It's wonderful to think about you, especially on your birthday.  Fond memories of you flood back.  Each time we saw you, you met us with a big hug and a smile.  Nice to think about those times.

May God hold you close until we meet  again.

With our love,

Linda & Chuck

Happy Birthday, Betty and remembering Foyers.  At St. Peter & St. Paul, Foyers is the name designating a collection of small groups that gather monthly for dinner and fellowship.  You're usually assigned to a group for about a year.  We rotate homes and everyone pitches in a dish. The groups are shuffled periodically, so through the years different folks are assigned to different groups.  Betty contended that the group we had one year which included Betty, Al, my husband, me and several other couples, was the "Best Foyers Ever".  She would restate that "fact" to me over and over.  It was a great group.  Betty and Al were always to first to arrive and the last to leave.  They insisted on helping set the table or fix the salad and clean-up after everyone else had gone.  Knowing how sweet Betty was, she may have told every Foyers group that they were the best group ever.  I know she's smiling from heaven... we'll never know the rest of the story.  Love you, Linda
 

Even though you are no longer with me in the flesh, you will always be with me in spirit.  A day does not go by without thoughts of you and all sorts of memories from the past.

I  had quite the vivid visit from you very early this morning.  I walked down the hall and in the mirror at the end I saw something familiar. I stopped short because I did not see myself, I saw you.  I stared at the image looking back at me not knowing how long it would last.  I don't know who smiled first, but when I saw that smile I just said I love you Mom and Happy Birthday.

Thank you for that visit!  I know you are all around me and that gives me peace.  I still miss you but I know you are where you are supposed to be.  I hope you will enjoy our family reunion in August.

I love you Mom.

Hi Mom,

Today is my birthday, my first with you watching over me from the heavens.  Dad sent me the singing cat card you had waiting for me.  Unfortunately, it scared the cats, but I appreciated and loved it.

I guess you did most of the hard work 59 years ago and I am so glad God granted you the will to decide to stick around.  That was my birthday present for many, many years.  On this birthday, I am trying my best to have a great day as you would want.  I can't lie when I say it is much harder than I thought it would be.

So, with that said, I am going to get up and get ready to get my nails done because four days from now I am going to go celebrate Thanksgiving with some of my favorite family members.  I know you will be there with us as you are with me now.  So glad you taught me how to make the gravy!!!  I'm quite proud of that.

Well, I guess I better get a move on.  I just wanted you to know that especially on this day, you on in my thoughts and heart and I love you more than I could ever say.

Have a great day today Mom, and thank you for giving me life.

My mother’s first child was a boy – my bother Chuck.  Aside from being a little colicky, he was just perfect – the first grandchild, well behaved, adorable.

When my mom was pregnant for the second time, she was praying for a girl.  A little girl would be quiet and shy.  A little girl would be ladylike and fun to dress up in all sorts of adorable clothes-lace and ribbions.  And then I was born.  Picture me toddling down the street.  I’ve kicked the boy next door, my face is dirty, my knees are scraped up, and the sash is torn out of the right side of my dress –  I was loud and talked to strangers, ate the sand in the sandbox, wouldn’t wear my shoes outside, etc.  Not what my mom had in mind.  Across the street lived Earlene Buxton, my mom’s best friend.  One day when my mom was in tears over something I did,  Earlene  put her hand on my mom’s arm and said –“ You know Betty, she is going to be your best friend someday. “

Mom –thank you for moving to Atlanta so that we could make Earlene’s prophecy come true.  I remember when dad and Tom went on the men’s retreat and I spent the weekend with you.  We went to Nancy’s for brunch for George’s  birthday and  we went shopping and to Frankies for dinner and stayed up late talking. That was one of many times that you reminded me of what she said.  Thanks  for a thousand special memories and for giving me a family here in Atlanta –for loving Tom and Brian and for all the special holidays we spent together. Thanks for all the “ hey moms “    . “ Hey mom, guess where I’m going?”   “ Hey  mom, I got there safely.”  “ Hey mom, are you sitting down? I’m engaged.”  You were the first one I thought of when anything special happened in my life.

