One year ago today my beautiful, happy, loving mom passed away in my arms. I found what I wrote and never shared last year about clouds, faces and memories.

“It's been two weeks since my mom passed. Each day I find myself looking up at the billowy white clouds that fill the summer New England sky ...rising above the corn fields, red barns with silver silos, quiet clear lakes and rolling green hills.

I started seeing her face in the clouds the day she passed as I drove back from the Hospital in Albany along Otsego Lake in Cooperstown. Each day I return my eyes to the clouds and see her again. Her face remains only for a moment and then there is no similarity...I shift my eyes to another cloud formation hoping to find her once more.

For me I feel some need to write today about what I've uncovered or rediscovered as I've been packing up her life these last two weeks.

Mom raised the three of us with little help as dad worked full time at the bank and flew 2-3 weekends with the air national guard to bring in money to buy our first house and to support us. Though mom had her masters and had taught high school for years she gave that up to raise us and had no immediate family nearby. My Grandmother and Great Aunt Ruth traveled to help my mom with us as much as possible, which was a lot.

What I uncovered this week has allowed me a window to understand and love her all over again. She collected. Not things like tea cups or thimbles but words and pictures. Every swim ribbon I and my siblings ever earned ("most improved" even) she saved. Every postcards from our travels and work around the world, every card or newspaper article. She did the same for my dad who was on the Federal Reserve Board, CEO of the bank, and on many boards and committees. She kept every article and award along with every card or note he ever wrote her

My mom didn't just do this for us; she did it for her many friends and committees. She took photos of every occasion. She captured every event with little disposable cameras, had printed photos made and copied, and sent them to everyone before creating photo albums and story boards.

Over the last year when they moved into an independent living condo she spent days each week returning to our big house, going through a full attic, closets, rooms and basements to sort through these memories and I supposed eventually do something with them. I don’t think she could bear to throw them out. She's written notes as she consolidated them and organized them…I guess now for me. It was like mom had captured the stories for everyone she cared about and every organization she was involved in. 40 years of book club reads and notes, AAUW, YMCA, school board, Executive Service Core, catholic charities, tennis club, COH (her Conversations on Health Group created 20 years ago) and on and on.

Though I had to recycle many of these collections it gave me peace to know that she had been able to relive her life this past year, and that I was able to relive my life, her life, and my families life through her love of collecting life.

I did keep some collections of hers that I hope over time, I’ll make time to savor, read, reconnect and cherish. One of these is her adventure with her girlfriend to Europe on the French Line just before she married my dad. She kept every menu and map, wrote extensive postcards, letters and journals every day telling fun stories of the people they met, the food and cultural experiences, and her audience with the Pope. “

I still look for her in the clouds every day and sometimes see her, peaceful and beautiful as always

It's the first Christmas without Mom. I wanted to capture my feelings and tears this morning.

Mom loved Christmas...she loved giving, tradition, family, and celebration. She was also one of the only people who looked good in Christmas sweaters ;-)

Mom spent the year gathering small gifts she found at craft fairs and little shops. Sometimes she knew who they were for, but often she bought them because she knew she would like to give them to someone. To a friend, a colleague, a relative. She never arrived anywhere without a small, thoughtful gift.

I spent many Christmas away due to working in a ski area. I didn't always appreciate the gifts and cards that were sent. As we started gathering together as a family again over the last decade I always struggled between not wanting to share gifts that weren't perfect, and never knowing what was a perfect gift. It was always more enjoyable for me to give, rather than open a gift.

Each Christmas Eve, and then again Christmas Day, mom would be tucked in her bedroom or a corner room wrapping all sorts of gifts for everyone and filling stockings. As we opened them on Christmas Day, one at a time in turns, she would see that someone was not going to have as many as another, and she would sneak off and bring back another gift for that person...which "she had forgotten".

