Ashley’s Eulogy for Sarah
“How lucky am I that I got to have Sarah as my mom?
She was vivacious, kind, smart, and incredible artist, had a great laugh, and was generous with her time and attention. I think that everyone in this room had a special connection to my mom because she made each one of us feel so special. She gave you her full attention…whatever was important to you became important to her.
I miss my mom so much and it doesn’t feel fair. And, I am holding onto the fact that everytime that I do something that I learned from her, she is still here. I came across a thought online recently which I shared with my brother, Carl. It said, “you know how kids tend to subconsciously adopt the mannerisms of their parents? I wonder how far back that stretches. Do I laugh like my great grandfather because that’s the way my grandmother laughed, and my mom copied her? I wonder which of my little mannerisms came from ancestors long passed, and I wonder which of mine will echo in family descendants long after I’m gone.”
I’ll admit it - sometimes I snort when I laugh just like my mom, and I notice that my kids do too. One thing that I loved so much about my mom was her ability to gether those she loved and create a sense of occasion no matter how big or small. In the past year, I read a lovely book called Enchantment by the author Katherine May. Instead of religion, she wrote about the enchantment of the moments and things of our every day. My mom and I talked about this concept and agreed that ‘enchantment’, the simple act of being present in the moment and ritual, was something that was sacred to us.
May wrote, “Ritual is a matter of instinct…a gesture that lets us weave significance in the moment.” One of my mom’s rituals was to always set the dinner table thoughtfully and light the candles. It didn’t matter if we were eating an amazing stew that Rick had made for us over the course of a Sunday afternoon or a take-out pizza from Costco - she always marked the occasion of us being together through these simple and sincere acts of ritual. This was one of her ways of showing us her love and attention.
Recently I was looking through some of my 7-year-old’s schoolwork and I came across a small story he wrote and illustrated about an earthquake we experienced during dinnertime. In every single picture Nico drew of our dinner table, there was a vase of flowers and two lit candles flanking it. As he gets older, I will remind him that I light candles because his Rah Rah did, and she learned how special this ritual is from her mom, Sally.
Nico Punzalan (2023)
I hope that when my kids, Piper and Nico, are older, they carry on this small but sacred ritual as well, inviting Rah Rah to their table with their own families. Having my own kids, I feel so fortunate and also hold an important responsibility to share my mom’s legacy with them. We talk about how much we miss Rah Rah…but we also talk about how she is already visiting us to say ‘hi’ in the form of a butterfly or a bright orange sunrise of our way to the airport yesterday morning. She’s not gone because she is still here.
The author James Baldwin worte, “The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love…is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light.” I miss you mom, but I promise to live the rest of my life doing my best to mirror your light.
Right now, the world feels a little dimmer without you here, but I will light the candles at dinner and you will be there. “
