Elaine Ambrose

Bestselling Author, Ventriloquist, & Humorist

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When a Pastor Passes

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Reverend Philip Moran came to Boise in 1991 to serve as pastor at Covenant Presbyterian Church. He was young, age 35, and brought his charming wife and baby son. My children were young, and we attended Covenant. I appreciated his congenial style, musical talent, goofy jokes, and passion for the Gospel. He remained at Covenant for twenty years.

I have fond memories of Pastor Phil. I helped with several children’s programs at Covenant, and I remember one long meeting with volunteers. After a tedious and repetitive discussion, Pastor Phil finally said, “We’ve spent two hours organizing a 45-minute agenda. Time’s up!”

After I moved my mother to an Assisted Living facility near Covenant, he brought her communion and talked with her. In 2014, he drove 100 miles to speak at her funeral in Wendell.

Hundreds of people attended his service on February 1, and the event was shown online. One of the speakers asked guests to raise their hands if Pastor Phil had counseled with them, spoken at their family funerals, or married family members. All the hands were raised, including mine, and the speaker asked Pastor Phil’s family to turn around and look at all the raised hands as visual proof of his lasting legacy.

Videos at funerals always make me weep. I watched with tissues as photos appeared of a spirited boy, a bright, young pastor, a positive speaker, a loving husband, father, and grandfather, and finally as a quiet man of 68 afflicted with the debilitating disease of ALS.

Pastor Phil was an extraordinary Christian who made his daily walk with Jesus look easy. As one of the speakers said at his service, “He’s home.”

The Lie I Told My Dying Mother

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mom pumpkin.png

My mother stopped eating during the third week of October 2014. After decades of physical and mental suffering, she used her last bit of control to decide her destiny. She wanted to go home and find peace in the valley.

Mom lived in an assisted living facility for five years. She was confined to a wheelchair after a series of accidents that resulted in a broken hip and a broken back. The loss of independence led to a slow slide into dementia. We applied name tags on family photographs that lined the walls in her tiny room; but soon she stopped trying to identify her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

mom wheelchair

After she stopped eating and became too weak to get out of bed, I consulted with the gentle people from Hospice. As her designated power of attorney over health care, I followed Mom’s wishes to withhold life-saving measures. She rested beneath her hand-stitched quilt as kind people swabbed her mouth with damp cloth, and we played her favorite spiritual music. Outside her room, other residents shuffled past in a silent tribute.

mom hands on quilt

After several days, her breathing became raspy but she heart was too strong to stop. One afternoon my daughter Emily and I were sitting with her when we were visited by Jackie Holland, the senior minister from the Center for Spiritual Living, the church my daughter attended. She asked if we could pray together, and we agreed.

“She’s refusing to go because she’s still waiting for my older brother to come,” I said. “He’s not coming. He hasn’t visited her in twenty years.”

Holland motioned for me to follow her into the hall.

“Your mother senses your moods,” she said. “She doesn’t want you to remain angry.”

At first, I resented her remark. She didn’t know Mom or me, and our story was too complicated and painful to explain in the hallway as she was dying. But, I was struck by her words: “She doesn’t want you to remain angry.” Of course, my mother would want me to be happy. So, I decided to lie to her.

We returned to her bedside, and I knelt to hold her. I said clearly, “This is Elaine. Everyone is happy. Tom is fine. George is doing well. Your grandkids and I are happy, and we love you so much. Now it’s time to be with Dad. It’s time to let go.”

stained glass window

She passed away a few hours later, leaving a hole in my heart that will never fill. My children Emily and Adam spoke at her funeral, and I’ve never been prouder of them. My older brother didn’t attend, but I wasn’t angry. At the end of the service, bright sunlight broke through the clouds and shined through stained glass windows she had commissioned for the church years earlier. Light filled the sanctuary, and we felt at peace.

Someday I hope to see her presence again. I suspect she’ll say, “I knew you were lying, but that’s okay. Now, please get your hair out of your face.” Then we’ll laugh.

 

 

Thanks, Mom! My Blog is a Winner

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I’m going to New York as one of the winners in the BlogHer Voices of the Year Competition. Since 2005, BlogHer has presented the largest conference for (mostly) women online content creators on the planet. At the heart of the conference, presented this year in New York City from July 17-19, is the annual Voices of the Year ceremony.

Thousands of entries were submitted by both content creators themselves and their fans and were reviewed through a juried process, winnowing the list down to a mere 5% of submissions that will be honored.

The honor is bittersweet because my winning blog is titled “My Mother’s Body Got Lost.” She’s smiling at me, still.

 

Here is my winning blog: My Mother’s Body Got Lost

I’m trying to plan my mother’s funeral, but we have a problem. We can’t find her.

My mother passed away Saturday after a long illness. I had all the funeral arrangements planned months in advance, so I was prepared when the inevitable happened. After she died, I contacted the proper authorities to transport her body 100 miles to her hometown of Wendell, Idaho for the funeral and burial. Some things don’t always go as planned. Two days later, we know that the body is gone from her assisted living facility but it’s not in Wendell. This is a cause for concern.

