Thank you everyone for all of the love and support you've shown us over the past week.

This seemed like the right place to store a few things.  I've attached a video we made for Mom and Dad's 70th birthday, the link to the photos shown at her house, and the eulogy from Mom's funeral (below).  

Photos- https://photos.app.goo.gl/CsQTHMK5QxwhgLz48 

Fran Villere Eulogy, 11/14/18

In trying to figure out where to start, I take solace in the fact that Mom never, NEVER knew where to start a story.  She’d begin with a side anecdote that didn’t go anywhere, add in multiple superfluous characters, use enough pronouns to make the plot confusing even if you were there when the thing actually happened, then she’d flub the punchline.  As a family of storytellers trained by our father, a pro, it drove us all insane.

I have to confess, I always found it somewhat mystifying when people would refer to her as funny.  I mean, we all know about her many gifts, but let’s be realistic. Michelle and her parents would say over and over again how funny Mom was.  That kind of drove me crazy too.

Aside from the obvious, this last week was in many ways magical.  Mom got to hear from all of her closest friends and family, and got to tell so many people she loved them and hear the same from them.  The day before she passed she got hugs and kisses from all of her grandchildren, and we read her all of the incredible notes, emails, texts, and posts that flowed in from everywhere- I’ll come back to those.  She was showered with the love and admiration that she earned over her life.

She also earned the funny title.  She had already deserved it, it’s just that we finally recognized it and awarded it to her in the nick of time.  Mea culpa, it was there all along and somehow we missed it. Maybe we just needed to step back to see it, or maybe we were looking in the wrong place.  It wasn’t in her stories, where I usually look for it with people. I mean, it REALLY wasn’t in her stories. It was in those one-liners. How did I miss those?  She was relentless with them, even as she was learning the painful boundaries of her own mortality. Michael Jordan in the NBA finals. Joe Montana in the Superbowl.  Whoever’s really good at baseball in the World Series. Fran Villere in Ochsner’s ICU. She crushed it.

The magic of her one-liners was how they caught people off guard. They hit hardest to those who saw her jewelry, clothes, and makeup and foolishly judged her as mild.  One of her last one liners happened to be one of her all-time greats. When we all stood around her bed and listened to her doctor explain how he would determine which of the difficult decisions that lay ahead would be made by her vs her family, he told her the key criteria-

“Mrs. Villere,” he said, “you’ll make these decisions as long as you’re able to follow our commands”

She grinned, raised her index finger, and interrupted with “Well, I don’t do that now!”

Mom moved to New Orleans in 1967 after marrying Dad.  As we all know, she was immediately an indispensable part of the city, leading what seemed like every organization in town at one point or other.  I can’t list the charities she’s led, but among others it includes pretty much any place that touched her kids- Newman, McGehee, Gunnery, Washington & Lee, and more.  We literally couldn’t switch schools, by choice or otherwise, fast enough to dodge her. Already involved, she dedicated herself to Children’s Hospital with a fervor after they saved the life of baby grandson Jack Currence.  

It wasn’t until recently that I noticed an oddity about her charities- none of them really did her any good.  For instance, she suffered from Crohn’s disease, but somehow the charities that seek to cure Crohn’s never interested her.  All of her charity was purely for others, genuinely to make other people’s lives better.

Whether you were a friend, a non-profit, or just someone new to town, there could be no luckier moment than when she first took an interest.  We used to roll our eyes when she would refer to someone as one of her “little favorites”, but we knew they had been blessed as we were. If you could manage to get her on your team, you knew you were in good shape.  Chris, Mathilde and I had the good fortune of having her squarely in our corners for our entire lives. Talk about being born on third base.

And man, could she get stuff done.  Just in the past few days we’ve already had countless moments where we all look at each other, and without saying a word it’s clear that Mom could and would have easily handled whatever obstacle was frustrating us.

All of our friends and family have been so thoughtful over the past days and weeks.  We wanted to share a few of the comments from the notes and letters that may help to illuminate Mom’s impact.

“You are my hero.  You have set the bar high for me and so many others.  I am a better person because of you.”

“I love you, thanks for your guidance and especially for your sense of humor”

“We love you beyond measure and your friendship is both anchor and lodestar to us”

“I aspire to be as honest and generous as the example you have set”

“Your kindness, resilience, and graceful attitude is a gift I can only hope to copy”

“You and George have long been my pie in the sky”

“The two of you are the definition of Great and Good.  And funny too- what a package.”

“Thank you for all the beauty you bring into all our lives”

“I want you to know how much of a difference you have made in my life”

“I love you big and always have. You are a rock and a cheerleader and the best truth speaker around.”

“I hope you know what a force and what a gift you have been to me”

“You basically planned my honeymoon and made my boys their beautiful Christmas stockings”

“I'm thinking a lot about how that kind of life is unfathomable to me, and how rarely I've mattered in the way that you mattered and made differences. Maybe I can do better.”

