Celebration of Life Remarks

I wanted to post the words I shared at my mom’s service. While I flubbed a few times, I still feel like I gave her a nice tribute. Please enjoy.

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Thank you all for being here today. My name is Jillian, and JoJo was my mom. Throughout my life, I’ve stood before many audiences—friends, colleagues, graduates, a wedding toast—but nothing compares to this moment. It’s a profound mix of love and pain, feeling so grateful for our time with her while grappling with the reality of her absence. Katie and I are incredibly thankful for each of you who have gathered here to honor her memory with us, as well as those who are here in spirit. The whirlwind of arrangements and tasks has kept me so busy I don’t think I have even truly conceptualized that she is gone. But I know that accepting this loss is a process, one that will unfold when my heart and mind are ready to embrace it. Today, I want to share who she was to me, and some of my favorite things about her.

As I wrote in the obituary, mom was a woman of many talents. She was a true creator. She painted, scrap booked, sewed, gardened, played guitar. So many tangible things came from her hands and many of us have experienced the joy in sharing her gifts. We hope you were able to see some of these things that we brought to share with you today. The guitar out there was her first ever, the one she’d play feverishly trying to get all the notes, no mistakes. The Christmas crafts were projects we watched her create, one step at a time.

Beyond what she did with her hands, it was what she did with her spirit and energy that I appreciate the most. Mom was not the type of person to reach a maximum number of friends. She was a connector and a relator and a nurturer. She would tell me about somebody new that she met somehow and then boom. New friend. People older than her, people much younger than her. Mostly women. She put in the effort to fostering these new relationships, another trait of hers that I’m grateful to have. Her heart was always open wide for the next person for her to learn something from, and to teach something to. At Christmas time last year, she came over and joined some friends of mine to decorate my house with the kids and I. As you likely know, she loved Christmas décor, holiday cheer and everything that comes with it. She took a keen interest in one of my friends that she hadn’t spent a lot of time with and when she woke up the next morning, she texted and said “Can you send me Belen’s number? We talked about a few recipes I want to share with her. Gosh I really liked her” and boom. New friend. That was mom, there was always space for more people in her heart.

Mom was an incredible mom. When I was young it was back scratches and cooking lessons. More recently it was story telling and sharing insights on aging, parenting, marriage and divorce—always a source of comfort. But the role I think excited her most was that of being a grandparent. She wanted nothing more than to be with her grandchildren every day once they existed on earth. I remember us noticing a very silly characteristic in my son that he got from his grandma. For both, when they smile, their eyes almost disappear, and when he smiled big we would say “You’ve got those Grandma JoJo eyes”  Maybe it’s big precious cheeks, maybe its small eyes, I don’t know. I just know that when Hugo smiles big, his eyes nearly disappear, and I will always think of my mom. Katie and I wanted to ask if her 6 grandchildren could come to the stage. Katie, in having her own creative flair has made each of the kids an epoxy charm with her ashes.

As Katie and I have collected and gone through her things, we have been refreshing our memories on things of the past while simultaneously learning new things about our mom along the way. We came across a scrap book she made going into the year 2000. It was a bucket list of things she wanted to do in the new millennium and I’ve had them printed out to share. I thought it was so fun to find this and learn new things about her. Like did any of you know she wanted to build a clock? Or to be featured in a magazine for ‘something cool’? She wanted to Meet Nicholas Cage, Madonna and Oprah, although as my aunt said last night, more than likely meeting Joana Gains would have been on a revised version. I hope you find some joy in reading some of her bucket list items—several of which she did indeed see through. I would love to hear about any of your adventures that are inspired by mom’s bucket list.

To wrap this up, mom loved deeply and wanted nothing but the best for those she loved. I have many characteristics and talents by being raised in her world. The lessons she leaves me, and the rest of us with, are to cherish the connections we make, to embrace creativity, and to live fully and joyously. Let’s honor her memory by embodying those lessons, by welcoming new friendships, and by taking the time to pursue our own dreams—big and small.

Thank you for being here, for sharing in our grief, and for celebrating the remarkable woman she was. Let’s continue to share our memories, keep her legacy alive, and support one another as she would have wanted.