‘

I want to thank my  mom for helping me to be a more tolerant person.  She judged each person based on their honesty, their actions, their kindness.   She didn’t care about your race, religion, sexuality .  She didn’t care how much money  or education  you had.  If you started a sentence with: These people……, she would interrupt you and tell you every exception to the case and point out that you were narrow minded.  She could always tell who the good guys were.  My dad would always have her check out the men he was going to hire.  There was only one time that my dad was so enamored of a given candidate that he hired him even thought my mother said,  “something isn’t quite right about him.”  Later the company had to let him go.   There were two exceptions to my mother’s  tolerance.   Fashion and Cleanliness.  She always looked like a million dollars and you could eat off of her floor.   I would always try to have the PERFECT outfit on when I would travel home   taking hours to pick everything out to meet her standards.   Then she would say – “You know Donna, you look better when your skirts come to the middle of your knee, instead of above your knee. “  OK .  She visited all seven of the apartments I lived in before I was married.   And she would always find something that needed to be cleaned.  Once ,I can’t remember which apartment or roommates but I said that I would treat my roommates  to a steak dinner if my mother couldn’t find anything  that needed to be cleaned.   We polished the  chandeliers, cleaned the baseboards, everything.    Immaculate. We were ready for the white glove test.  She hadn’t been in the apartment two hours before she was windexing the sliding glass door out to the porch.    You know , my son just moved into a new apartment in Buckhead.   Tom and I went to see it and It was so well organized and unpacked and just right.   I looked around and said,   “You know,  you don’t have many pictures on the wall.  I have a picture in the basement that would look good  leading into the kitchen.”   Later that night , I thought :  You are your mother after all -    Proving the point that you have to be a mother to understand your mother.   Mothers aren’t looking for something wrong.   They just have this overwhelming instinct to want to keep helping their kids.

Lastly, I need t  thank my  mom for helping me to be a stronger person.   Dad always said he was the flywheel and she was the mortar that kept everything  together.  In the last weeks of her life, there were times that I would be so emotionly upset  and I would drive over to my parent’s house and go in and there they would be:  calmly drinking their tea watching a morning show.  I kept thinking – Do they know something I don’t ?  Do they have something I don’t have?  I think it had to do with their strong faith and the strength they drew from each other.   They accepted what life brought and they accepted that death was part of it and they weren’t afraid.   It provided a wonderful example for me of how I should live my life.  I can only imagine what it would be like to be married for 67 and ½ years.  Their bond was evident right up to the last day.  Tom came over and made chicken piccata.  We invited George. We played Josh Groban music and shared memories.  We were drinking wine and laughing.  Mom kept eyeing the chicken and dad asked if she wanted a taste.  She ate five bites.  Now we were really celebrating and George took our picture.  We were having a “going away” party.  We just didn’t know it.  I texted the picture to Terry and Skip and Pam wanting to share the joy we were feeling that night.  In the picture, mom and dad’s hands are entwined and George had the image enlarged and framed for us. It made me think of a card that I found that my mother didn’t get to send my dad and I’d like to read a few lines from it.

It felt so natural starting out together.  We were so calm despite all the crazy things going on in the world around us.  I knew I had found a partner for the journey ahead – someone who would stay with me where ever the road took us.

My mom was a great lady deserving of many gifts.

The picture symbolizes to me some of her final gifts:

A beautiful last day and being able to say goodbye,

Living her whole life in her beautiful home,

Having my father’s hand in hers all her life,

And being taken gently in her sleep.

Betty Gladding Eulogy Remarks

Al & Betty moved to Atlanta in 1995 after Al retired. The move to Atlanta was prompted more by Betty than Al, so she could watch one of her grandchildren grow up. My son Brian was 6 years old when they moved here and had the advantage of growing up with “Pop and Grandma”. But having Al & Betty here was also a blessing for me. They were more than “in-laws” to me. They were my surrogate parents, since my father had died the previous year and my mother was still living in Pittsburgh.

Among the many things we shared, were many meals together. Most of you who knew Betty are probably aware of the many foods she wouldn’t eat as well as her allergies. As a matter of fact, my son Brian coined the phrase “picky Betty”. Not too long ago, when Al & Betty were at our house for dinner the subject of her food aversions came up and I couldn’t help myself and joked that when she met St. Peter at the gates of heaven she was going to tell him that she was allergic to halos and harps and clouds. Needless to say, we all laughed, but Al laughed the hardest of us all. All kidding aside, Betty, I feel pretty certain that there are no allergies in heaven. So now you can enjoy all the foods and flowers you could never enjoy on earth. Welcome to heavenly food & flower fest!You deserve it!

