My grandmother passed away last month and we celebrated her life on the eastern shore of Maryland where she spent some of her happiest years. It was very sad to say goodbye to her but her eight children (my mom being the oldest shown in the picture above) put together an incredible tribute to her.
This link connects to an amazing slideshow that my uncle Jeff put together that chronicles her life.
My uncle John gave an excellent eulogy which I have included below:
Eulogy for Mom (by John Carroll)
Four centuries ago, Shakespeare wrote:
“By my troth, I care not; a man can die but once; we owe God a death….and let it go the
way it will; he that dies this year is quit for the next.”
These brave words were uttered by a military recruit in the second part of the play Henry IV. The
prospective soldier, contrary to his macho words, was ridiculously unfit to serve. Shakespeare
used the contrast to get a laugh and he succeeded.
Like so much that Shakespeare wrote, however, these words have a much wider meaning. Each
of us comes into this world owing God one death. Last month, my mother paid this unavoidable
debt, this debt that we all must pay. By a fitting coincidence, she died on the same day—
April 23—that Shakespeare died. She knew and loved the work of Shakespeare and could
recite long passages of his plays from memory. My brother Bobby found this out when, as a
young man, he played the part of Macbeth. After the play, my mother congratulated him on his
fine performance. Then she pointed out that he had missed two lines in a long soliloquy and
proceeded to recite the lines that he missed. Aware of this and not wanting to be haunted by the
ghost of Micky Carroll, I double-checked the above-cited quote from Henry IV to make sure I
got it right.
Unlike many of the figures in Shakespeare’s plays, my mother did not die young and she did not
get swept up by vanity, ambition, and the other tragic flaws that Shakespeare described so well.
She was a humble person and she was a good steward of the precious time allotted her.
She lived her long life fully and was able to appreciate and enjoy simple pleasures—most of
which were absolutely free. For the most part, she found material possessions boring. She
savored spring with its clement temperatures, blooming flowers and singing birds. She loved
spending summer days on the beach, where she could take in the beauty of the ocean, hear the
waves breaking on the shore and see children playing in the sand. She enjoyed a cold beer and a
good conversation with friends. And, as Leah and James can attest, she appreciated the cooling
bay breeze when temperatures soared.
She derived great pleasure from the English language. She loved words and word games and she
was the family authority on correct spelling and grammar. She also loved poetry and literature.
She particularly enjoyed it when words were put to music. Music, especially vocal music, was
one of the great joys of her life.
But by far, the thing she relished most in life was the deep, intimate and loving bonds that
she developed with the people closest to her. These began with her first family. As a girl, she
displayed unwavering filial devotion to her parents and was very close to her brother, Johnny.
Her relationship with her identical twin, Betty, was naturally the most intimate and the strongest.
It persevered through good times and bad and only ended with Betty’s death six years ago.
As she grew and became an adult, my mother developed numerous deep and lasting friendships.
Many of these lasted for decades; when you became a friend of Micky Carroll, you were a friend
for life. Her closest friends were related by marriage. She absolutely adored my father’s family,
the big, boisterous and loveable Carroll clan, and they returned her affection.
After high school, my mother entered nursing school and, upon graduation, became a Navy
nurse. She served in that capacity during the last two years of World War II. In the spring of
1945, a wounded sailor, just shipped back from the Pacific theater, appeared on her ward. She
thought he was a good-looking Irishman and she liked his sense of humor. Indeed, she found him
so attractive that she dated him, which was in direct violation of naval regulations. As an officer,
my mother was not supposed to fraternize with enlisted men. Well, regulations be damned! They
courted briefly, fell in love and got married six months later. They stayed together until my
father’s death 48 years later.
My mother and father formed a partnership for life. They stood shoulder to shoulder when it
came to paying the bills, raising the kids and every other family decision. When my mother met
my father, however, she already had a partner for life, her twin sister Betty. They were formed of
the exact same genetic material and their bond went back to their mother’s womb. To his credit,
my father understood this bond and had the wisdom to never interfere with it.
In both of these partnerships, my mother was an essential stabilizing force. My mother and
my Aunt Betty had the same values and often shared the same emotions. But in Betty the
emotions were more intense and, often, more negative. My mother had the ability to soften those
emotions and bring her sister back on an even keel. Knowing that she could always count on the
unqualified love of her twin sister was vital to Betty’s well-being.
For different reasons, my mother was a vital presence in my father’s life. My father was a happy,
optimistic man and most people thought he was a lot of fun. Being fun, however, doesn’t pay
the bills and my mother was always there to remind him that the bill collector doth cometh. She
ended up handling the family finances and somehow managed to keep the books balanced.
Her vital role went beyond keeping their economic house in order. When my father was full of
bluster or irrational optimism or in the throes of one of his ludicrous stories, he felt the presence
of his sensible wife. She stood, at best, 5-ft. tall but she cast a long shadow. And she let him
know when his grand personality was getting a little too grandiose. Her ability to reel in my
father and bring him back to earth was extremely beneficial to him and the whole family.
