Blanche Millar

I am attaching the eulogy I delivered for my Mom, so you have an idea of just who she was, and what we lost. She was diagnosed in 2010, although we’re not even sure that was a correct assessment. Because she had no other health issues, she went the full distance, eventually forgetting everything, including how to swallow. She was unable to speak for the last 5 1/2 years of her life, unable to walk, use her hands or arms, and eat or drink anything except pureed food and honey thickness liquids for over 4, and bedridden on an air mattress for over 3 years. I spent six hours a day at her side every day at the care facility, feeding her and keeping her clean and comfortable, since the place didn’t have enough staff for her weakened condition and moving her would have been too disorienting. We hired a private aide to feed her breakfast and bed bathe her every morning as well. Caring for her was the most important thing I have ever done in my life, and I regret absolutely nothing. It was an honor and a privilege to walk by her side when she needed someone most, especially since she had been there for others all of her life.

Blanche Millar spent her whole life putting herself last. Well Mom, today you’re finally first! And what a “first” it must be…more beautiful than we can ever imagine!
Mom was my first, best, and favorite teacher. I can remember that, when I was very little, she played spelling games with me while she changed my brothers’ diapers. That’s how she taught me how to read. She taught me to read music so I could play real songs on my little toy piano. She taught me my prayers, including the rosary. She taught me how to sew and cook, and was the queen of both house cleaning and laundry stain removal. She taught me to drive when Dad gave up in frustration. She taught me to be a strong woman. Mom taught me something new every day, right up to the end. There’s a lovely quote from the Sherlock BBC series in which John Watson says this of his late wife, and I think it very much applies to Mom as well: “She taught me to become the person she thought I already was.”
Blanche Millar was the most selfless, most generous person I have ever known. I’m sure many of you present already know that…and were touched, in one way or another, by her kindness, her generosity, and her unconditional love over the years. Mom raised up everyone she came in contact with, by her words, her deeds, and most importantly, by her example. She not only professed her faith…she lived it, every day of her life. This is the legacy she now leaves us.

Mom was born in September of 1929, a month before the Stock Market crash that triggered the Great Depression. Like many other families, hers went through incredibly difficult times. And then, just after she turned twelve, Pearl Harbor was bombed and America entered World War II, which brought about still more difficult times. I think the uncertainties of her childhood are part of what made her so incredibly strong, so resilient, and so helpful to others. I also believe that, like many of their generation, both Mom and Dad worked extra hard to make sure their children wouldn’t have to go through the hard times that they themselves had experienced.
When Mom had to fill out a form that had a line listed as “occupation,” she never wrote “housewife.” She always wrote “HOMEMAKER,” which speaks volumes as to how she viewed her role in life. Daddy built our house, but it was Mom who made it our home.

Each one of her children – John, Jeff and myself – experienced serious health issues as youngsters, and although she wasn’t a medical professional, Mom worked in tandem with our family doctor, following his instructions to the letter, to pull us through every time.

When Dad developed health problems later in life, she was largely responsible for his care as well, and working side-by-side with his doctor, kept him so healthy that he was with us an additional twelve happy years.

No one loved little kids as much as Mom did, and she was a doting grandma of five. Sadly, her three great-grandchildren were born around, and after, the time when her illness progressed, and she never got the chance to re-experience grandmotherhood with them.

For a rather diminutive person, Mom sure had a huge wingspan. Many of you are here today in tribute to her, because you were sheltered by that wingspan at one time or another, and in one way or another.

Mom always made our friends part of our extended family, and there was always room for everyone at her table.

When we were kids, she volunteered as a school librarian and as a lunchroom monitor. As a founding member of this parish, she worked as a volunteer with the Rosary Society, helping to establish a library at a school in Paterson, and also praying the Rosary at three area nursing homes on a weekly basis – one of which, ironically, morphed into the facility where she spent her declining years.

She was always there for family, friends, and neighbors alike – the words “No,” or “I’m too busy” were never part of Mom’s vocabulary. And Mom never waited to be asked. She always instinctively knew what to do – and she rose to the occasion like no one else I’ve ever known. Throughout her life, Mom “testified to love,” as the song says. She was truly “a witness in the silences, when words are not enough.”

