Mom's Eulogy

May 22, 2010
Eulogy for Ann Tucker
By: April Tucker Boswell

Many of you may be thinking to yourself that I seem untouched by my mother’s passing, or that I must be a strong person to be standing up here right now giving her Eulogy. I disagree with both of those assumptions. The reason that I am able to stand here today and give a light hearted tribute to my mother is pure and simple: FAITH. I know without a shadow of a doubt where my mom is right now. I have no doubt what so ever that she is in Heaven, with her mother, her sister, her brothers, her nephew and her friends, enjoying her new body that is strong and pain free.
Many people have expressed how sad it is to lose a loved one so close to Christmas. While I will admit, that losing my mother so close to a holiday filled with memories of her is very tough, it would be very selfish of me to be sad that she died so close to Christmas. For what could be better than being able to spend Christmas in Heaven, where you can celebrate with the One who we celebrate for, Jesus Christ?? Right now, my Mother is running around in her new body on streets of gold, and three days from now she will get to tell Jesus Christ in person, Happy Birthday. What could be sad about that? For if it were not for as John wrote “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” None of us would be able to celebrate Christmas.
Though I am glad that she is now in Heaven and is free of her illness and pain, I am going to miss her very much. As most of you know she was a woman of character. I am going to share some memories that I have about her characteristics, and events that will bring smiles to your faces. I have to preface by saying that if she were sitting in this room right now she would quickly say, “April Lynn, don’t you dare talk about me!” but…. She’s in Heaven where she can’t yell at me, yet anyway.
One funny quirk of my mom’s was that she always had to drink coffee from a REAL coffee cup. If you brought her a cup of coffee in a Styrofoam cup she would not drink it. If she didn’t know you very well, she would say thank you politely, then after you walked away, she would quietly sit it down on a table or dump it in a flower pot. If she did know you and you tried to offer her coffee in a Styrofoam cup she would look at you as if you had two head and ask if you didn’t have real coffee cups. If you were on a road trip with her, you had to stop at a Waffle House or another type of restaurant where she could have coffee in a real cup. This could be time consuming and frustrating to say the least….
Another thing about my mom was that she was sneaky. A trait I have unfortunately inherited from her and one that my dad is glad to get rid of and my husband wishes he could give away. Her sneaky ways were often proceeded by some act of defiance. For instance if you were to tell her, “Ann, you can’t park here, it is reserved for the handicapped,” she would quickly say, “Well, that’s ridiculous, I don’t want to walk that far, tell them I’m handicapped.” And… She would park there. On the way to the hospital the last time that we had to call an ambulance, she kept insisting that she needed to get something out of her bathroom. Aware of her ploy, I told her, “Mom we don’t have time for you to smoke another cigarette, these ambulance drivers have other people to help.” To which she replied a quick, “Smarty pants!” She snuck three packs of cigarettes in her purse that time, which I threw away in the ER and was reprimanded for and called “Crazy April” for later.. When she was released from the hospital time before last, she insisted that I stay at work and said that her friend Joan would pick her up. I knew exactly what she was up to, but did need to miss any more work so I stayed in Birmingham. You see, Mom knew that there was no way on God’s green Earth that I would stop and buy her any cigarettes. However Joan, sweet lady that she is, would buy those cigarettes. Sure enough, she told Joan to pick some cigarettes up for her on the way to the hospital. As soon as she got into the car she started to light one up. Joan looked down at the oxygen tank sitting in between them, with the nasal cannula in mom’s nose and said, “Ann, you can’t smoke with oxygen in this car, you’ll blow us both up!” So…. Mom rolled the window down, took the tube off of her nose and let it hang out the window and lit up her cigarette. I wonder what people thought seeing a car going down Meighan Blvd with an oxygen tube and a hand holding a cigarette hanging out of a car window?