Immediately after my parents got married, they started a family. By immediately, I mean
immediately; nine months after the wedding, Alice was born. And within five years of the
nuptials, their fifth child, Ricky, was born. The sixth, seventh and eighth children were blessedly
spread out. The eighth and final child, Jeff, arrived in 1962.
Not long after Jeff was born, my mother made the difficult decision to go back to work as a
nurse. It would the first time she worked as a nurse since the end of World War II, seventeen
years earlier. Things had changed in the world of medicine during that period and she found the
prospect of returning to nursing to be very stressful. But the family finances were in desperate
straits and she found the courage to take a job in the pediatrics ward of Prince Georges General
hospital.
Her job as a nurse was difficult but it kept the family’s financial ship above water. She was
always proud of her work as a nurse and the fact that her paycheck kept the family solvent. But
her heart was never in her career. She once told me that she never wanted to go back to nursing.
All she ever wanted to do, she said, was stay at home and raise her children.
This was her life’s calling; my mother was born to be a mother. And oh what a good mother she
was! She raised eight children—nine, if you include my father—and she made every one of us
feel like we were somebody, like we mattered. As adults, we’ve had varying degrees of success
in the world but she was always equally proud of all of us. She made all of us feel like we were
special.
She was a warm and nurturing mother. We knew that she loved us. At the same time she wasn’t
all sweetness and light. After all, she had six boys—seven, if you include my father—and it took
more than kind words to make us behave and act civilized. Thankfully, she managed to tame us
without beating the boy out of us. We had a lot of freedom, a lot of fun and a lot of adventure.
We had a wonderful childhood.
At some point someone in my family brought a placard home that read:
“Pa is boss, as everyone knows, but what Ma says always goes.”
Everyone, including my father, thought it was hilarious—and true. The sign hung on the wall for
years.
My mother was the executive of the household because she was more organized and more
sensible than my father. My father was her Attorney General; he enforced the rules. Woe be
unto the child in my family who talked back or was disrespectful to my mother in my father’s
presence! No child ever played one parent against the other in my family because my parents
always stood shoulder-to-shoulder when it came to disciplining their kids.
As the manager of a household of ten people, my mother was scrupulously fair. The boys had
to do the same household chores that the girls did and the girls had the same freedoms as the
boys had. The only time my mother gave one child more attention than the others was when she
saw that that child was in trouble. When we got into trouble, we always turned to her. She was
accessible and capable of a long heart-to-heart discussion. She was often sympathetic but not
averse to telling it like was, even if that wasn’t what we wanted to hear.
In addition to caring for us as children, my mother taught us many things that helped us prepare
for life as adults. One of the primary attributes that she passed along was her affinity for the
English language. My brothers and sisters are all wordsmiths because of our mother.
She also instilled in us a strong work ethic. We weren’t allowed to be lazy; we had to help out
around the house and at young ages we found work outside the house. In this respect, my mother
led by example. How could we be lazy when our mother worked so hard?
Along the same lines, my mother taught us to be responsible adults. She never let us get away
with blaming others for our own shortcomings. From her example, we learned that responsible
adults live within their means, work hard and pay their bills. She also taught us to be decisive
and resourceful. There are many examples of her resourcefulness but her personal favorite was
when she signed up for the Weekend Alternative at Prince George’s hospital. This bold plan
required a lot of hard work on her part but it enabled her and my father to make the transition
from Prince George’s County to Ocean City.
My mother and my father also passed along a strong interest in history and the affairs of the
world. Their generation lived through the greatest economic depression in American history and
the greatest war in all of history. They talked to each other and to us about these experiences and
the current events of the day, most notably the civil rights movement and the war in Viet Nam.
Their comments and discussions did not go unnoticed. My brothers and sisters and I grew up
knowing the difference between culture and pop culture, history and myth and slogan and sound
thinking. As adults, we’re all just as opinionated as can be but, thanks to our parents, if you enter
into a “discussion” with any of us, you better have your facts straight.
My parents taught us by example to be kind towards others. My mother was kind and
compassionate towards everyone she met. She was never a snob; she was open and friendly; and
she invariably showed an interest in what people had to say, no matter how humble their station
in life. When her children grew up and got married, she welcomed their spouses with warm and
open arms and quickly developed strong bonds with them.
Then, when her children had children, my mother became a wonderful grandmother. She was
more than a grandmother to most them; she was their buddy. Some of these grandchildren
now have children of their own. And, in the last years of her life, my mother was delighted to
welcome several great-grandchildren into the world.
It’s never easy when a loved one dies. It is consoling, however, to know that my mother lived
a long life and that she lived it well. I’m thankful that she had a good, peaceful death in the
company of five of her children.
The poet John Keats wrote:
“A thing of beauty is a joy forever: its loveliness increases; it can never pass into
nothingness.”
My mother’s life was a thing of beauty and she will always be with us.
I'm Erin. I live in Boston with my husband Johnny, our daughter Alex, our dog Redford, and our cat Shelby (the pets are listed in order of importance...sorry cat-lovers). 
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