Thomas J. David

Hello, I am Terry Gladding.  I am the younger daughter.
Wow Mom, I bet you never thought you would  see me speaking from the front of a church.  You were right, miracles do still happen. 

Look at all these people here today.  You have touched them all in some way.

For one of my Dad's birthday's we all wrote on paper leaves why we appreciated him. Dad, I want you to know that I love and appreciate you for always lovng Mom and taking care of her in sickness and in health.

Mom, there are so many things I want to thank you for...

For all the times, even though your head was throbbing from a terrible migrane, you wanted me to come into your room so I would have company while watching Romper Room and Ding Dong School with Miss Francis.  Don't kids sometimes love the most irritating shows?  You were  always a good sport!

You told me many times that I was such a happy child and how much you loved that.  You deserved that time with me because it wasn't long before I taught you and Dad what having a teenager was really about.  I truely tested the boundries of your patience.  Thank you for letting me live to tell about it.

I always knew that no matter what, you weren't going to throw in the towel.  I know this kept me from crossing that fine line, or at least not too far.  I know it saved my life several times.

Well, we all survived but I wasn't done yet.  I had to go and move to the city of Chicago after college, and I know you worried about some of the areas I lived in. Really, they were not as dangerous as you thought.  Besides you taught me some valuable lessons on how to treat others and what to watch out for.  Yes, I was listening Mom.

I then got married and had a baby and thought all wouild be alright.  Alright that is, after you gave me many hours of your time to help me with a new baby boy, Christopher.  Thank you for all of your suppolrt when only seven months after he was born, I had to move from four miles away form you to Dallas, Texas.  How could I leave now?  How could I take that little baby so far away from you and Dad?  You were my lifeline. Thank you for supporting the move and helping me come to terms with it.  As you said, you knew from first hand experience, as you had done the same type of move yourself.  You made me feel that it was OK to go and you never made it about how hard it would be for you.  I know it was.

Thank you for allowing yourself to be held hostage in the bedroom of your three year old grandson, Christopher, so I could go to the hospital to spend some time and take care of the new grandson Bradley, who was just too impatient to wait another ten weeks to be born.  You spent a month taking care of us.  You even spent many more hours of being held captive, "Come play my room Gramma."  I will never forget how much we laughed every time you told tht story.  What a gift you gave us.  Memories more valuable than gold!

There was another month you and Dad spent in Texas in order to help me.  I know that was a hard one but we all came out closer and more understanding of each other.  Another gift of time you gave me and my family.

Thank you for being there every day in that freezing hospital room when I was the hospital last year.  You and Dad were such troopers spending every day and being my advocate.  Sorry, I really had not planned on that hospital stay, let alone 2 and 1/2 weeks of it.  Another month of your time spent taking care of me.  I really enjoyed the time spent with you and Dad and I sincerely hated to see you both leave.  It gave me a taste of what I had been missing for so many years.  Valuable time to spend with my Mom and Dad.

I have always been able to tell you just about anything.  I knew you would always listen with an open mind and heart.  I know you were always there for me, always!

When I was at the airport on my way to come for your Memorial, a man sat down by me and started up a conversation.  In a short time he had told me about his life, that his son had cancer and there was a place in northern Georgia that was like a spiritual retreat.  How he had been a social worker in LA, working in WATTS and of some of the hard things children were subjected to.  He got tears in his eyes and I shared why I was on my way to Atlanta.  I told him to think of all the joy he gave to so many children just by letting them know someone cared about them.  Then I had a split second where I wondered why he was telling me all of this and I envisioned you handing me your sign, "Doctor is in".  This always seemed to happen to you.  Thank you for teaching me the meaning of compassion.