Last year we were all together in Boulder. We'd been so fortunate that Mom and Dad had come out for 3 weeks so we had time before and after the rest of the family came to spend alone time. Mom loved Boulder. She loved walking Mila around the neighborhood, walking down to Ideal Market and spending time in the Whole Body aisles looking at supplements and talking to people that knew about health and wellness. She loved walking down to Pearl Street to see the lights and shop in the stores. She loved just walking everywhere without having to know where she was going.

Mom and I started a tradition in Colorado of going out the days after Christmas to shop together for each other. We'd go into Lucy or LuLu Lemon and other stores, trying on clothes together, then buying them for each other. Last year we found the same shirt we loved, in the same color, and bought it for each other along with yoga pants, light gloves and fun wool socks.

We also shared this quirky frugal love for sample sized cosmetics. Mom realized years ago how much I enjoyed the "free samples" she got when she purchased Clinique so would save them up for the year and it was my favorite Christmas or Birthday present.

The Christmas Tree was such an important part of our traditions that this year I couldn't do it. I have boxes of special ornaments, carefully chosen for me each year based on what my hobbies were, then special ones for Jazz or Mila, and special ones for Keith. I wish now we'd gotten one as it makes me sad not to have them out.

I miss mom so much today. Dora (our new puppy) and I will go for a walk together and I'll tell her about Mom.

Merry Christmas Mom.

I was blessed to be able to deliver a eulogy for my mom at her Funeral Mass on November 29, 2014 at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Oneonta, NY. I wanted to post it here to make it part of this ongoing tribute. I'll make a few modifications to change references specific to that day. I'll also include the Gospel reading we used since I reference it.

~~~

Gospel: John 17:24-26

Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said: "Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Righteous Father, the world also does not know you, but I know you, and they know that you sent me. I made known to them your name and I will make it known, that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them."

~~~

On behalf of my family I’d like to thank you. Thank you for the outpouring of love and support you’ve given us. Thank you for being in my mom’s life.

While I know you have no doubt, let me just state that my mom loved you. She loved being a part of this community of Oneonta, of this parish of St. Mary’s, of all the organizations and small groups and clubs. She loved you all family and friends. She loved being a part of your life.

It’s wonderful to gather around Thanksgiving to celebrate her life. I know how much we’ve all been reflecting on how thankful we are to have had mom in our lives. I know because you’ve written our family so many beautiful thoughts and notes. My mom was special, and we all knew it whether we met her once or knew her our entire lives. What made mom special is difficult to summarize, but, for me, I go back to our Gospel reading today. God’s love was in her and she shared that love freely with us.

I’d like to share some personal thoughts on how God’s love touched me through mom, and I’d like you to invite you to do the same so that we can share those thoughts on this website and with each other.

The greatest gift we receive from God is life, and Jesus came so that we can live that life fully now and evermore. My mom shared this love by teaching me to live life fully. One of my favorite memories from my childhood involve my dad driving the boat and my mom on the waterskis. Mom was not a daredevil or a thrill seeker, she was a person who saw something that looked fun and said, I’ll give it a try. She taught me that life is about enjoying our time together, the joy of the opportunities we’re given, and about wonders that we find around every corner.

In my teenage years, I’m sad to admit, I didn’t understand my mom at all. I’d come home from school, and she would have a million questions about my day. She seemed to mistakenly think that my life was far more interesting than it actually was. What I came to realize was that mom didn’t see my life as I did. Mom saw possibility and potential in me long before I was able to see it for myself. Like God, my mom was loving me into the person I was created to be. She never settled for the limits of my imagination.

As I moved out into the world, I learned that God’s love and my mom’s love is not limited by time and space. God loves each one of us individually in every moment, and it is that love that literally holds us in existence. My mom shared that love by letting me know that she was always remembering me and loving me. How many of us received a handwritten note or a newspaper clipping that my mom sent just because she was thinking of us. She cherished every relationship, when you were apart you knew you were not forgotten; when you were together, you knew there was no where else she wanted to be.