During the past few years, my mother has been lost in dementia. Even after moving her to a secure nursing home in Boise, there were times when I visited and couldn’t find her. The staff and I would search the facility and find her in someone else’s room and the two residents would be talking about their old times that never happened. No harm was done, and we gently, lovingly participated in their storytelling. But, I always knew she was somewhere inside the building.

Today I called the funeral home in Wendell and they hadn’t received the body. How do you lose a casket? I thought I had completed all the necessary arrangements, but I wasn’t familiar with the procedures for this dilemma. I used my inside voice and calmly requested that somebody do something. I called back an hour later and needed to employ my outside, aggressive tone. This last resort has been known to get immediate results and leave people trembling. I’m not proud of this trait, but it works.

At last, I received a call from Wendell that they had found her body still in Boise and the transportation was being arranged. A few hours later, I received a call that said she was near Bliss, a tiny village along the route.

“Of course she is,” I responded.

I hope she had a nice weekend and enjoyed having the last word. But, Mom, now it’s time to go home. Please.

Planning a funeral is similar to planning a wedding. Family and friends come together, some cry, music plays, and people wave goodbye. Except, at a funeral, the goodbye lasts a long time. This last momentary interruption is my mother’s way of telling me I’m not always in charge of everything. Somewhere, my parents are laughing.

Four Weeks and a Funeral

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funeral flowers

A month ago, I followed Alice in Wonderland and fell down a mysterious rabbit hole and experienced events that must have been orchestrated by the crazy rabbit and the hookah-smoking caterpillar. I soared, laughed, cried, and crawled through a series of events that changed my life forever.

On October 16, I endured an MRI for a knee injury and wrote a silly blog titled “Don’t Fart During an MRI.” I scattered 632 words into ten paragraphs and submitted the essay to The Huffington Post and it was published on October 27. In two weeks, the piece went viral and received more than 640,000 likes on Facebook and was reprinted on dozens of websites around the world. I received emails from people in other countries and had offers to host trips for middle-aged women, appear at wine tasting events, arrange book signings, and appear at a music show in Nashville.

On November 6, Whoopi Goldberg mentioned me on the ABC show “The View” and talked for several minutes about the essay. My book sales soared, and people subscribed to my website newsletter. I’ve been a professional writer for several decades and never intended to reach international status by passing gas. It definitely was the fart heard around the world, and I was amused at being the “air to the throne.”

On October 21, I had surgery to repair a torn meniscus in my knee and a cracked bone in my leg. I couldn’t put any weight on my ravaged leg for one week, so was confined in my recliner with my leg strapped to an ice machine. At least I had my laptop so I could blog about the wonders of legal narcotic painkillers.

My sweet mother’s health had been declining for several years, and compassionate Hospice associates were keeping her comfortable at a nearby assisted living facility. During her last week, I was able to use crutches to go to her room, join my daughter as we talked with her, and play her favorite spiritual music. On October 31, my husband Studley and I made our last visit and kissed her goodbye. She passed away the following morning. I blogged about her on Huffington Post for several days as I planned the funeral for November 11.

My mother’s funeral offered beautiful music, an inspirational message, an amazing display of floral arrangements, and heart-felt tributes from my children to their grandmother. At the following graveside service, a chill wind passed through the cemetery. My 7-year-old granddaughter, named after my mother, sat on my lap and we kept warm under a blanket. The sky was overcast as we walked away, as if all the heavenly tears were waiting for us to leave before they fell. My dear Studley held my hand, as usual.

On November 8, I learned that I had received three writing awards: First Place for Humor in the North American Book Awards competition for my book Midlife Cabernet, one of the Top Ten Authors in the Idaho Book Award program, and First Place for Cover Design. The awards ceremony was November 13 in Boise. Of course, the awards were presented on a stage that had 12 enormous steps and I resembled Quasimodo from the book Hunchback of Notre-Dame as I lumbered up post-surgery to accept the trophies.

All these events created the perfect storm of intense physical and mental pain combined with feelings of recognition and personal achievement. I struggled with the agony in my leg and sobbed for my dear mother while I checked my Huffington Post numbers and wrote a news release about the book awards. This surreal time has caused me to reflect on priorities and evaluate what is truly important. I conclude that life is crammed with highs and lows, joy and sorrow, opportunity and struggle. I feel fortunate to hang on and not fall off of this wild, funny, traumatic, and magnificent ride.

In the 1994 movie Four Weddings and a Funeral, Andie MacDowell and Hugh Grant play delightful characters in the popular romantic comedy about love and loss. These past four weeks have presented a powerful personal script and I only wrote a small part of it. Now it’s time to grab some popcorn, find a comfortable seat, and get ready for the sequel.

 

 

 

 

Don’t Lose the Body: Eight Tips to Plot a Funeral

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stone angel grave

I’ve helped organize weddings, including a few of my own, but planning a funeral is a different type of hectic, emotional activity with a demanding timeline. The details could leave you breathless. Oops, wrong word.

