I haven't been on Zootoo for quite awhile. I have been busy attending to my Mom's needs and helping her with settling her affairs. No one could have prepared me for losing my Mom. But, since my Zootoo buddies listened to my woes at the beginning of my Mom's health problems I thought I would give you an update and publish the words I spoke at her funeral.

Beverly Mae Senff Quam
December 28, 1928 – May 31, 2009

I once heard that your strongest personality traits at age 35 would double in strength by age 70 and that would be the type of “old person” you would become. After I heard this, I thought of myself at the age of 35 and although I wasn’t too convinced about this theory, I was just glad that it wasn’t age 18 that I had to look back to. Those of you who have known me for that long will surely agree with me on that.

I also looked back to who my Mom was at age 35. Granted I didn’t remember her well at that age since I was only four, but it did put some perspective on the type of person my Mom had become. Times were hard for my parents during these times in their lives for many reasons and I am sure her personality was affected because of that. This is the year my Mom’s dad died on our couch and I hear my mom took that loss extremely hard. Now that I have lost both parents I certainly can understand what she went through. But even back then the stage was being set for the “old person” she would someday become. The person that would drive my sisters and I crazy at times, but she was our mom and we knew that we weren’t going to change her at this late date. She was a woman with simple needs and she never liked getting too far from home. She found comfort and solace in familiar surroundings. For this reason, we could not get her to go anywhere or do anything she didn’t want to even though it wasn’t for a lack of trying on our part. I have to seriously admit I didn’t understand my mother the way I wish I could have.

But I also remember the younger version of my Mom who loved to plant her vegetable garden and was always so pleased that I was willing to help so she let me plant the ones with the “big seeds”. I remember the big bouquets of lilacs and peonies every spring that adorned our house and I know I will never see or smell those two flowers without thinking of her. I also remember fondly the Scrabble marathons during lazy summers with Cindy Pederson and I challenging our moms with a good competitive game. Although my dad was more of the gambler in our house, I remember Mom being the one who taught us the joy of gambling playing 31 with pennies.

She helped me out immensely when I was raising my sons and she developed a bond with those two yahoos that helped her out in hard times too. There is no bigger compliment to anyone than having someone love your kids as much as you do. She was well known to the other fans at Norman County West where she watched countless baseball and basketball games both for my sons and the Finney boys. There wasn’t a person she met in the past year that she didn’t tell that her grandson Adam was a cop. For some reason that made her especially proud. I am sure she bored people to death with stories of my kids and their successes…but never mentioning any shortcomings or failures.

Yeah, my mom wasn’t perfect, but I knew she was the one person who always had my back….and I will miss that.