My mom’s love for us was expressed in service, living the example of love that Jesus gave us when he washed the feet of his disciples. My mom’s service was a quiet service, not seeking recognition or reward. Whether it was driving us kids around town for countless activities, or making dad a smoothy, or planning a family reunion, or making a dish for the bereavement committee, or working for the Executive Service Corp, or gathering her book club. We were all on the receiving end of her service. It was a service that drew us in, made us feel at home, made us feel valued, made us feel special. It was a service that built family and community. A service that bound us together in love.

My mom accomplished all that she did with a spirt of grace, gentleness, and genuineness that is only fathomable in the presence of Divine Love. If we face the questions of life and death, if we wonder about the reason for all that we go through, if we seek a purpose for being, it is to learn to love. Thank you mom for being our teacher, and for always loving us into being. I know that your love comes from the same love that conquered death and lives on with our God who is Love. 

Each of you were touched by my mom’s love is ways that I’ve captured and in so many ways that I haven’t. We invite you to share your thoughts on how you experienced God’s love through mom on this website. We also invite you to find ways to continue to live that love in thanksgiving for the gift of love that she shared with you. Thank you for celebrating a life full of love.

Joan has always been a firm believer of giving back and making a difference in the lives of others and the community.  We remember Joan at the Oneonta Family YMCA as someone who believed in and supported the vision of the YMCA to always be here for our community.  Joan assisted the Oneonta YMCA in many ways over the years and we are eternally grateful for her support and dedication.  The photo shows Joan at our Heritage Luncheons in 2008.

It was a pleasure to have in attendance of our events and promotions and she always made one feel at ease and comfortable.  She will be greatly missed. 

With our respects,
Kelly Morrissey
Frank Russo
 

Joan was my favorite female cousin.  How I loved her!  How I loved her "hand me down clothes"!  How I loved it when she visited our home at 116 Appleton Ave. in Pittsfield, Mass.  How I loved it when she came with us to Bayside, Long Island, and we went to Jones Beach every day!  How I loved it when she taught me "Bell Bottom Trousers Suit of Navy Blue" and we would sing it together!  I was, afterall, 6 years younger than Joan and she was such an inspiring role model for me. How I remember her healthy appetite for my Mom's goulash (hamburger, onions, green peppers, tomaot sauce, and penne pasta)! How I remember her dark hair and blue eyes which were always so full of life and vitality.  How I remember her beauty in every sense of the word.  

Joan, I will miss you.

 

My very kind and beautiful  mother-in-law passed away on Monday following a brief illness.  It is hard to believe; we saw her just four weeks ago when we went back for a visit, and all of this is so unexpected and awful.  I want to pay tribute to her here, though I write this knowing that anything I write pales in comparison to the lovely soul she was.  But I am going to try.

If you spent even five minutes in Joan's company, you could tell that she was a class act.  Even better, Joan was class plus kindness.  Even though she was beautiful and gracious and stylish and well-read and intelligent, she did not have a snobbish bone in her body.  She was warm and loving and humble and real.  I've known her for thirteen years, and I don't think I have ever heard her say a bad word about anyone.

From the first time I met her, she welcomed me and made me feel so at home.  I've never been able to relate to mother-in-law jokes, not even in the slightest, because she was the polar opposite of the stereotypical overbearing force.  She was comforting, thoughtful, quietly encouraging.

Joan also wrote cards rather than emails, something that is increasingly rare these days.  It is hard to think that there will not be anymore of those, written in her neat cursive, in our mailbox.  They were always very newsy, full of information about what she and Bob were up to, which was usually a lot; she was very active in volunteer organizations of different kinds in the community, and her absence will be felt by more than just her family and close friends.  She was the epitome of a civic-minded person whose involvement was driven not by a need for personal accolades, but purely by a love of the community of Oneonta, New York, where she lived.

She was such a terrific grandmother, too, whether she was sending cards for the boys for holidays or playing endless rounds of tic-tac-toe with Matthew  (she lost with much better grace than her young grandson did).  When we visited them in New York he loved to play badminton with her, and it's not every woman in her late seventies who can keep up with a kid's boundless energy.  She loved the boys so much, and I am grateful for the memories we have:  for the photos of them sitting on either side of Grandma as she reads a bedtime story, for the times we rented boats and spent an afternoon enjoying the rocky wooded beauty of Otsego Lake, for the joy in her faces when she saw each of her young grandsons for the first time.

