Last night’s pot roast had me in memory mode all day today. Omie (my mom’s mom), made the most delectable pot roast. A roast cooked in the oven, just isn’t the same. My mom tried many times over the years to pull off a pot roast like Omie’s, and she failed in every attempt. I have vivid memories of my dad upsetting my mother with his joking around about how he married her thinking she would make pot roast like Omie, and clearly this was not happening.
Omie didn’t pass on the pot roast making ability to me either. Actually, the only recipe that I have from her is the chocolate chip cookie recipe, and that is something we developed together. After her surgery from her breast cancer, she couldn’t do much, and laying around not getting things done didn’t suit her, so we baked cookies together. Initially, we tried making lots of different kinds of cookies, and eventually we focused our energy on the perfect chocolate chip cookie. We tried lots of different things, and I feel that we perfected it. It has been way too long since I baked cookies.
Instead of family recipes Omie passed on to me ideas that were way ahead of her own generation, especially in the rural area that we grew up in. She believed that people were the same regardless of the color of their skin, their last name or how much money they made. She believed that a woman should be strong, and that she should be able to make a life for herself without a man.
She fought breast cancer for over a year with a positive attitude and a passion for life. The same kind of cancer that gave me my life back took her life away.
I spoke at her funeral. I guess that you can say that I gave her unplanned eulogy.
I was only 16 when she died. A few months before she died, I was sitting in my English class without my glasses on, and I misread the assignment on the board. The topic of the writing assignment was – The Strangest Person that I have Ever Known. I thought that the “a” was an “o”, so I wrote about Omie – The Strongest Person that I have Ever Known. The cancer took her a very short time later. My mother was devastated. She felt as if the rest of us did not feel her pain, so I showed her my essay to help her understand that I shared her grief, but while I have always been able to write down my thoughts eloquently and concisely, I am usually ineffective at verbal communication.
My mother in turn, shared the essay with the rest of the family. I remember walking into Omie’s house to find a xeroxed copy of it on the kitchen island. I remember my face turning red. I never shared anything that I wrote with anyone other than my English teacher, who is to this day one of the most trusted confidants that I have ever had. The situation got worse later that morning as I walked into the church for Omie’s funeral, the pastor conducting the service met me in the foyer, and he asked that I read the essay during the funeral service.
The final measure of respect for a person that dies in a small town is the head count at their funeral. Our church seated several hundred, and it was standing room only, with people lined up outside as well. Public speaking, grief, and my own thoughts to be shared with about five hundred people. The last time that I had stood up in my church in front of everyone was in eighth grade at my confirmation, and I had fainted.
It has been more 20 years now, and I vaguely remember getting up to read my essay that day at Omie’s funeral, but I know that I managed, and I felt strong that day.
What I do remember vividly is my frail little Omie sick with cancer. I know she would hate that my memories are painted with these days because what she thought I saw was her sick, without hair and not beautiful. What I really saw fills me strength to this day; what I saw was the The Strongest Person that I have Ever Known.