Mom loved to stay up late and sleep all day, in fact, Jay and I often referred to her as a ‘vampire’. The night I moved her into The Point at Goldenrod she made sure to tell the attendants that she was not to be woken up before noon. They told her that would be a problem because she had to eat breakfast and take her medicines. To that she replied, “Well, we might have to work around that.” As I was cleaning out one of her drawers I found this article from “Dear Abbie” that she had clipped out of the paper. (READ DEAR ABBY ARTICLE HERE). I would have sworn that she wrote it but it says it came from California. I must reiterate the sneaky factor here…
One of her dearest friends was Linda Miller. Mom and Linda used to call each other “Dummy”as nicknames, they were Dummy 1 and Dummy2 which alternated according to who was in the better mood. Mom and Linda would fish off of the pier at our house together, all the while bickering amongst themselves over who knows what. One snag in their fishing routine was the fact that neither of the “Dummies” would unhook a fish, so they had to make sure that my dad was home when they went fishing. Linda also used to like to wear tennis shoes all of the time. Mom could never think of what to call them so she decided to call them “Running Wild Shoes” Mom talked about how tacky they were, but Linda wore them anyway. A couple of years ago, after Linda had passed on, she finally bought herself a pair of “Running Wild Shoes” once she realized how good they were for her feet. When I pointed out that she used to make fun of Linda’s shoes she said, “Well, I guess Dummy was right about these shoes after all, but mine are prettier.”
Mom loved Halloween and I have some of the fondest memories of riding with her to neighborhoods far and wide in Southside to trick or treat, to soap store windows and pick out Halloween costumes. She also loved to read horror books and watch horror movies. Stephen King and Patricia Cornwell were two of her favorite authors. I think that she and I watched Cujo and Carrie when I was about nine or ten years old. I will never look at St. Bernard’s or Prom queens the same again!
Mom also liked to fish off our old pontoon boat which my friends and I called “the blue ghost”. My parents bought this old boat just for fishing, and it didn’t have the most reliable engine on it. One time, my friends and I were with her on the boat when we broke down about a mile or so outside of our sloo. First mom made us find some paddles and paddle our way in. When this wasn’t fast enough, she made me put a life jacket on, and tie a ski rope around my waist. Then I had to jump in and swim us into the sloo. All the while mom was fishing off the side of the boat singing, “Rolling down the River”.
During the past two years of mom’s life she became very weak. It would take her so long to get ready to go anywhere that she just stopped going anywhere all together. I never understood what in the world could be so hard about getting dressed and getting in the car until she explained her getting ready process to me. Evidently she could not bear to see ANYONE inside or outside her home without her “face” on and her hair curled. This dressing routine normally consisted of an hour and half worth of fixing herself up with coffee breaks in between. When I tried to tell mom that she didn’t need to worry about makeup or her hair when I brought the boys over to see her, that we were just her family, she said, “Well, I’ve got to at least have on lipstick and my hair fixed.” She never left her house without lipstick.
All of these characteristics made my mom a great Nana to Tucker and Connor. She always made sure that they had fun when they were with her and was constantly buying them gifts and chocolate. If fact, when Tucker was smaller we would meet Nana for dinner in Trussville, and then go to Target. While at Target Nana would always buy Tucker a toy. She also brought Tucker a toy each time we saw her, and then did the same for Connor. This was a hard tradition to break with those boys!
My mom was a difficult woman at times. She was the most stubborn, hard headed person I have ever known, and unfortunately she passed that trait along to my youngest son Connor. She would bite your head off one minute, and love on you the next. I guess this is why all of the nurses in the hospitals seemed to love her so much. She was fierce, but somehow she always made people aware that she wasn’t as bad as she seemed. I will miss her laugh, her smile, and the way that she picked on everyone from her family, her friends, to the ambulance drivers, the nurses and even the doctors. She was endearing in her own special way. She and I had some rough moments just like any other mother/daughter will have. Sometimes were harder than others. However, there is a strong bond between a mother and her child, you may crack that bond over time, but you will never, ever be able to sever it completely. Those cracks will heal, and a fresh path will be laid on top. This new life without her is my fresh path, and I know that everyday as I walk down it, I will have an angel by my side.
I love you momma, this is not good bye, but a “I’ll see you soon”