Celebrating the Original Solar Momma

Good morning.

One of the upsides of a sad event like this is getting to see and visit with so many people that our mom has known over the years and from various facets of her life. I have heard stories I never knew, seen pictures I have never seen and shared many smiles and hugs with friends and family. And so for that, I say thanks mom. You did a great job of getting us all together.

As I prepared for this morning, I struggled a bit with what to say about our mom. Do I talk about her professional accomplishments, of which there were many? Or maybe the various leadership positions she held in so many different community organizations? Or do I focus on her role as a mom and grandmother? And I decided instead to talk about the lessons she taught me.

The first lesson was about a woman’s place in the world. It was 1971, I had just been born, and my mom was getting a PhD in economics. Stop and listen to what I just said. 1971. A PhD in economics. A young mom with a new baby. Can you even imagine what her life was like? She went on to get her PhD with her dear friend Fruszi, have another baby, and start a fabulous career that brought her joy throughout her life. And she taught me, sometimes explicitly but often just by example, that women can and should value their careers as well as their family. She made sure I went to a wonderful all-girls school for six years, where the notion that I, as a girl, could be and do anything I wanted, was instilled into me. She never shied away from the fact that she was a working mom.

And I admit, when I was young. I was jealous of all the kids (and it felt like it was most of them) whose moms didn’t work. Whose moms were home every afternoon after school. They got picked up by a parent, not a babysitter.

I remember one time when I was six and the bottom of my ballet slipper was coming off and my mom didn’t have time to get new ones for me before the annual recital and so the bottom of my slipper caught on a ledge on the stage and I fell during that recital. I remember the rage I felt at her that day. And I remember being a teenager and coming home from school and not having milk in the fridge and yelling at her with all my teenage fury : why can’t we just be like a normal family? Why can’t we just have milk in the fridge?

Fast forward a few decades, and there I was. A young mom with three kids and a legal career. Juggling it all. Trying to be everything to everyone. And running, always running, out of milk.

My mom showed me that was ok. That I belonged in the workforce and that I belonged at home. That it was OK to be mom with a career that brought me so much joy. She taught me that it was OK to be ambitious and focused and successful, and that I should never ever apologize for that. And …… she showed me that a working mom can have well-adjusted kids.

I am so thankful for that lesson. Her example of balancing work and life has set me on the path I am on.

The second lesson our mom taught me was about quiet leadership. Now…if you knew our father, and many of you here did, he was not often a man of quiet leadership. He liked to tell you exactly what he was doing and why is was so important and why he was the best person for the job. And that was my dad and I loved him.

But mom was completely different. When I read her draft obituary last week, I was surprised by all of the professional roles and accomplishments she held. Not because she wasn’t worthy of them, but because she never boasted about them. And her leadership didn’t end at the office. She was chairperson or president of almost every organization she was ever a part of, including many in this very church. And again, you only knew about them if you happened to know.

But here’s what really set our mom apart. Her quiet leadership extended in ways and spaces that were even less public. Right after our parents got divorced, mom told us that she was going to start doing more volunteer work. This was the late 1980s and the crack epidemic was raging in DC. So she went to Children’s Hospital and held babies suffering from cocaine withdrawal shortly after they were born. That’s it-that’s what she did. She held babies and infused them with her love. She was also on the right side of social justice issues for her whole life, including, when she obtained whatever license she needed and married two of her friends. It was January 25, 2014 – ten years ago – and they happened to be gay men. When Nancy and I were pregnant with Caroline and Ellie – very very pregnant – mom joined us at an abortion rights march. Nancy and I wore t-shirts that said “Pregnant by choice.” Madeline, who was 18 months, wore a t-shirt that said “My mom had a choice.” And our mom – I don’t remember what tshirt she had one. What I remember is that was right there with us, marching and demanding abortion access for all.

And after she retired, she came here, to this church, every Friday morning for the ID Ministry, helping people obtain the legal documents they needed in order to apply for and participate in programs designed to help them out of poverty. Even as her dementia took over, she wanted to continue to participate, and the church was kind and empathetic enough to find a role for her. She became the greeter, welcoming with open arms and a big smile, all who came through the door for help.

As her child, I can tell you that she did all of this quietly. She taught me to just do the right thing, without worrying about credit or recognition, and that the satisfaction of service will be the reward. I can’t say I am perfect at this – I have a fair amount of David Ross in me and I love a limelight – but I endeavor to follow her example.

The third lesson : unconditional love. I mean the kind of love that the God of my understanding offers to me. Our mom gave me that same gift. She loved me unconditionally when I screamed at her as a very angry 17 year old child of divorce that I didn’t care what she said because she couldn’t even keep her marriage together. She loved me unconditionally when, as a college freshman, I announced that she was stupid to have ever gotten married and had children, because she had simply become a tool of the patriarchy. (Keep in mind-she was paying for my education – she must have questioned where her dollars were going.)

She loved me unconditionally when I told her I was getting divorced. And she loved me unconditionally when we took that long walk on the beach about ten years ago and I told her that her family had noticed her memory was failing and she needed to get some medical attention.

And I wasn’t the only recipient of that unconditional love. Her grandchildren were the center of her universe. She always told us how grateful she was that we all lived close, so that she could be in the everyday of their lives. What a gift.

And the last lesson she taught me was to pause. And this one happened in the last stages of her life. Because you can’t have the kind of dynamic engaged and volunteer centric life she did and pause very often.

Her lesson to pause came once her dementia was well underway. During COVID, she became homebound like so many of us. We had care providers in her condo with her, but most Sundays, either Justin or I would head to her place and watch Foundry’s Sunday service with her. Sitting on the couch, just listening and singing, was a pause from the world that felt so unstable. Later, when she entered assisted living, and especially after she lost her ability to speak more than a few words, the “visits” became very different. I had to slow down and ….pause. It gave me lots of time to think about what kind of mother she was. What kind of woman she was. What I wanted to tell her. What I learned from her. And how, the older I get, the more I appreciate everything she did for me.

And the last days of her life, all we could do, as a family, was pause. Be with her. Sing?hymns. Pray. And tell her how much we loved her.

And so, as I come to the end, I invite you to close your eyes and listen, once more, to the lessons that Jane, mom, grandma, taught us:

You are loved unconditionally.

Lead – in whatever place you are in and in whatever circumstance you find yourself. Lead and do it quietly and gently. Just get the work done.

You belong – in the workplace, in the home, in this house of worship, in our world. Man, woman, transgendered, gay, straight, queer, black, white, Christian, agnostic – you belong.

And pause. Slow down and look around. And appreciate and acknowledge all that God has provided.