thought of it. A few weeks later she received a reply. He told her he had looked into it and found out it was actually the policy of the state of Illinois to not use punctuation on roadside signs. This didn’t help. “This is worse than the original offense,” she’d say. “It’s one thing to be wrong; it’s another thing to be dumb.” She tried, but I guess you can’t fight city hall. A few months later, we went to St. Louis for some reason, and we were on our way back home, going back over the Mississippi on the Poplar Street Bridge. We knew the sign was coming, and we were waiting for it all over again. When we finally got close, we looked up and there it was: Buckle Up for Safety It’s the Law in Illinois I.T. Apostrophe. S. I looked for the next 35 years, and I’ve never seen another grammatical mistake on an Illinois roadside sign. I’m certain you’d be hard-pressed to find someone in state government who would give my mom credit for that. But you can rest assured: Ms. Brooks took care of that one for you. So many of the memories of what made my mom special were little things. I played basketball for Lincoln Junior High School and a lot of my teammates were black kids that lived on the east side of town. She would pick me up from practice in our 10-12 passenger van. My mother insisted that that they jump in the van and she would give them a ride home. Many of them lived just a few minutes’ walk from the school, but it didn’t matter: it was January, it was dark and it was cold, and my mom was giving them a ride home. So a ride that should have taken 5 minutes would take over 30. But they loved her. My teammates at SIU loved her. Many of my teammates were from England, Ireland, or Australia. They had nowhere to go over Thanksgiving break or other holidays, and Mom always invited them to be with us. She believed that you should always be with family during the holidays. I’ve heard from so many of them the past few days about how much that little act of kindness meant to them. There was a woman who lived a quiet life here in town. Most of you wouldn’t have had any occasion to meet her. She lived in a nursing home, and her name was Blanche Foss. One day, Blanche caught a lucky break. She got hooked up with a beautiful, young university student named Kathy Brady. Kathy would become part of the family, but at the time she was dating my cousin Mike, and she was studying to be a social worker. The university would send the social work students out into the community to get experience – to find someone who needed help and to help them. And Kathy got connected with Blanche. Kathy was kind of an angel to Blanche. She would go to the grocery store or pharmacy and pick up things for her. She would come up and read Blanche her mail, because Blanche was almost completely blind. Or, she would just come up and visit with Blanche, to listen to her, and let her know that there were people out there that cared about her. But the thing about college students is that they come and then they go, and soon enough it became time for Kathy to go. But in social work you can’t just ‘go;” you can’t just walk away. You are obligated to try and find someone to fill in for you, to take over, so that the care can continue, even though you are gone. Kathy thought the world of her boyfriend’s Aunt Bet, so she asked my mom if she would take over. My mom said that she would, even though she didn’t know Blanche. Another thing my mother didn’t know back then was that Blanche was going to live to be 99 years old. So what Kathy did for one year, my mother did for about twenty-two. A few months ago, my wife Jill and I were cleaning out a room at the house, as my parents had moved to a smaller place. I came across Blanche’s obituary, which my mother had saved (of course she had). As I read it I found out something about Blanche that I had never known. Blanche’s first name wasn’t Blanche – it was “Nanny.” That is such a special name in our family. My grandmother, Opal Brooks, was Nanny. My mother and her two sisters are called Nanny by their grandchildren. I don’t know what it means that Blanche’s name was Nanny. I just know that it was perfect. St. Francis of Assisi said that, “We should preach the gospel at all time and, when necessary, use words.” This quote always reminds me of my mother. I don’t recall any long conversations with my mother about religion, but I didn’t need any. She lived it. She was a woman of Christian charity. She was the kindest and most generous woman I ever knew. My brothers and sisters and I have no excuse for not knowing how to treat other people. We do know what we should do. We were all blessed to witness it for 50 years. If I can live my life like that, to treat others with kindness and love, then she will live on. But more importantly, if I can teach my children to do that, to live that life – to treat others with kindness, to be faithful and loyal, to teach them why it’s important and where it comes from… If I can do that… she will live forever. Thank You, dearest Lord, for her life.
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 21:54:39 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015