This last one is long, so bear with me.  “Your mother was an angel on earth with her work on Project Lazarus at a time when people living with HIV and facing death from AIDS were shunned by society and to a large extent, governmental and medical establishments. She jumped in with a fierce commitment and compassion that lasted for decades. May God hold Fran and your father in his arms, and I hope you find comfort in the profound impact that your mother had on the lives of so many people.”

A friend and colleague once described her as “strong yet gracious, with a spacious heart and a generous soul”.  When asked what two people she’d invite to a dinner party- she chose Pope Francis and Beyonce- it’s a good thing she got to invite two, because he looks like he needs a good meal and no way was Beyonce getting bumped.  For someone who ordinarily finished cooking and setting the table for dinner by 10am, I can’t imagine what time she’d get going in the kitchen for those two.

Oh the table.  We had countless family dinners together, when we were kids and adults.  As our numbers grew we kids would offer to bring the entire meal and have it at her house.  “We’ll take care of everything”, we’d tell her. Immediately, she’d get to work setting the table.  But how, without knowing our precise numbers or specific menu? Time to take a break from her 400th game of solitaire on her iPad mini and text Lamar at work.

“Ding!”  Went my phone.  The text read “do we need spoons?”

“Not sure, might as well, Mom”

“Ding! Appetizer forks?”

“Sure”

“Ding! Steak knives?”

“Go for it”

“Ding! Cloth or paper napkins?”

“Definitely cloth”

“Ding! What about seating?  Kids at separate table or mixed?”

“Mom, we’re talking about NEXT Monday, right?”

And on it would go.  She didn’t like a task hanging over her, no matter what it was.  I have that too, as do Chris and Mathilde- it’s both a curse and a gift.

As far as that seating question, I wasn’t about to touch that one.  Chris says he remembers the first time he went to dinner at a restaurant with another family.  He just sort of stood near the table and looked around. When asked what was wrong, he replied “I’m just waiting to be told where to sit.”  We learned from a young age not to bother sitting down in a restaurant until Mom was there and had bossed (or “Franned”) you to sit somewhere specific.  She’d have placecards at the table for a party of four- in fact, there were rumors that she would rearrange placecards at other parties because they weren’t quite right.  At the time I didn’t realize any of that was unusual, but I’ve come to appreciate how much thought she put in everything, and how much of a difference it could make.

The CEO of a board she used to sit on once told me that any time mom put her needlepointing down, he knew he was in trouble.  Those needlepoints! She was a one-woman sweatshop. I never really appreciated all of the ornaments she used to bombard us with until Michelle pointed out how great they were.  Again, it was all right in front of me and I had missed it. What a treasure the ornaments, chairs, Christmas stockings, and pillows she made will always be for us and our kids. She enjoyed matching the ornament to the recipient.  She was particularly pleased with herself when she presented me with an ornament that replicated my most reviled substance on earth, Hellman’s Mayo. Michelle and the kids laugh at me every year when we decorate the tree. “See!” Michelle says each year, “Your Mom’s funny!”

I wrote a poem for Mom and Dad’s 40th anniversary- it was a bit off color for this room, but there’s an excerpt I’d like to share that I don’t think Monsignor Nalty will mind too much-

When I was a teen, we butted heads in every way,

Twenty years later, we talk every day.

What do I think about my father? This much is true-

Every crossroad I reach, I think "What would Dad do?"

But when things go wrong, when things get really tricky,

Like when we've left planning to brother-in-law Ricky,

The one we all turn to, each of us to a man,

Is the beautiful, elegant, even-keeled Fran.

That’s what she was for our family, that’s what she was for our city.  A calm, level headed voice of reason that could quickly understand the problem, begin charting the solution, and stay on top of it until it was resolved.  When she was first diagnosed with cancer, I honestly think that the hardest parts for her were:

1. A problem that she couldn’t solve immediately,

2. Having to wait for information along the way,

3. And, oh yeah, the cancer.

The cancer.  The damn cancer. The disease that stole both of my parents from all of us, ironically at least had the courtesy to put them back together.   In spite of all of her wonderful friends, who would constantly take her to lunches and dinners, invite her on beautiful trips, and include her in their lives at every opportunity, it never seemed natural to see her walk into a room without Dad on her arm, or holding her hand.  Mom just wasn’t complete without him.

Well, they’re finally back together.  As Chris put it, of course she was going to arrive in heaven earlier than scheduled- she was early to everything, she certainly wasn’t going to leave Dad waiting.  In her final hours, Mathilde told Mom she was a bit jealous that Mom was going to get to see Dad. We joked that poor Dad has been standing at the table for two years, patiently waiting for Mom to come tell him where to sit.  After 50 years of making his plates, he can finally return the favor. He gets to see how gracefully she aged from when he could last see her all those years ago before his vision went dark, and patiently listen to her mangle all the stories we’ve made with her over the past two years.  I imagine them watching us now, from a screened in porch in the mountains, fire crackling, raising a toast- Dad with a scotch on the rocks, Mom with a red wine also on the rocks, and an extra glass of ice nearby just in case. Cheers to them.