Beloved mother leaves behind strong community of friends, family

The end of the year brings the end of a life in my family.

My mom passed away just before the winter solstice, launching a man on a solo journey after 49.8 years of marriage and ushering her grown children into a rite of passage that many in my generation are just beginning to endure.

My mom was born in an era when baby girls were named JoAnne, Nancy and Sylvia, which was her name. She died after a "lingering illness" according to the obituary we put in the Salt Lake City newspaper, although I really wanted to write that she died at a young 68 because this world was often too excessive for her small frame and tender heart. But that makes her sound weak, which she wasn't.

With my mom goes a lifelong passion for jazz, especially smoky-voiced women like Sarah Vaughn, velvet-toned men like Mel Torme and swinging big bands like Stan Kenton's.

Gone with my mother is a picayune knowledge of Hollywood greats — the Gary Coopers, Fred and Gingers, Cary Grants and Katharine Hepburns. She knew their movies, their multiple marriages, their starlet children and whether they had died in recent years. She loved musicals, though film noir "Laura" was one of her favorites. She knew all about recent flicks, but the old ones she loved, especially if they had artful repartee or masterful dancing.

To me, my mom looked like Jane Powell.

Do you know all the words to "I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts" or that Merv Griffin made that song famous in 1950? I'm proud to be among the few (if not the only) in my circle to have known that before you could confirm it on YouTube. My daughters will remember the song, too, when the infant corners of their brains release the memory of Grandma singing it to them. It was the perfect baby song.

Most of all, gone with my mother is her corporal presence in the huge network of friends and family she and my father tended throughout her life. Together they were loyal to people who came into their lives 50, 20, 10 or even two years ago. And all those people honored that loyalty by knowing what to do when my mom died.

They called my dad. They called or e-mailed her children.

They sent flowers to the funeral home and planters to the family home. They slipped cards and money in my father's hand to help with the astronomical expenses.

They signed the online guest book, which my dad checked daily. A neighbor blew the Utah snow from my family's wide driveway and long sidewalks.

The Mormon Relief Society, even though my parents don't go to church, immediately brought food and offers of more. An army of women arrived at the house after the funeral with trays of casseroles, salads, meat and desserts to feed the gathering family.

Friends and family agreed to pray or speak at the services.

And the "kids from high school," as my dad calls all their friends from way back, came to a funeral in the middle of a work day, and then thanked us for the thoughtful ceremony when in fact we should have first thanked them for being there.

For years my parents have gone to weddings, viewings, funerals and family reunions. My mom was a stalwart at baby showers, wedding showers, Tupperware parties and a loyal customer of the neighborhood Avon lady. She sent graduation cards, Christmas cards and birthday remembrances for aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws and friends. I am dwarfed by their devotion. And I make excuses for not reaching out to the same people and others in my life, saying that people will understand if I don't send a card ... they know I care.

Do they?

With this rite of passage that many of my peers will soon endure came a maelstrom of logistics and emotion for which you can't really prepare. But three adult children and a rock-solid father somehow planned a funeral that attempted to evoke the life of my mom and give others, and ourselves, a public place to mourn and remember. The reason we could? The greatest gift from my mom, besides her proud, trusting love: a steadfast community of family and friends.

May all of ours be as strong in the transitions to come.

Andrea Otanez is a regular contributor to Times editorial pages. She is the journalism instructor at Everett Community College. E-mail her at otaneza@gmail.com