In a wedding, you have months to prepare. With a funeral, you have days and you’ll need to interrupt your own grieving to organize the deadly details. A few generations ago, the family would clean and dress the body, prop it on the dining table next to the potato salad, throw a party, and then bury the dearly departed in the family plot on a nearby hill. Now, there is a complicated checklist that rivals the NASA instructions for a lunar landing to make sure your loved one has a proper burial.

Because everyone eventually dies, someday you may need to organize a funeral. Here are some helpful tips:

  1. Don’t lose the body. My sweet mother recently passed away. I had arranged for a local funeral home to pick up the body and transport it to another funeral home 100 miles away to her hometown. Two days later, she still hadn’t arrived. After frantically calling and trying to use my inside voice, I received an email saying that the driver was in route and my mother was near Bliss. I responded, “Of course, she is.” (Bliss is the name of a village near her intended destination.) I have no idea where she went for the weekend, but I assume she had a good time and that, somewhere, my parents were laughing.
  2. Don’t allow details to be the death of you. Notify key family members, but tell them you don’t need any help because planning through a committee could be fatal. Open a bottle of wine, sit down with a notebook or computer, and begin to make decisions: choose pall bearers, write the obituary, approve the death certificate, notarize details for the IRS, finalize the funeral place and program, chose the music and performer, arrange for food and flowers, contact the cemetery, make decisions about embalming and donations, and decide what clothes the person will wear and who should do the hair. Do you want rings removed? Do you want the casket with the pretty roses or the sunset? And, don’t forget the musical video. Do all this in a few days while keeping a stiff upper lip. Sorry, wrong word again.
  3. Don’t present a stupid program. If you think Aunt Bernice will go to the podium and wail for 20 minutes, discreetly suggest she save her remarks for the reception, preferably after the first two rounds of drinks. If you want to include some literary orations, avoid Robert Service’s famous poem, “The Cremation of Sam McGee.” And, finally, if all your music sounds like the “The Funeral March of the Marionette” followed by a requiem, a dirge, and a lone bagpiper, expect some of your guests to fall onto the ground and beg to be the next to die.
  4. Don’t overwhelm the undertaker. I’m thankful I chose a reputable Funeral Director instead of Billy Bob’s Burial and Tire Changing Service. After my mother died, I had numerous questions. The Funeral Director patiently listened when I called in alarm and asked who would dig the grave. “We’ll handle everything, Ma’am,” he said. I was so relieved that I wouldn’t need to ask my son to bring a shovel and a backhoe.
  5. Don’t turn the funeral into a bazaar. I once attended a wedding where one of the guests brought along Cutco knives to sell to the attendees. This is not appropriate for weddings or funerals. Even though I’ll have a captive, emotional audience, I don’t plan on arranging a book signing event after my mother’s service. She always bragged to her friends that I wrote books, even though she never read any of them. I told her I wrote under the pen name of JK Rowling.
  6. Don’t allow expenses to haunt you. You may need to dig deep to unearth some money because the base cost for a funeral can range from $5,000 to $10,000. The choices vary from a pine box tossed into a swamp to an elaborate $25,000 casket carried by a procession of white limousines into a private plot. If you’re hosting a boisterous reception after the funeral, save enough money to buy some quality liquor because you care enough to say goodbye with a fine Scotch instead of cheap moonshine.
  7. Don’t forget the living. After the funeral is over, use your energy and emotions to appreciate and connect with those around you. There are still a lot of people who aren’t dead yet, and some of them need a friend.
  8. Don’t stop celebrating life. If anyone cares to organize a funeral for me (after I’m dead, or course), I want a full marching band to play John Philip Sousa marches and an open bar with plenty of exquisite Cabernet. And, I’m requesting lots of pie with ice cream because finally gaining weight will no longer be an issue.

Lessons I Learned from my Mother

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stained glass windows wendell

Several years ago, my mother commissioned and helped design a two-story wall of stained glass windows for the new Presbyterian Church in Wendell, Idaho. A prominent member of the church objected to the design because it included a rainbow and, as everyone knows, that could endorse the gay rights agenda. My mother remarked, “The rainbow was good enough for Noah, so it’s good enough for me.”

The rainbow design was enlarged and the magnificent windows were carefully installed in the sanctuary. On certain hours of the morning, the sun shines through so brilliantly that some people in the congregation need to wear sunglasses. The person who objected to the design has moved away, but I do hope someday she can witness a spectacular rainbow and be humbled and thankful. No agenda is necessary.

Mom didn’t want or need to support or condemn the gay lifestyle or any lifestyle, for that matter. Instead, she chose to follow the teaching of Jesus and endorsed his commandment to “Love one another.” Her worn-out Bibles were covered with underlined verses, mostly about love and grace. A favorite passage came from the book of Hebrews in the Old Testament: “Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters.” She followed that advice, often to her own peril as people took advantage of her generosity.

Her funeral will be next Tuesday in the church, and I hope the sun shines through the stained glass and illuminates the place of worship that will be her final stop before the graveside service. If the sun doesn’t shine, maybe it will rain and then we’ll see a rainbow. Either way, we’ll know she helped design the day because she’s in good and powerful company.