Eulogy

 I remember the first time my mom put me on a skateboard. We were at 23 Springhurst Road staring down this slow decline of pavement, thinking to myself how my mother going to ever teach me how to go down this? She grabbed the board from my hand, went with no helmet, and strode down the hill full-speed until she finally lost control and hit the curb. Little did I know, this was a metaphor of my mother’s life.

At the age of 6, my parents got divorced and I remember the first few months of living in a brand new house with my mother. We bought chickens, thinking that we could be the quintessential Bedford family, yet little did we know that we had a rooster on our hands. After a nasty weasel ate our chickens, it was time for my mother and I to find our new hobby, which unmistakably was night golf. In the blazing hot summers of Bedford, NY, my mom would watch me catch fireflies and innocently twist and twirl hoping that by pure chance, I was bound to catch one. Eventually, when it was late enough, we would grab our putters and and head out for the 17th hole of the Bedford Golf and Tennis Club, later on I learned that this meant that we were trespassing, but I never thought for a second that what we were doing was wrong, it was just mom being mom again. I remember tiptoeing into my mother’s room when I would tell her that there was a monster in my closet and I would wrap my right ankle around hers just to know that no matter how far I peered off to the bed, I would still be near her. I remember that she was the first person to ever call me beautiful, and how every time I got a B- on a test or a paper, she would remind me what her grades were like at Choate, which was an automatic remedy to my stress. 

I remember seeing her at Memorial Sloan Kettering in her hospital bed, telling me that she was a fighter. I remember her green eyes and how I was always curious if she was worth the sum of her parts, and to me she was and she always will be. I remember how much she loved Willie and I, and how much we loved her. I remember her stories of going to ballet as a little girl and hiding donuts from the instructor until she got caught. She had a great sense of humour and made each day of life with her an adventure. 

Something inside of my mom broke a long time ago that many of us couldn’t fix. But, that never made me love her any less than I always have. She was my hero in more ways than I could have ever hoped. She taught me right from wrong, she taught me how to love people, she gave me the best brother in the entire world, she married a great man who I am lucky enough to call my father, and she was the daughter of my biggest role models in this world. There are no words to describe the loss that I have felt with losing my brother, my mother, and my grandparents in a matter of months. There are no words to describe the amount of love that I have felt during these incredibly trying times. And, with everything that has happened, I have questioned why I am here, and why these heartbreaking events have taken place. I am not going to pretend that I have all the answers, but the one answer that I do have is that these circumstances have made my heart softer. Loving the people I love, losing family, and somehow still being here on this earth has made my heart softer, and that is something that I got from my mother; I got her heart. It might have been hard to see with the mistakes that she has made and the people that she has hurt, but my mother had the biggest heart of anyone that I knew and she made my brother and I feel loved. 

I have thought for hours on end of what my brother would say if he were up here today, and I know that he would have made a much more eloquent tribute to my mother just by being the person that he was. But, the most amazing part when I think of my brother is how much hope he had for my mother. The first time I ever talked to Willie about my mom was last year on New Year’s Day. He told me that she would be back in our lives one day and while they both didn’t live to see that day, I hope that Willie has found her again. They shared a bond that I so deeply admired. Whether it was music or cars, my mother found a way to relate to my brother’s interests. We would go to the Greenwich Car Show any chance we had in the spring and spend hours sitting in vintage cars, admiring their deeply tanned seats and talking about which James Bond film the car might have appeared in. Car rides were always our special place,  set to the tunes of music from the 60’s, 70’s and even the 80’s: Joan Jett, Elton John and Seal. But, when Fleetwood Mac came on, my brother and mom would sing a duet as I sat in the back seat. Fleetwood Mac became our cult and Landslide became our anthem[1] . What I would give to be in a car with those two again…

Over the last few days I got to hear stories of my mother that moved me to tears, and frankly, this is the Laura that my mother is and always has been. This is a story I would like to share with all of you today from a stranger that went to Choate with my mother:

I went to Choate with your mother and although I never knew her well, she was always sweet. I was way too insecure as a teenager to talk to someone who seemed so together the way Laura did at Choate. I had very low self-esteem. 
         One day she noticed me looking at a beautiful jacket she had on, absolutely gorgeous.  I think I was wearing my dad's old coat! I did not look so great and I was entranced with that lovely coat and how she wore it.
         Laura smiled at me and said, "Would you like to try on my jacket? I bet it will look great on you!"
         Would I? Uh, yes!!! Absolutely! I couldn't believe she was even talking to me! I was stunned! Tongue-tied!
         She pulled off this beautiful jacket and I put it on. She said, "Look how pretty you look!" And she smiled in the friendliest way. 
         That's it. I gave her back her jacket, we walked our separate ways, but I was absolutely exhilarated! She took five minutes from her day to make someone she didn't even really know feel good and I never forgot it.
         That is the Laura Krupinski I know and remember.  That sweet, friendly, understanding gesture of hers will always capture who Laura was to me . I know people are complicated,  but to me, your mother is the person,  the teenager, who was very kind to a schoolmate she really didn't know, and that is beautiful.[2] 

 Here ends the story.

In the end, I got to grow up with a mother who taught me to believe in myself; a gift that I still carry to this day. My mother’s light might have dimmed throughout the years, but it has never disappeared nor will it ever. Everyone in this room was touched by her light at some point in time and I only hope that her light helps spread throughout these dark times and remind us to love each other more than we ever thought we could. My mother was not perfect and she did a lot of things in her life that made her hit that curb on the skateboard, but to think of her first few strides and what she gave me in life is truly magnificent.