Eulogy for My Mom, Vavra Allison
March 1, 1949 - July 22, 2019

by Marisa Allison

The morning after my mother passed away, I spent some time in my childhood bedroom, a room that became her sewing room soon after I got my first apartment. While other friends’ rooms in their parents’ houses were transformed into workout spaces or for storage, mine became a point of pride for my mother…a pride not the same as but similar to the one she had for me. If you’ve been to my parents’ house, you likely noticed that this room is always the brightest in the house…That was true even when I convinced my mom and dad to let me paint it the most unusual shade of turquoise in my early teens, a shade that no doubt only contributed to the angsty teenage drama that consumed the last years that I lived in my parents home.  The brightness of that room likely makes you feel loved, warm, and cozy, it does that to me for sure,…an artifact of all of the loving intention that went into the making and mending of things that thrived in that room...be it a purse, pillows, curtains, or me, the seamtress’s daughter. 

On that first morning without my mother, as my son ran up and down the hallway leading to that room, turning the hallway light off and on and off and on and off and on again and again, I couldn’t stop my mind from running through images of her life in that house, memories that aren’t even mine or at least didn’t come from my vantage point. I imagined her carrying boxes up the stairs when she, my father, brother, and sister moved in, when she and my dad painted and decorated my bedroom as it became my nursery, when she brought me home from the hospital in the midst of an unseasonably cold winter for Alabama, and when she and dad chased after me as I ran up and down the hallway turning that same light switch off and on and off and on and off and on again and again. 

I remember her coming into that room more times than I can count carrying a chair, an almost complete dress or ballet costume, and a tomato cushion full of straight pins with a small strawberry attached by a string (a wonder of “nature” that could only come from folklore of those who having been sewing most of their lives). To make final touches or measure hemlines, I stood on that chair for many hours over the years, each time until my feet felt like they had become that tomato cushion. My lack of patience as I slowly rotated in that chair was second only to my lack of patience on our trips to the fabric store where my mom sifted through patterns and fabric for what felt like endless hours with the steadfast intent and perfectionism that plagues every artist. There’s little I wouldn’t do to have just one more trip to the fabric store with her. 

What I didn’t realize then, or at least not as fully as I do now is that this seamtress, this artist, my mom, was sewing together all the important moments of my life putting a gentle stitch into everything that was important to me, my baby blanket, a pale yellow floor length nightgown that I wore until it came up above my knees, the most beautiful cornflower blue flower girl dress that I wore in my brother’s wedding, a flower costume for Halloween that made me realize I had to be a ballerina, the poodle skirt that I wore for my first costume birthday party (where she also made a cake shaped like a guitar, which I am still thoroughly amazed by), the ribbons and elastics on nearly a hundred pairs of ballet slippers and pointe shoes, the Snow White costume I wore during my first lead role in a ballet recital, the dress I wore for my first beauty pageant (which she reluctantly agreed to as she always wanted me to find my value in more than just beauty), the costumes for 15 or so dancers for the first ballet I choreographed in high school, every dress I wore for events at Judson College, the last tutu I ever stepped foot in, curtains for my first apartment, pillows for the first couch I purchased myself (after I finally passed on Aunt Sherry’s sectional (a beautiful piece of late 1980’s interior design which carried me through the early 2000s), pillows for her granddog, Logan, (which we lovingly referred to as “Nana pillows” and yes she did rest her head on those pillows nightly), some of our first reusable shopping bags (mine in Alabama print, Annie’s in Auburn), purses for every occasion from formal to a football game, my wedding dress and a copy of my wedding dress for her to practice on to begin with, and Milo’s first baby blanket. Even when we moved Milo and I here to care for her when she was first diagnosed with cancer, mom quickly helped Annie and I make Milo’s bedroom curtains while undergoing chemo, instructing me through the whole process when she had moments of weakness. That would be the last thing she sewed, a testament to the way she stitched together her family, little by little, even when it was physically and emotionally hard, over a lifetime. 

Simone Signoret, said, “It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads, which sew people together through the years.” If you were to add baking, canning, and a home cooked meal to that (as well as my dad’s gardens and chocolate chip cookies) then this quote would largely describe our family. This past year has been a true testament to the hundreds of threads that have sewn our family together over their almost 50 year marriage as mom fought, declined, and transcended her battle with cancer. The threads were visible in the ways my father diligently cared for my mother and she for him in any way she could as her hold on this earth weakened. Dad gave her the same haircut that he has when she started losing it from chemo and made sure she had a stockpile of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, which I ended up eating most of, I’m pretty sure. Mom would focus all of the energy that she got from the steroids they gave her during chemo to make sure we all ate one of her amazing meals and stayed up until at least midnight talking and making plans that we all knew wouldn’t come to fruition. Dad quit working to make sure he was there for her every need through the end, even when all he could do was make a new pot of coffee every couple of hours for her to take just a couple sips before falling back to sleep. And mom made sure that dad had been eating each time she woke up, ensuring he was taking care of himself even until her final breaths. The tapestry these two wove over their nearly half century of marriage is a steadfast and beautiful one, one that does not end with her passing and it will not end with his either as death cannot touch love like that. 

