A Mother Remembered With Love

Not long after Dorothy Moran was called by God to join her beloved husband Edward in Heaven, a small, private room at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston began to fill. From New Hampshire, Arlington, Cambridge, and Andover her sons, and daughters-in-law, came back to where they had spent the better part of three days.

They were joined by grandchildren and loved ones who have been a part of our mother’s life for years. Taylor was there. So were Lauren, and Patrick Noonan, who has been a part of the Morans since he and Lauren began dating. They are to be married this summer and our mother was very much looking forward to dancing at the reception, the way she had at her grandson Ed’s when he married Sarah.

Each came for one reason, to say goodbye to a woman who had been the center of their lives as a family for as long as each had lived. It was a scene that was created years before Mom, or “Red” or Dot as we lovingly called her, became sick with a lung disease that was held at bay for three-years, but dramatically worsened eight weeks ago and ended her long and happy life.

Dotty Moran was born in Charlestown to George F. Brough, the son of Irish immigrants, and his wife Abbie. She was raised in Medford where she and her brother, George, learned the lessons of hard work and family values. A bright young women and determined student, Dorothy excelled in school and was graduated a year ahead of time and went to work as a secretary.

One evening, at a dance in Wakefield, she met our father, Ed, and the couple began dating.

Not long after, they were married and began creating a family. Their first child was Kathleen, who was followed by six sons, Michael, Ed (Sonny), Keith, Jim, Phillip and David.

Our father worked in the pressroom of the Boston Globe. To provide for such a large family, he worked endless hours and weekends, leaving the majority of the daily job of keeping track of seven, energy filled, and often mischievous, children to Mom.

She was surely up to the task, all on her own, but she also knew how to throw the ultimate trump card when one, or more us, began to get out of hand.

“Just wait till your father comes home,” was about all she needed to say. It was a line that left us watching the clock and looking out the window to the driveway, dreading the misfortune we had brought upon ourselves. The thing was, unless we had really messed up, she didn’t always tell him what we had done.

That small reprieve was just one way she showed us her love, one of the many ways she did.

As the room in Mass General filled, and then began to overflow, the stories began, one after another. Some brought fresh tears. Most caused the group to laugh. But just about all of them had a singular theme – family, hard work and loyalty.

Our mother had given us life. She guided us and taught us right from wrong and she held us accountable to those teachings. Our father had chosen well. He also believed in family, honesty and hard work. Together they instilled in their children the core values that have centered each of our lives.

Mom has 18 grandchildren. They are an impressive new generation of young Morans. They live their lives, achieve great things, prosper and choose their boyfriends and girlfriends in the same way and with the same values Dorothy and Ed, and their other sets of grandparents, taught them.

Many of them were gathered at David’s home Saturday afternoon, combing through thousands of pictures Mom had collected throughout the years, creating a tribute to the woman they called “Grammy.”

Those many images cover most of the years of Mom’s life and in all of them the themes of love and family and pride pour from the frames and tell of her legacy. What can’t be seen in those pictures is shared in the stories, like those being told in the room where she passed her final hours, surrounded by her son’s and loved ones.

The stories carried memories and were often inspiring. Michael shared a moment he called a “Wow” moment, one that spoke to the fierce loyalty and devotion our mother had for her children. Michael’s insurance policy that had been carried for years into his retirement as part of his pension package had expired and he was in the process or finding a suitable policy to replace it.

The moment came during one of the days of Mom’s final struggle, a day when she was exhausted and moving in and out of sleep.

“I was talking about my insurance, and how I was looking for a new policy. She heard me and her eyes lit up,” Mike said. “She looked at me and said, ‘Michael, you have to have insurance.’

“It was never about her. It was always about us. She could hardly breath or sit up and but she heard me and came to life to tell me. It was amazing,” Mike said.

Phillip, who had spent most of the last night with Jimmy keeping the watch over our mother, was in work when the last moment came.

In an email he sent me, he wrote with love and passion about what he learned as a child of Dorothy and Ed.

He spoke of dinner being at 5 every afternoon, how everyone squeezed together at the table, about how when it was finished, everyone had a task as part of the cleanup. He remembered how chores and sharing the load were a part of our lives.

“There was no excuse for not doing your part,” Phil wrote. “Everything else could wait. There was Saturday Mass at 4. Anyone within reach would go. Period. Raking the leaves, shoveling snow, washing windows, Saturday chores, painting, wallpapering, Dot would assign areas, and together we would get it done. Nobody got off until the task at hand was done. It was always fun and easy, because we all worked together. We were taught to act as a team from the start, and it stuck.”