I’d like to share with you a story about the first time I distinctly recall seeing my Mom in action outside of our family. I was eight years old at the time, and it had such a profound effect on me that I recall it just like it was yesterday:

It was the afternoon of October 10, 1963 – just over a month before President Kennedy died – when one of the families in our neighborhood experienced a tragedy which traumatized all of us — kids and adults alike. That was the day that the house directly across the street from us was gutted by a fire. The father of the family was at work in New York City, and the mother had taken her oldest daughter and the baby girl to a Girl Scout meeting over at what was then the Lions Head Lake Clubhouse. The boy of the family put up a fuss and didn’t want to do “girly stuff,” so he was home alone when the house caught fire. Mom was the one who initially spotted the flames melting their living room picture window, and called the fire department, as one of the other neighborhood mothers – the wife of a firefighter – pulled the boy to safety. Somehow, the boy ended up in our living room. I had been two doors down, feeding the neighbor’s guinea pigs. As the fire trucks arrived, I made my way home to Mom, who had sent word to the Clubhouse for the boy’s mother, as he lay on our living room couch. And it was from then on that day that I really learned how huge Mom’s wingspan was.

The first thing she did was close the drapes so the boy wouldn’t see how bad the fire had gotten.
She had these little homeopathic pills – Dr. Humphrey’s #28s – that she gave us if we woke up anxious from a nightmare and couldn’t go back to sleep – that contained some sort of herbal sedative. She gave them to the frightened little boy to calm him down.

When Mom found out that one of the well-meaning neighbors had called the father of the family at work in New York City and told him “You have to come home – your house burned down,” she was very upset! She said he should have been told simply that there was an emergency – his family was OK, but he was needed at home. By the time Dad got home from work, she had decided that they would go and meet the man’s train at the station and drive him home so he wouldn’t risk being in a car accident because of the trauma he was undoubtedly going through. I distinctly recall the cars pulling up – Dad driving their car, Mom with the gentleman in the passenger seat of our car — and the family tearfully reuniting on our front sidewalk.

By that evening, Mom had come up with another idea. Mom knew the family would have to relocate for a while until the insurance was sorted out and the house was eventually rebuilt – and she knew the kids were not particularly good students. She empathized with that – as a child, she was sick for a year and had to repeat a grade because she missed a lot of school. She was determined that it wouldn’t happen to those kids. She decided that I would share my room with the older daughter, and since my brothers already shared a room, Mom persuaded another neighbor to take in their son. The baby stayed with her parents.

Now, as a sidebar, as the only girl, whenever our family went anywhere that we had to stay overnight, my parents shared a bed, my younger brothers shared a bed, and I got: THE ARMY COT…which for those of you who are unfamiliar, is a piece of canvas too heavy to use as sail, with a wooden frame and metal hinges…and it’s got to be among the most uncomfortable sleeping arrangements of all time. I really hated that thing. And every time Dad packed the car for a family trip, I dreaded seeing it among the stuff going into the trunk, because I knew I would have to sleep on it. Well…as you might expect, Mom had Dad get out the cot and set it up in my bedroom. I thought at first it was for our guest to sleep on. So, when Mom told me that I would be using it, I got very angry, and said it was bad enough I had to sleep on it when we were away, but why did I have to sleep on it in my OWN BEDROOM?

Mom got down on one knee, put her hands on my shoulders, looked at me with those incredible dark brown eyes and those beautifully long eyelashes, and said, “Kathy, she doesn’t have a bed anymore.” That was the very first time that I remember Mom’s simple but profound way of putting something, changing my entire way of thinking. It certainly wasn’t the last, but it made such an impact — and it taught me just who Mom was – that I never, ever forgot it. I said, “Oh…well…that’s OK then,” and she hugged me, smiled, and said, “I knew it would be.”

We really didn’t speak of that incident very much over the years, and never more than in passing – but that really stuck with me. And I hope that when you remember Mom, it will stick with you, too. That’s who Blanche Millar was – a kind, thoughtful, wonderful lady who we were extremely lucky to call “Mom.” – Kathy Millar