I was looking around the house the other day and thinking about all of the gifts Joan has given me over the years.  There is the small pewter angel, the plaque saying "How Does Your Garden Grow?" (she knew I loved gardening), the Hummel figurine she gave us when Matthew was born, so many sweet and thoughtful things.

Then I thought about the best gift she gave me.  That gift is Scott.    So much of the person he is comes from his mom.  It's a gift not just to me, but to everyone who knows him, who encounters the gentle strength that he learned in large part from her.  A great mother is a beautiful, powerful thing.

These past few days, the idea of the communion of saints has been such a comfort. When my friend Mary died, I got such solace from picturing her up in heaven, still her wonderful self, only healed from the illness that she suffered.  I feel the same way about Joan.  I have no doubt that she continues to care for and love us, only this time from a perch in heaven, where there is no such thing as illness and where her body and strength are restored to badminton-playing levels.

The other day, when I told the boys that Grandma Joan had died, Matthew wanted to know what she was doing now.  I told her she was arriving in heaven, and that people she loved were probably running out to greet her.  I like to picture her being welcomed by her parents and her brother Jerry, and other friends and family who went before her, so overjoyed to be with her again.

Those of us here will miss her terribly.  But somehow it helps to think of her still surrounded by love, by people who love her, and to know that her love reaches out to us still as we navigate this new world without her.

And these words help me, too:

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: "There, 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 in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says "There, she is gone," there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout "Here she comes!" 

  -- Henry Van Dyke

I love you, Joan.  Thank you for everything.

Each year, commencement celebrations included Rose Day. The Court were members of the junior class. The 1955 Rose QueenCourt consisted of (seated, l to r): Kathleen Scanlon, Ruth Brady, Barbara Smith and (standing, l to r): Nancy Bremer, HelenMcDonald, Joan Fallon, Margarette Retter, Constance Keating, and Eileen McNamee.

Bob:

Although you already know that Joan was one of the most special women I ever had the honor to know and work with, I need to let you know that her gentle approach to serving on committees and Boards have infected me!

I remember when we were searching for good community minded members for FOF and I submitted Joan’s name.  At the time, everyone knew her, but few KNEW her!

It didn’t take long to see how involved and committed she was to the Oneonta community.

 She was involved in so many Oneonta activities and associations that her comments many times changed attitudes in making financial commitments. She had a gentle way of saying no and everyone trusted her judgment.

I always admired the fact that she actually followed thru with what she volunteered to do.  So many organizations have the “I will do this” volunteers dropping the ball. I am like Joan and do not say yes if I can’t perform. There were many times when a Board member failed to complete their promise and she volunteered to finish the job.

Joan was also the “Gentle Persuader” when she had a cause or group she strongly believed in.  Her enthusiasm and deep understanding of what she was proposing won the day with every proposal I remember she presented.  Who could turn down Joan Moyer anyway!

We really missed her when she resigned from the Board after many years. We lost the personal touch when making decisions for support that Joan mastered every time.

I always admired the partnership the two of you had. Both of you “fit together” perfectly and teamed together in many activities.

Both of you obviously loved Oneonta, FOF and especially Hartwick College.  The donations and commitments you made to many organizations gave many Boards comfort in the future.

I never spend time bemoaning the loss of a friend.  I prefer to honor their life by following some of the trails they created for us to follow. Very few people cleared more trails than Joan and Bob Moyer and I am humbled by what the two of you did in your decades of marriage.

I will miss Joan, but will never forget her and always use her spirit as a guiding force for Geoff!

You have my deepest sympathy along with your family. All of you should be proud to have such a special woman as a Mom and wife.

I apologize for using email, but I knew a letter would take more time and I would never be able to fully express my respect for Joan and you.

Warm regards, Bob and Family

Geoff

President

Medical Coaches Incorporate