Lessons From My Mother

My mother passed from this world last week at age 85, having suffered from Parkinson’s and dementia for too many years.  This was my eulogy, which I called Lessons From My Mother.

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When I think of who my mother was, I think of her as a woman much younger than I am now. I think of the time when I was on my late teens and she was around 40, when it was her mission to teach me everything she knew about being a good woman.

She was an excellent manager of money, as many who survived the Great Depression were, but she was never stingy, neither with her money nor her time, even when there wasn’t much of either. She could figure out how to spend the same dollar twice and how to make you feel there was all the time in the world, even when she had to get ready to go to work. She could turn what she had into what you needed, whether that was a bargain basement dress she made special by changing the buttons or the time she found – or made – to play Scrabble with me. Like most valuable lessons, that is something you teach by being an example and letting your protégée see how you do it, step by step.

Her second lesson was about accomplishing. That was her word. Whatever it was we set out to do, whether a trip to S. Klein’s On The Square to shop for my trousseau or spending the morning with a can of Johnson’s Glass Wax cleaning the windows of our apartment on Walton Avenue, when we were done, she would get a satisfied look on her face and say to me, “We accomplished.” I realize that was the beginning of my understanding that things that have meaning, the big and the small, are done by teams. It is an illusion that we are so powerful that we accomplish things in a vacuum by ourselves. It was not my strong point but interdependency – what we call teamwork – came naturally to her and she was my model for how I do it now.

Her third lesson was to respect everyone, no matter who they were or what they did. By this, she meant not to forget them, not to assume that they were taken care of. Again, the Great Depression was probably an influence on her, but she also had such a good example in her sister Jeanette, may she rest in peace.

So to honor her memory, I ask that you do three things today.

First, be pleased with what you have been granted and make it into what you need. Try spending it twice, whether it is in money that you use to create more value to the world or time that you not waste on trivial things.

Second, accomplish something with someone else. It doesn’t matter what it is, only that it’s something you’re both proud of.

Third, remember people you would not ordinarily think of and find a way to make their lives easier in some way.

And as you leave today, remember, as I will, that she was not a weeper and wailer, but rather a rememberer of good times. Even as her own memory failed her, she could speak of the past, always of family and friendships, of trips and adventures. Remember her at in the most wonderful times you had with her – the birthday parties of our childhood, the hot dogs at Coney Island, whenever it was that you were with her. And wish her well on her newest journey, the one we will all someday join her on.

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She was a Watchdog.  (If you are unfamiliar with the Roles, you can find out about them by listening to the webcasts on The Ten People You Really Want on Your Team!)  She enjoyed it and she was good at it, both at home and at work, where she was in senior management and patiently taught her reports how to do things right.

She taught me all the favorite tasks of the Watchdog – budgeting, accounting, repairing and making do with what you had – but I never really enjoyed doing them.  She didn’t understand why I did the things I loved – starting businesses, speaking, writing, networking.  She was just happy that she had done her job right and I could do something to make a living.  We respected, trusted and had faith in each other.  She is on my team, and in my heart, forever.