Thank you for so many other things.  I hope I made you proud and I wish I could have been with you more.  Last Thanksgiving I remember telling Donna that I would be coming more often because I could see you were not well.  I am so glad I came back in June and spent some time with you.  Remember we made Chilie?  That was the last time I saw you Mom.  I didn't except you to pass on so soon.  I am sorry I did not make it in time to be with you and help Dad, Donna and Tom at the end.  I missed you by five days.  I am glad you didn't wait for me.  I remember telling you that I couldn't wait to get there to see you and you said the same but ended it with, "If I don't die before then."  So matter of factly.  I said  to just do whatever you needed and you said you would and you did very early the next morning.
 
I didn't make it in time for you but who knew about the gift you had waiting for me.  The gift was my father.  It was the best gift you could have left for me.  We had a great time together talking about you, laughing and weeping over things you  did  and how much we missed you.  We got lots of things accomplished.  If was a healing time for me and I felt closer to him than ever before.  As he said it was magical and I will cherish it for the rest of my life.

I want to read something for you DAD, that was in the Hospice booklet that really struck a choUrd with me.

Gone From My Sight

I am standing upon the seashore.  A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.  She is an object of beauty and strength.  I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says, "She is gone." "Gone where?"  Gone from my sight.  That is all.  She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side, and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.  Her diminished size is in me; not her.  And just at that moment when someone at my side says, "There, she is gone!", there are other voices ready to take up the  glad shout, "Here she comes!"

I want to thank you Dad, for calling Mom back from the tunnel the first time so that we could all have another 58 years with her.  I also want to thank you for safely guiding her down the path, not to a tunnel, but to the shore, helping her on the ship  with the white sails and letting her know it was safe to set sail.

I love you and miss you Mom, and yes, I am, still listening.

Next to speak is Donna David, Betty's older daughter.  

Well mom -the calm before the storm.  The family is coming in the next two days to celebrate your life.  What a family, huh?  

Wasn't it wonderful that Skip, Pam, Rick, Kendall and Lennon came to see us in Atlanta?  I remember how impressed you were that Lennon knew the word for your globe in the living room.  And your last trip was to Michigan to see all of them. Lennon tried to teach you how to use your i-phone.  "No, grandma, do this!"  You were so proud of Kendall's beautiful family. You thought Pam and SKip were such great grandparents and were so excited they were about to have a granddaughter.

I remember when I was going to Chicago and you told me to contact Ross. You and dad enjoyed so much connecting with him when you went to the meetings in Chicago. You said that he was so sensitive and smart and you thought we'd have a great time together. You were so right!

I wish I had a tape recording of all your comments about Ryan when you got back from Michigan this time.  You really thought the world of Penny.  She was just right for him.  You couldn't believe how amazing the house he built was. You were so thrilled that he was going to become a father.  When you saw him playing ball with Lennon, you thought what a good father he would be.

It was so scary that Terry got sick last year but how wonderful is it that you spent over a month taking care of her.  And she was just here for a week in June  - she just knew she should come and spend some time with you.  You know what a great job she did
being with dad when I was in Italy.  He said it was the best time he ever had with her.

You were so proud of Christopher and his persistance with getting his degree.  You told more stories about him as a little one than any of the grandchildren.  Love the one where he doesn't want to let you out of his room - you have to stay and play.  You loved it when he called dad just to talk about sailing.

I'll never forget when you got the letter from Bradley thanking you and dad for helping with his education.  You had me read the letter and bragged about how he was just as talented as a writer as he was an artist.  You kept the letter in the middle of the kitchen table for weeks.

How about Amy?  Isn't it wonderful how close she became to you and dad in the past few years?  I know how much it meant to you.  You loved it when she called and talked for an hour or more and you would catch me up on all her news.  Your "silly sister".
It meant the world to you that she became close to your kids and was helping them also.

That leaves Tom and I who are the lucky ones to have you here in Atlanta for so long.  Tom made many a great meal working around all your "picky" issues.  Not to mention that his chicken picata will live on in infamy!  So glad you got to see Brian grow up.  Weren't you proud of him that he stayed home from work the Monday after you passed to be with me?  He is the absolute best.

Well- not such a bad family, huh?  We will be celebrating you, Mom and all the wonderful memories and moments.  Hope we don't pull any of that "dysfunctional family" stuff.  We'll try to be on our best behavior. We'll be missing you every minute and I will miss you everyday from here on out.  But we'll be having lots more talks - you and I.        LOVE YOU,  Donna