Mark's Funeral Remarks

I had the option not to speak today and while no one wants to have to speak at their own mothers funeral I couldn’t stand by and not pay tribute to such an amazing person. There are so many ways I could spend the next 10 minutes talking about Mom. My mom is so many things. She is a mother, a wife, A great friend and confidant, a teacher, a cook, a PTA president, Primary president 3 times, a tutor, an entertainer, great dancer, she LOVES Christmas, a personal cheerleader, a personal psychologist, professional genealogist, and she’s a great organizer... in fact, in the mid 90's when the electronic label maker was introduced to market it was a very big deal in the Rober household. And, if you were looking for my mom's very well used label maker, you'll find it out in the garage in a Tupperware bin in line with all the other identical Tupperware bins with a printed label on the front that says, "LABELMAKER".

But of all the things I could talk about today, I think the most deserving is to focus on her simple approach to life. She didn’t overcomplicate things. In Alma 37:6 we read “…behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass” She had a simple, determined focus on the things she decided were important to her. And one of the things that was most important to her was to raise her children to be responsible adults with testimonies founded in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I’ll give a few examples. Mom was a simple teacher. She was always looking for opportunities to teach to us. I can remember at my 5th Birthday party arguing with a friend over a toy. She saw the end of the disagreement and gave my friend the toy and sat me down at my own party to listen to the Brite music tape on learning to share while everyone else got to keep playing. I think it was even legitimately my toy to be playing with but the message was clear. We were held to a higher standard and it shouldn’t have come to a heated argument regardless of whose party it was. Even up to a few months ago when my wife and I walked into the room I sat down next to her and she immediately hit me with her one good arm and spelled out on her iPad that out I took the last seat in the room and my sweet wife was left standing. She was right.

She was a hard worker. There was a simple rule, after school you had to do your chores. Then you had to do your homework and only then could you go out to play if it was still light out. Playing with your friends was a privilege not a right. Every day the chores would be different. Some combination of vacuuming the downstairs, emptying the dishwasher, doing laundry or helping with dinner and so on. And you never dared to cut corners on your chores because if you’re going to do something you better do it right the first time, and she had no qualms with calling an executive time out in the roller Hockey Game out front until the dishes actually got put away in the right cupboards.

We sometimes would have marathon work days. There used to be a hand made green sign that would hang on the front door that all the neighborhood kids recognized that simply said in bold all caps, DO NOT KNOCK KIDS CANNOT PLAY. When the Dreaded green sign went up, it meant it was not going to be a journal worthy Saturday.

She was trying to prepare us to be responsible adults from a very young age. She always assumed strength, not fragility. She would often say that the biggest compliment she could get as a parent was that when we turned 18 we were ready to leave the house. We all were, and we all did… but paradoxically I think we probably left with more respect and love for our mom than those who might stick around not ready for the next phase in life.

While she could be very strict in her simple parenting approach, she also had such a great capacity to love. She knew the names of all of our friends and our house was always the place to be in the neighborhood. We had an open door policy, our food was your food, no rooms were off limits and you could make a mess you just had to make sure to clean it up afterwards. She set the tone and our house was a home that people wanted to be in because you could feel love emanating from the walls. She had high expectations and we certainly knew when we screwed up but she was always be your biggest cheerleader for any success, large or small. The quickest I ever walked home from school was the day I won the 6th grade student body election because I couldn’t wait to share the victory with my campaign manager. Her genuine reactions had this way of making you feel so good about yourself.

The world offers up a lot of distractions for us to lose sight of what really matters. The billboards we see, the ads we hear the magazines at the grocery store all send the same choreographed message. They create a false reality that the important things in life have to do with the square footage of your house or the status symbol in your driveway or how many pounds you weigh. As a result a lot of people spend money they don’t have, to buy things they don’t need to impress people they don’t like…. and then they can’t figure out why they still feel empty.
She never subscribed to these fabricated realities simply because they didn’t align with her true priorities. She was able to keep things simple, filter out the distractions and it was liberating for her.

