Jill Up the hill

Category: Uncategorized

  • 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.

  • About Mom

    [unedited please don’t judge- will review again in the future. Just wanted to get some thoughts out] I think one of the best things I can do in times of pain and sorrow is to share. It felt way too personal to do that in any sort of a blogging or public way when my marriage was in shambles but sharing what I loved about my mom feels right. It’s a relatable sentiment and doesn’t deaminize another human in the way that talking about how Kris hurt me would have.

    It has been ten days since mom died. I cried that day and maybe a little bit the next day, but it hadn’t happened since, or much. I did got emotional when dozens of friends and family left messages on our social media posts with memories and what they loved and expressing their deepest condolences. It is not as though I feel like my feelings or things in my life shouldn’t matter to others, I do. But there was still something so incredible moving and deeply touching about people who didn’t even know my mom, expressing so much sympathy and care for what Katie and I are going through.

    Mom was 67 and far too young to be taken from us. I don’t think I have fully grasped the void. Never again on July 10th will I wake up to a text from her bc aside from some European friends who send a facebook or Instagram bday message, Mom was always the first birthday message I received, every year. Before texting, it was a phone call. She was always so excited to celebrate me, even when I would roll my eyes at her enthusiasm I always felt her love and knew I was lucky.

    One of the things that I’ve learned this week was that I get my note taking from her. I have a box of notebooks, so many notes she wrote about all sorts of things. Many were just nothing. To do items like “reschedule blablabla appointment” or “call vet about Rosie” but she also seemed to leave herself notes like she thought she was going to forget. I know she said she thought her memory was failing so I think maybe she was leaving herself notes. Or like me, wanting to get important thoughts out. It’s why I have journals and scattered notes all over the place.

    A good friend got me a book called the invisible string and the kids and I sat down to read it on the couch together. I knew it would deal with “dealing with death” for kids and wasn’t sure what to expect but hadn’t done a pre read so here we went. It was a really cute book and the kids new exactly why I was reading it, and noticed immediately when I got emotional. At one point Hugo said “Mom are you crying?” and I said yes and kept reading. When it got to the part about having an invisible string with someone in heaven Esme said “Can we have an invisible string to grandma JoJo?” and it was just so hard. I said yes and kept it mostly together. But my heart was breaking all over.

    The love and support from women in my life who never even met my mom or were close with her still baffles me. Again, I know I am worthy of love, I know people care about me. But I continue to be so incredibly moved and touched by the people who give such a selfish demonstration of love for me. Whether it is an offer of help in the form of labor around my home, meals, hugs, whatever. I fall apart every time.

    There are many women who were friends with my mom when she was a young mom. She was the kind of person who maintained her relationships. Another characteristic I have from her. I don’t lose friendships unless they no longer serve me. Even if there are people I don’t speak to often and we just see social media posts, my connections and relationships are my most valued asset in life. She never stopped wanting to build and grow her network. Even one day at my house while decorating for Christmas, the next day she asked me for my friends phone number because the two of them had been chatting and mom wanted to share a recipe with her. Belen had met her on other occasions but this time they connected. And I feel like mom would have continued to stay connected with her, even if randomly to simply share a recipe or for them to exchange a thought or memory about their mutual connection (me!). She was just, like that. Even when she didn’t have space for new friends she would always let someone in that she was interested in.

    It has been suggested that Hugo learn cursive because he is having trouble with writing. Mom’s penmanship was something I would obsess over. Looking at notebook pages of her words, her doodles and her entries on things like calendars, addressbooks and of course her day planner. Another one of those traits I have from her…. The inability to go entirely digital with my planner. I continue to purchase fully personalized planners and live and die by what is recorded. Unlike her though, I didn’t save my prior years as archives! She was something of a saver, a packrack, a “I might need this” or “it’s important to save this” kind of person.

    Mom loved music. Some of my earliest memories of life in June Lake involve weekends at home listening to music very loud from speakers that were taller than me. She loved to sing, dance, and clap while she sang and danced. I really can see it now. She loved Madonna and Wilson Phillips as far as popular music from that era, but she really loved so much. She loved music in film, music from her childhood or adolescence and was of course a talented guitar player. She played in church, she played for friends, and I honestly wish I would have asked her to play more. I loved when she did but was never grateful enough of her talent. My love of music comes from both my parents equally, and I am as thankful as ever for that.

    That’s it for now. I’ll edit this again. Just wanted to put some thoughts out there. More will come, and I’ll take more care in editing. 😉