As I look around this room, it does not escape me that her death has done what she wanted to do in life, bringing her family and friends together, even if it just happens today, despite political and religious differences, despite misdeeds and wrongdoings, despite mistakes and ill-intentions in the past, and despite unacknowledged, unhealed, or ongoing emotional wounds. As a young girl, mom tried to teach this southpaw (a word for a left-handed person) how to crochet…a feat that was very difficult for us both. I remember watching her crochet making it rows and rows and rows into a project when she would realize that she had miscounted or missed a stitch and as painful as it was she would rip out the stitches to fix the mistake as continuing on would distort the pattern and ultimately affect the rest of the piece she was making. She practiced this in her relationships as well, one of the most important lessons I learned from her, that no matter how long it took to “rip out” the stitches to get to the mistake and make repairs it was imperative to trudge that difficult and time consuming journey recognizing that truly moving forward couldn’t be band-aided by pretending the missed stitch wasn’t there. 

I came out to my mother during a yard sale while we retreated from the Alabama summer sun in her garage. Though the details of that conversation have mostly been lost to time, I do remember how anxious she was, I was too. As she adjusted to this new reality, we talked for hours every day, as was common for us when things needed to be worked through. We both made mistakes at times in these conversations speaking from frustration or sadness rather than compassion and understanding, but mimicking her intent, we both practiced the hard work of pulling out the stitches until we got to the painful ones, apologizing, clarifying, and reminding each other how much we loved one another, that this time would be an adjustment, then moving forward trying not to make the same mistakes over again.  

In reality this part of the tapestry of our relationship is much less about the content or cause of these conversations and more about the act of loving in practice, trudging the difficult waters of healing wounds by recognizing where we’ve let a loved one down, acknowledging it to them, asking forgiveness and then reorienting future actions so as not to do it again. She did this because her relationships mattered and if she did this with you or tried to, it’s because you mattered deeply to her. Rest assured that this process can still happen in her death, if your heart is troubled with unspoken words. With respect to the differing beliefs that exist in this room, I like to imagine that mom exists everywhere now and is still there as good of a listener as she ever was, a thought she hoped was true as well. She would want you to be free of those burdens both in regards to her and in the relationships you have with your loved ones. This was one of the greatest things I learned from mom, that it is never too late to admit mistakes that you have made, seek forgiveness from others, and most importantly in your own heart as that is the place where true transformation and healing begins. 

In her song, Tapestry, Carole King sings, “My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue. An everlasting vision of the ever-changing view. A wondrous woven magic in bits of blue and gold. A tapestry to feel and see, impossible to hold.“   Those of you who were lucky enough to receive something my mother made through the years, whether it was sewn, cooked, or loved, became a part of the shared fabric of her life and her circle of love and even though the things she has made will outlast her footprint on this earth, they will all eventually tatter, fray, breakdown, and turn to dust some day ceasing to exist, as is the way for all of us. My prayer is that we can let go of this life and the things that tether us to it as gracefully and peacefully as my mother did. As she took her final breaths, she opened her eyes, looked directly at my father and I and smiled. I imagine that in those final moments her life was flashing before her eyes and it all suddenly made sense. All of the difficult waters of sorrow she had to navigate, all of the moments of great joy and love she received, all the unconditional love she gave, and the purpose of all of our impermanence. Kahlil Gibran wrote, “When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.” 

As we move forward from this place of remembrance, let us honor the life of my mother, Vavra Anne Betterton Allison, by living more genuinely and loving more fully in the days ahead. Carrying her in our hearts, may we proceed in comfort and in peace, assured that even in this time of loss and sorrow, we still have our own precious lives to live fully, as she would have wanted. Finally, to my mom if she is listening with us here, rest peacefully knowing that you should be so proud of the life that you have lived and the person you have been, know that you will be mourned and missed for many lifetimes, that no one can replace you in our hearts, and that you have loved deeply and been beloved. Please stand quietly as we honor my mother with a final moment of silence. Let us enter this moment of silent prayer, reflection, and meditation with reverence and with love.