I would like to start off by welcoming friends and family: thank you for coming today to share in what isn't so much a funeral as it is a celebration, a celebration of a successful, long life (for those of you who didn't know, mom would have been 90 years-old this November).
There are lots of ways to measure success. I'll start by saying what my mom wasn't successful at: my mom wasn't so much successful from a professional point of view; she was never the ceo of a multinational corporatiton, a top level manager at a fortune 500 company, or the founder of a .com enterprise. It would be safe to say that my mom barely knew what a .com was. She wasn't so much a success with regard to finances; she was not rich, she did not live in a mansion, heck, she hadn't even worked since the mid '50s. She wasn't a writer, or a painter, or an athlete. She couldn't sing. She didn't play the piano. She didn't play the guitar. Had no idea what a USB drive was and, in fact, had only used a computer to play Wheel of Fortune.
She never successfully used a cell phone, did not know that bars were no longer called “tap” rooms , and thought that “Jersey Shore” was a place you went to on vacation.
Rita, Reet, Aunt Reet, Tia Rita, the “Bod,” grandmom, mom-mom, Mrs. Cattie, Miss Thomas. Mom. These are the titles she held, titles of respect, titles of love, titles of admiration. Titles earned by a Homemaker, a Housewife, a professional woman. People today would blanch at the title “Housewife,” or “Homemaker.” They would say, “That's not a career, that's not a profession, that's not something to be proud of.” Not so my mother, and her generation.
The Greatest Generation, as journalist Tom Brokaw called them. Those who came of age around World War II. Greatest in deed. Leonard Bernstein, JFK, LBJ, Ronald Reagan, Walter Cronkite, Julia Child, Joe DiMaggio, Billy Graham, Jack Kerouac, Nelson Mandella, Arthur Miller, Dylan Thomas, J.D. Salinger, Andrew Wyeth, Lawrence Olivier, Mother Theresa. Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said of that generation: “This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.” And indeed they did. We are who we are because they were who they were. No generation since has been able to fill the shoes of the Greatest Generation, and it's not likely any generation forward ever will.
As anyone who knew my mother knew, mom was an edacious Flyers fan, keeping records and stats of each and every game because, as she said, “They stink at keeping records.” She loved the casinos, making the trip to Atlantic City more times than I can remember, and then to the Chester waterfront when Harra's opened. She knew the people at the casinos by their first names, and they knew her. When a month would go by where she couldn't get to the casinos, they would call her to make sure everything was ok. She was on Donald Trump's Christmas card list. No, really.
There are lots of memories, as someone who lives four score and nine years will generate. You fill in the blanks with your own memories, that's why you're here, after all, because you knew and had some sort of a special relationship with her.
When mom passed earlier this week, it was 1:25am our time, but 5:25pm Heaven Time, smack in the middle of Heavenly Happy Hour. We like to think that when mom crossed over, she was met at the Gates of Heaven by St. Peter, my dad, her brothers and sisters, and all of her relatives and friends, each with a whiskey sour in their hands, toasting a life well lived.
In closing, I want to share a poem with you, written for my mom, called “Nobody Else But You:”
“Nobody else has a place in my dreams,
Nobody else could ever thrill me it seems,
No one can make a night so filled with romance,
And say the things that make my heart want to dance,
When you’re away, darling, I always miss
Your arms around me and your goodnight kiss,
No one can make me happy when
I’m feeling blue,
Nobody else but YOU.”
Signed, “For Rita Thomas, with love, from Ray Cattie, December 1945.”
We love you mom. Thank you. May your hand always be filled with trump cards.
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