Friday, September 2, 2022
EULOGY FOR JEAN E. REILLEY
I would like to share with you some thoughts and memories about the special person I knew as “Mom”. After I somehow volunteered to put together this eulogy, I reached out to my six siblings and their spouses for examples of how Mom touched their lives, so this is from all of us.
Jean Ellis O’Keeffe Hogan Reilley was born on October 14, 1930 and, no doubt, went straight to heaven on August 30, 2022. She was not born alone, of course, but was the first of the triplets to enter this world, soon followed by Joan and Jane. Having triplets born early in the Great Depression must have caused a depression in the O’Keeffe household. However, a little-known economic fact is that the birth of the triplets was the actual cause of the Great Depression throughout the entire country. At least that is what Mom was led to believe by her older brother Jamie who told the young triplets that when they asked him what was this “depression” that everyone was talking about.
Mom was a genuinely warm and caring person. Over the years, Mom met many of our friends at barbecues and dinners and afterwards, without fail, our friends would tell us how nice a person they found Mom to be. When Mike was handling the sale of Mom’s condo in Lebanon, various people from the community who knew Mom that he met during the process all mentioned what a kind and caring person Mom was. There was a long list of charities to which Mom regularly contributed.
Mom was caring even to the end. She always remembered to ask about Vatsala’s bad knees. Even when her diminishing memory couldn’t recall the body part, she still remembered to ask about something that she knew was bothering Vatsala.
Mom’s great frustration in the last year or so was her increasing loss of memory. However, she had always not been the best with remembering names (apparently, she passed that gene on to me, thanks Mom). When she was starting to scold one of us, a very rare occurrence of course, she would just start naming our names until she landed on the one she wanted, “Mike…Carol…Marty!” A notable instance of this practice was when she once looked straight at Brian and exclaimed “Tammy!” (who was our dog).
Mom loved talking about her past and her family. When visiting us on Long Island, would sit on the porch with Vatsala and recall raising five children on her own and the trouble she had to deal with, especially the four boys and of them, one in particular (who shall remain nameless). Conversations with Mom mostly were centered on her siblings, her children and her grandchildren. Even though we lived on Long Island, we knew what was happening with everybody in the family. She proudly relayed the news about the successes and accomplishments of all of us.
One of the physical activities Mom enjoyed doing was going for walks. It didn’t matter whether it was 90° or 9°. A foot of snow or a downpour would stop her though… after all, she was a very practical woman. She also enjoyed gardening, for obvious and not so obvious reasons. A few years ago, she let us into a little secret, that when she needed some alone time away from us kids, she would go out in the backyard and do some gardening, knowing that none of us would disturb her because if we did go out to bother her with some petty issue, she would put us to work weeding.
Mom had a very accepting and tolerant nature. When she married Butch, she also gained two more daughters with the addition of Reni and Mary to her family. Carol probably wished the reinforcements had come earlier to counter growing up with four brothers. Mom always said that it was a wonder that Carol still speaks to any of us. When Vatsala and I got married, Mom welcomed her with open arms into our family… even though she was not an Irish Catholic girl. Just as she welcomed Ann, Kurt, Lisa, Terry, John, Kevin and Steve.
Many have commented on what a strong and determined woman Mom was. Whatever she was faced with she dealt with and overcame. Over the many years of her life, she was presented with a number of major challenges that would have crushed some women. Being a single mother raising five children back then had to be difficult to say the least. In the end the five of us turned out alright.
Mom just loved spending time with her children. One such instance was when she took Brian for a weekend on a lake in the Poconos with Uncle Don and Aunt Nancy. Mom and Brian got up early one morning, took a rowboat and went fishing. Mind you, Brian had to put the worms on the hook but how many Moms would spend the early hours of day out in a rowboat fishing?
Mom was slow to anger, but on those very rare occasions when one of us kids did or said something that did raise her blood pressure, she wouldn’t yell and scream. Instead, her lips tightened and there was a sharp intake of breath with “the look”. A common comment from Mom whenever she got frustrated with our insolence was “I can’t wait for when your kids treat you like this, I am just going to sit back and laugh and laugh!”. As the seven of us blundered our way through raising Mom’s eleven grandchildren, she was rewarded with many opportunities to “laugh and laugh”. For the occasions when Mom needed to dispense some physical discipline, we soon learned it was tactically important to be on her side opposite to her hand with the diamond ring.
Mom enjoyed baking and we all greatly benefited from that passion. We all have wonderful memories of her baking, particularly chocolate chip cookies and scones, and filling the air with mouth-watering smells from the kitchen, and of her teaching the grandchildren how to carry on the tradition.
Mom’s top three priorities in life were family, family and family. She was never happier than being present at a family gathering. Without fail, she would always be the first one who showed up so as not to miss a minute. I suspect her favorite such event was her annual fall pumpkin picking get together for all the grandchildren.
