A Eulogy for My Mother

My mother Alina passed away on May 5th, 2025, just a week before Mother’s Day. Today, we held her funeral in a Catholic church in my hometown of Hillsborough, NJ and buried her back into the good Earth. While I have a lot to say in the coming months about my journey with my mother and grief, I’d like to share the eulogy I wrote to honor her.

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I wanted everyone here to know a little more about my mother Alina, because she was a very inherently private person, but also so secretly gifted, loyal, powerful, and loving.

My mom was the most devoted mother any of us could have ever asked for. And I’d like to illustrate this with a short story.

I remember when I was a college student at Boston University, and I was taking the Chinatown bus home from Boston to NYC for the Thanksgiving holiday. My mother was supposed to pick me up in Chinatown in New York City that evening. She always used to say to me “Nie zapomnij twoj charger” which basically means, in Polish, don’t forget your charger and don’t forget to charge your phone before you leave.

And sure enough, I did both of those things: I forgot my charger, and I forgot to charge my phone! Very typical of me at that age.

About halfway through the bus ride, my phone died, and the bus was also stuck in horrible holiday traffic, so we were delayed by several hours. I had no way of contacting my mother to let her know.

I remember fretting about this to a young woman who sat beside me on the bus, and she put me at ease, with just one simple phrase. She said: “Don’t worry. Moms never leave.”

And I have always remembered her saying that: “Moms never leave.” Because my mom Alina was exactly like that. She never left us; she always showed up for us, even when it was hard.

As the bus pulled into Chinatown, New York at around 2am, I was sure I’d have to find a pay phone or get a taxi home. But as I walked down the block, sure enough, there was my mom Alina, parked on a darkened corner, waiting, hunched over the steering wheel, not knowing when I’d arrive, waiting there for hours.

And that’s a testament to who my mom was. She would never leave. She was always present, always there for us, even in our darkest moments.

Another unforgettable quality my mother had was that she had a fiery, feisty, blunt personality that amused everyone around her, and she was inherently very comical by nature. She wouldn’t even try to be funny; she just always was. And she was the one person who could make me laugh so hard that I would be peeing in my pants.

She also loved singing, and often hijacked the karaoke machine I had when I was younger to record her own albums in the living room. She had a green thumb, effortlessly bringing dying plants back to life, growing flowers of all sorts, but her favorite was the red rose.

Many of you also know that my mom Alina and I were on an over 10 year long journey together, as she was a double lung transplant recipient, and I was her primary caretaker.

In that time, we grew very close, and I got to witness her fighting spirit and resilience through the face of the most unimaginable challenges. Simply put, she was a force of nature that could not be defeated by any diagnosis or disease. We fought for her life together, and for so long.

She fought up until her final moment in life. And in that moment, was the hardest moment we both ever had to endure. We both had to let go.

My mother Alina gave me one final gift, about a week before she left. I was visiting her in the rehab center where she was staying, and I took her in a wheelchair outside behind the building, where we discovered the most beautiful, magical garden. The weather was perfect that day: warm and balmy, with just a slight, cool breeze. The trees showered our heads with flower petals and the sun beamed and warmed our skin.

After months of suffering, it was the first time I saw my mother enjoying something, at peace, if just for a moment. She remarked on how beautiful the trees were. She turned to me, and out of nowhere, shared with me how she felt the moment I was first born. She cradled her arms, remembering me as a baby, and turned to me, her face radiating with unconditional love and joy.

I hadn’t seen that face in so long. Everyone who knew her knows that beautiful face. And I am so glad I got to see that face, one last time.

So my mom always liked to eavesdrop on us, and so I’ll say this, knowing my mom is eavesdropping now, knowing she is listening and here with us now in some way:

Mom: I echo your favorite phrases back to you, which I will carry with me for the rest of my life. Don’t worry, be happy. Don’t worry, be happy. Whatever will be, will be.

Mom, how I choose to remember you, is singing Polish pop songs together in the car. I remember making pierogies at midnight the night before Christmas. I remember you soaking your feet in the Pacific Ocean for the very first time when you visited me in Portland.

Mom, we will always carry on your legacy and the torch of your greatest qualities. Anna carries the love of flowers and your humor, Chris carries the legacy of being an unwaveringly devoted parent, just as you were, and I carry your fighting spirit and your strength. Adam has your talent and love of music, and Julia has your compassionate nature with the love of green, growing things. And Alina, Chris’s wife, who has the same name as my mother, by no coincidence, has been a wonderfully present mother to both Adam and Julia.

We are relieved that you are at peace now, and we know that you have returned back to the source of everything, and that you are still with us.

So this is not a goodbye, but a getting to know you in a new way. We are grateful and blessed to have had you in our lives for as long as we did. We will love you forever. We will miss you forever.

Dziękuję mamo. Kochamy Cię Mamo. Jesteś teraz naszym aniołem w niebie.

Thank you all for being here today, thank you for bearing witness, and thank you for listening.