My mom's eulogy

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

(This was originally meant to be said out loud but I think the world needs to see this and the message behind it.)

Hey everyone, incase you don't know me from the millions of pictures that my mom posted on Facebook everyday, my name is Lauren. And these three behind me who are choosing not to speak, but are here for my moral support, are my three younger brothers: Mark, Andrew, and Scott. Despite what you may think due to their rapidly increasing height, yes; all three are younger than me and soon I'll be the shortest of the bunch. But, today isn't about me. It's about my mom and the love and support she gave to everyone around her. Thank goodness she made me go to those extra classes for fluency because I'm about to talk a lot.

My mom was a very kind and caring person. She always put everyone above herself. I remember when I was young; there would be times when we would go to drive thrus and my mom would order food for us and after we had gotten our food and had already started eating, she would realize that she had bought no food for herself. She would point out the fact and often times laugh about the matter before we continued on whatever adventure she was taking us on that day. Sometimes she would go back and order food for herself but other times she would just ignore her hunger, being content with the fact that her children had nourishment (even if that nourishment was coming from fast food). That was just who she was. Putting others before herself.

She also had a very child-like sense of wonder and joy. My mom found joy in the little things. Things like referencing our favorite movie. Growing up, we watched the Studio Ghibli movie, My Neighbor Totoro, all the time. As a result, we knew almost all of the lines and funny phrases sprinkled throughout the movie. My mom would love to use this fact for her enjoyment all the time. My brothers and I would be playing with each other outside when my mom would randomly quote the movie.
She'd say "Hey, you in there! Your house is haunted!"
A reference to a moment in the film where a young boy shouts to his new neighbors to make fun of them. Due to us watching the movie so many times, we always knew exactly what to shout back.
"KANTA!"
The name of the boy which was shouted by his grandmother who was visiting the new neighbors. It always made her laugh hysterically which made all of us follow suit.

Speaking of laughter, one thing that always made us laugh were my mom's ridiculous songs. I don't know if any of you have heard her sing before but my brothers and I have heard each of her original tunes at least a thousand times. She made up her own little songs about us when we were babies.

Like, the one about Mark:
"Marshal Sharshal Shimmery Sharshal he's my tiny friend"

Or the one about Andrew:
"Angelica, beautiful, baby of my world"

Or the one that I think is about me:
"Tiny tee is tiny me, teeny tiny tee"

Or, one of the many, that is about all of my brothers:
"He's the tiniest tee in town, the teeny tiniest tee around, teeny tiny, tiny teeny, teeny tiny tiny tee"

You must forgive my awful singing; singing isn't my forte and on top of that, neither is public speaking if I'm being totally honest.

One final fond memory that I have of my mom before I start talking about my brothers' memories of her, (hey, look at me using transition words. School is useful) anyway, a final memory I have of her is our constant Wawa runs. For those of you that didn't grow up around here or were cursed with the awful torture that is being born in an area without Wawas, Wawa is, to quote the website, "your all-day, everyday convenience store with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, Built-To-Order® foods and beverages, coffee, fuel services, and much more." It was basically our easy way of getting some decent food at an ungodly hour of the day after traveling for a long time. She loved the convenience of the store and the fact that she could buy her morning coffee, lunch for later in the afternoon, and a Sunday paper all in the same place. Like I mentioned earlier, she loved making trips to the store which she called "Wawa runs." Kinda sounds like the name of a bad digestion problem now that I think about it. Anyway, when she made these trips, she'd go out of her way to make sure everyone got what they wanted. If I wanted a specific sandwich, she'd FaceTime me and show me the menu so that I could customize it exactly to my liking. She just wanted all of us to be happy. She was an amazing mother in that and many other aspects.