Goodbye.

Brenda Patrick Cook. Mom. 1941-2019

Those of you who follow me on social media will already know that my mother passed away almost two weeks ago. This past Sunday we held a memorial service. Several of Mom’s old friends or relatives (they’re all old now, truth be told) turned up at a tiny church in New Waverly, Texas, run by a pastor whose attitudes toward modernity clearly have not changed since the Civil War. I confess that, while many of these kindly folks walked up and embraced me, telling me that I had not changed in looks since I was a boy (I thought religious people frowned upon falsehood?), I recognized almost none of them. I would invariably have to wait for them to give me some sort of contextual foothold (“I worked with your Momma at the Sheriff’s Office;” “I’m your Momma’s third cousin on the Patrick side.”), after which I would employ my skills as an actor of some minor repute, feigning shock and delight at our reunion, albeit under such sad circumstances. The truth is, almost all of them were strangers to me. The other truth is, I adored every single one of them for their willingness to grieve with me at the loss of my mom.

I was – no great surprise here – asked by my siblings and my step-father to deliver the eulogy. I wrote a first draft, in which I said some things that, while honest, upon reflection had no place in a eulogy. And I did manage to refrain from my customary saltiness with the language – which is to say I refrained from uttering the word “fuck” at my mom’s memorial service. But the real surprise was my sister, Larenda. At the last minute she decided that she also needed to say some things about Mom. She was moving, and funny, and sweet, and I daresay she could make a go of it as a public speaker, if her current career suddenly went away. And had that been the end of it – had we been allowed to deliver our heartfelt words about our mother to an audience of people who knew her well, and loved her – I think it would have been about as honorable and genuine a send-off as one could hope to give.

But the other fucking shoe had to drop.

Remember that pastor I mentioned? This pompous old geezer was as easy to read as a Stephen King novel, and far less interesting. When he finally began his remarks, two things became immediately apparent, hopefully not just to me: 1) he didn’t know my mom at all, and 2) he spent twenty minutes trying to out-speak my sister and me. As if we were at an oratory competition, instead of grieving my dead mother. Whereas Larenda and I had spent a little time telling stories about Mom, stories that give her life still, this obtuse windbag launched immediately into a theme that could be best summed up by an illiterate three year-old: heaven is good. Hell is bad. As he wandered back and forth across the tiny platform, making the most puerile arguments in defense of his beliefs, mentioning my mother (when he remembered to do it at all) as though she were a concept instead of a loved one, my daughter had to literally tighten her grip on my arm, believing, probably not without justification, that I was either about to rise up and forcefully remind him to leave the fucking sermon at home, we’re here to talk about Mom, or just thump him. 

Eventually his barking ended, heads were bowed, a prayer was offered, and we were dismissed. I found I didn’t want to run straight out of the place, as I thought I might, but really wanted to have just a few moments with each of those strangers, those well-wishers and Mom’s fellow travelers. I wanted their stories about Mom. I would have preferred an old-fashioned Irish wake, where everyone present told their stories about Mom in turn, we all drank and sang songs for three days straight, and there would have been at least one fist fight. But those were my desires, not Mom’s, and Mom was nothing if not proper. Right up until the end, when she was bed-ridden, barley able to move or speak, she still insisted that her hair dresser of over twenty years come out to the house and perform her monthly artistry on Mom’s head. Bedridden and dying, yes. But she was damned if she was going to walk out of this life without a proper coif. A lady must have standards.

I did not get to see the final results of her hairdresser’s talent, because Mom was ever practical. Before she lost most of her mental faculties, she had requested, upon her death, to be cremated. She knew she was wasting away, and she didn’t want that emaciated carapace on display at her service. She wanted her friends and family to remember her in her prime, the woman who was unceasingly smiling (even in her most painful moments, a trait it took me decades to appreciate), with the easy laugh and the eye-twinkle; the woman who never met a stranger, the country girl who never tried to rid herself of her Texas twang. My sisters collected a mountain of photographs to display at her memorial, images I hadn’t seen in 30 years or longer. 

And there was mom. In those pictures, those little captured moments, were the stories that made the life that was Brenda Patrick Cook. I hadn’t planned on it, but it seems appropriate to close this one off with the last paragraph of the eulogy I wrote for her:

“You see? Stories. These are the things a life is made of. And this is why Mom is only gone in the most immediate, most inconsequential sense. Everyone here has stories about Mom. And as long as you have them, you have HER. Remember that. As long as you have them, you have HER.”