Honestly, while many women are constantly worrying about their image and buying the latest fads from the most stylish designers... Mom's primary criteria for selecting a Christmas sweatshirt was that something on there had to be battery powered. Preferably C or D batteries... none of this double A nonsense. But to her is was simple, she loved Christmas why in the world wouldn’t an awesome Christmas sweatshirt that played music, had an entire strand of lights wrapped around it with reindeer flying around?

In that same vein, the world can send the message that, being a stay at home mom isn’t living up to your full potential. That never really resonated or affected mom because the way she did it, raising kids was a full time job for her and she worked overtime being on PTA boards and being the team moms and class room volunteer and the Den leader, and so on. She didn’t care what other people thought. She knew what she wanted with her life. It was that simple.

As I close my remarks I’d like to tell of an experience my mom had a few months ago because it serves to summarize who she is so well. I call it the parable of the Christmas lace and I’ve told it to our son Kam and I will continue to repeat it to our children yet unborn. It happened this last October and as it turned out it would be the last time she would ever drive a car. The days at this point were already filled with decorating for Christmas and for some reason mom decided that some random placemat in the corner of the dining room really would not be complete unless it had a red trim lace around it. She knew in her head exactly the kind of lace it needed to be and she also knew she didn’t have it. It was evening and my sister Lisa was talking to her husband on Skype and my Dad wasn’t home so mom decided to sneak out and drove herself down to Michaels. Michaels didn’t have it so she tried JoAnns. They also didn’t have it so she decided to try Tall Mouse. Now bear in mind at this point that this was not an easy task for her as her body was getting weaker by the day. Her speech was slurred, her voice projection not very loud, she couldn’t use her left arm and her legs were starting to lose strength. She got out of the car and still not accustomed to the pace at which her body was betraying her she tripped on the curb and was unable to move her arms to brace for the fall. As you could imagine she landed hard. After about 15 minutes of laying on the asphalt she had taken stock on her injuries and while her arm wasn’t broken like she initially thought, it was already swollen and turning blue. Her face and knees were also scraped and bleeding. A couple walked by in the distance and Mom faintly called for help up as loud as she could only to hear them laughing about the drunk woman lying on the ground across the way. While I’m sure it was a genuine misunderstanding on the their part, it rips my heart to think of a woman of such dignity, so incredibly self-sufficient her whole life, reduced to helplessness lying in an oil stained parking lot. Eventually, she was able to crawl back to the car and pull herself back to her feet. And this is the part that matters, although it would have been perfectly understandable, she didn’t call home and say pick me up, she didn’t sit there and cry and cursing God for her situation…. swollen, bruised, and bleeding… she made her way into the store and bought the stupid lace.

When my wife and I heard this story at first we sort of laughed with tears in our eyes because it was so classic Mom. It was the perfect metaphor for her life. The lace represented the things she had decided were important to her early in her life. Determined, single-minded and against nearly insurmountable odds she had a simple focus. She was raised in a dysfunctional, single parent household familiar with almost all forms of abuse. Yet she somehow managed to break a chain of abuse reaching back for generations and gave her children as many tools she could for them to make a positive impact in the world. She had every reason to make excuses. But she never did. My Dad told us that only once through this whole ALS ordeal did mom ever break down and have the “why is this happening to me” conversation with God. After that one night early on, true to her form, both privately and publicly she was once again making the absolute best out of the cards she was given and blessing the lives of so many in the process.

Again, from Alma 37:6-7- “…behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; …. and by very small means the Lord doth…. bringeth about the salvation of many souls.”

Because of Mom’s, simple, and persistent dedication to the things that actually mattered most to her, her influence upon those she’s come in contact with, has effected hundreds all will affect thousands for generations to come. From a personal standpoint if she had lived to be 100 years old and took care of her every day of my life, I’ll never be able to repay her for what she’s given me.

I hold here in my hands her scriptures. She read them every day. I wouldn’t call her a scriptorian and yet these are some of the most well worn scriptures I’ve ever seen. I’d like to close with her simple powerful testimony written in her own hand 20 years ago [inscription]. This was how she felt 20 years ago, that was how she 2 weeks ago… and most importantly, I know that’s how she feels right now. I’m grateful to her for giving me that knowledge that we will see her again and for teaching me about the Savior, His Gospel, and His plan for us.