Funeral Homily for Dorothy VerEecke
Robert VerEecke, S.J.
Sparkles! Sparkles! Sparkles! Everywhere!
I’m sure many of you here today for Mom’s funeral would have no idea why
I begin this morning’s homily with the word “sparkles” . But I’m sure my
family who gathered to celebrate my mother’s 90th birthday 10 years ago
know why. My mother wanted the family to come to Boston College where
I’m Pastor at St Ignatius Church to celebrate a Mass for her 90 th . Her only
request was that I would deliver the homily that I would use for her funeral
liturgy because she didn’t want to miss hearing it when the day comes. At
90, she had repaved her driveway herself, had renewed her driver’s license
for the next 10 years, danced and did tai chi. So it’s not surprising that this
family gathering is almost 10 years later.
10 years ago, I began the homily for mom’s 90 th singing, “Now is the hour,
when we must say goodbye/Soon you’ll be sailing far across the sea/While
you're away, oh, then remember me/When you return, you’ll find me waitng
here.”
My Mom and Dad would sing that as a duet and I can still hear their voices
in close harmony. In fact, my Mom and Dad were always singing love
duets: “We could make believe”, “Why do I love you”, “So in love”,
“People will say we’re in love”…
And now is the hour when we come to say goodbye. But the woman we
celebrate today was not just “so in love” with her husband Richard, a mother
of five boys, grandmother, great-grandmother and an all-around great
person. We celebrate a woman of faith, a daily communicant for most of her
life, either here at Our Lady of Victory or at St. Hedwig’s, a woman with a
strong devotion to Mary.
So the first two scriptures you heard were the same that we heard 10 years
ago for Mom’s 90th. The Gospel I changed since it was, “Whoever loves
father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” I didn’t think today
was the day for that one! So my friend of 48 years, Fr. J.A., mom’s 6th son,
suggested the wedding feast of Cana, where Mary the mother of Jesus pays
no attention to her son and just gives orders. I can hear Mom’s voice in
Mary’s words: Now Rich, dear, now Bill, dear, now Bob, dear, now Tom,
dear, now Peter, dear… just do it.
Listening to the scriptures then and now, I am struck by how the themes
within them resonate with my mother’s life. In the reading from the Book of
Kings, the Shunemite woman opens her home and her hospitality to the
prophet Elisha. She not only invites him to dinner but provides a place and a
space for him. I don’t know what the Hebrew is for “Mi casa es tu casa” but
her hospitality is complete. I couldn’t help thinking about my mother’s
hospitality in the light of the Shunemite woman. There is nothing more that
my mother loved than entertaining, whether at the table for a meal with
guests of all kinds, or entertaining us all with the “Charleston”, in full
flapper regalia.
My mother is renowned for her taking over in the kitchen wherever she is
visiting. As I told her for the visit to Boston she made 10 years ago, there
was no need to pack her suitcase with food from Floral Park, and of course
she said she wouldn’t. When I picked up the suitcase, it weighed a ton and I
knew she had brought the store with her. From applesauce to muffin tins, it
was all there. My mother, like the Shunemite woman, simply loves to serve
and to wait on others.
And like the Shunemite woman, she would say that she has received her
reward. For Mom, it was not one son but five sons and their wives, partners
and long-time companions, 12 grandchildren and their wives and partners,
six great-grandchildren . And of course a husband who adored her (even if
she tells me that my father once responded “You should only adore God”
when she had said she adored my father. But my father obviously adored
her too.)
There have been many lessons in love that her family has learned from
Dorothy Roggy VerEecke. The most important, I think, was when my Dad
was sharing in the cross of Christ for five years in a nursing home, a mere
shadow of his former self. Mom would visit, feed, sing, talk, caress, anoint
his body with the oil of her love. There was no reward, no return for loving
this way, except the reward of simply loving.
Fortunately for the four brothers who lived far enough away from Mom to
only ocassionaly see her in the nursing home, Mom received the same care
that she gave my father in her final years through the incredible devotion of
Peter, Patty, Kathleen and Ryan. They would visit, feed, sing, talk, caress,
anoint her with their love. A special word of profound gratitude to Patti
Henry VerEecke, who cared for mom as a beloved daughter.
I knew all along that it would be an impossible dream to give a funeral
homily when Mom was so much alive. It’s not much easier today. But even
her request was really very theological. It echoes in fact what St. Paul says
in today’s second reading and that we hear on Easter night and that we heard
10 years ago: “Are you not aware that we who are baptized in Christ have
been baptized into his death?” We all are in fact already “dead”. We have
already gone into the grave and been raised with Christ. Even now. Now is
the hour. For those who believe in Christ’s death and resurrection and who
share in it, even now they have died and are living in newness of life.
Sparkles! I never told you why! As it turned out, when Mom left Boston
after her 90th birthday, everywhere she sat she had left sparkles from her JC
Penney dress. Glitter, sparkles, in the pew where she sat, in the carseat, in
the chair where she sat and presided for her party. Like the sparkling wine
from water at the feast of Cana, mom sparkled throughout her life and left
those traces of sparkle in each of her boys, her grandchildren and great
grandchildren.
10 years ago as a gift to mom after the homily, my dear friends, Jamie and
Nicole danced a lovely duet, the Covenant Hymn, that is really more about
divine love than it is about human love. Paul Melley sang the song. Paul
has written a song that is similar: “Set me as a seal. For love is stronger than
death.” I’ve asked him to sing it now as a gift for my Mom and Dad whose
love gave life to so many here.
Before he does, one more word: The day that Mom died I had a vision of
Dad welcoming Mom and greeting Mom in God’s kingdom and they were
singing those love duets that all of us know so well. Echoing what
Stephanie, Mom’s grandaughter said last night, I can her my father saying to
his beloved wife: Darling, welcome home!