Phil recalled the love she had for all of us - and for all we befriended or chose as a girlfriend, boyfriend, wife or husband.

“Dot always accepted the people we loved,” Phil wrote. “She treated our friends as though they were her own kids. When our friends were with Dot, no matter what happened, she had their back. And because Dot believed that without saying it, that meant that all our siblings had their backs as well. She even had a few live with us during tough times in their lives.”

He wrote of believing that Dot was the center of our lives, the magnet that pulled us together and made us one, and how she brought joy and fun to our family experiences.

“Dot loved to have fun as much as anyone,” Phil recalled. “It was never what this group was doing or that group was doing. We did it together. Skiing, golfing, hiking, church, parties, the beach, vacations. I could spend days on each subject. I especially loved vacationing together. She was invited on everyone's vacation. Because we loved her so much, she was never forgotten.

“She was magnetic to her children. We kept together as a family, and in a way, revolved around her, because of this. She worried about everyone, to everyone. If one of us were having a difficult time, she would call to make sure we all knew, and if there was any way we could help, or any wisdom to shed, it was shared this way making us strong as a group – as a family. (I wonder how many times St. Anthony heard from all of us within the same day, because of Dot.)

“Because of the way she was, we, as a family, have become unbreakable. We will never have to face anything alone. We will always look forward to each other’s company. We will always have plenty of stories to tell,” Phil wrote.

We all have stories we share and the memories that are special to us, those that we think about and rely on to guide us. For me (Sonny) those moments gave me strength and confidence. Knowing that she believed that I could accomplish my goals empowered me to accomplish them.

When I decided to go to college, she handed me book money. When I decided to leave the pressroom and begin a career as a journalist she told me “you can do anything if you believe it.”

And when there were trying moments in the beginning, times when the string of journalism jobs were thin and I resorted to working in a factory, when I thought I had made a huge mistake, she told me “the only mistake you can make is giving up.”

Jimmy recalled that being raised by Mom, meant “everything.” He remembered Mom “waking up at 4:30 in the morning to make sure you had a good breakfast so that you could have a good practice or her making a nice dinner after school.

“She made sure we were safe and if you were sad she was there with you like a lion protecting her cubs. You were always first,” he said.

One of the memories that was among those “the cousins” were going through was a picture of David as a young boy and another picture of Dad. They were inserted into a fame with a poem written in 1932 by Mary Elizabeth Frye. Frye composed the poem and scribbled it on a paper bag. She wrote it to comfort a family friend who had just lost her mother and was unable to even visit her grave.

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.

Mom did not put those images together. Someone else did. She handed Dave the poem, knowing exactly what he needed to hear and he still carries that poem today.

“She didn’t give me that picture in the frame,” he said. “She gave me the poem, on a piece of paper, and I carried it with me every day. I carry it with me today. She kindly came up to me one morning and said, ‘I want you to read this. I want you to understand this.’ She said, ‘Read this, he’s in a good place. You’ve got to let it go.’ That poem, I carry it with me everyday, and I have since she gave to it me.”

There are seven children, 18 grandchildren, and now eight great grandchildren and every single one of them has experienced that “you first” feeling.

Mom sometimes couldn’t get our names straight when she was agitated with one of us. Our name was more than once, “KeJimSonnyMikePhilDivi, oh whoever you are get over here.”

Yet we all felt her individual love and protection. She knew our fears, our loves and habits, and she always knew what to say and do.

For eight difficult weeks, our family was drawn to her side. There were only a few hours of any day when someone was not with her, and most times there was more than one of us there.

Through three hospital stays and two stints in rehabilitation hospitals far from our homes, the people who loved Dorothy were constantly with her, providing encouragement and company and love.

It was a terrible experience, but at the same time, it was remarkable.

As a family we showed strength and resolve. We loved her and cared for her and we loved and cared for each other. What we did for her, she has done for us. It is something that will stay with me forever.

The staff on the eighth floor, White Building, MGH, were moved by our love. I felt it and I know my family did as well. They were passionate, compassionate, and professional and they did everything they could for Mom and for our family.

The things that Mom inspired where sometimes subtle and overwhelming at the same time.

During that last gathering, Keith talked about how determined and strong she was, how she lived alone and navigated life all on her own. He talked about how she learned how to use a computer, how she took up golf and skiing in her sixties. We laughed when he told about how he didn’t get her to a golf date soon enough and was told by a guy who worked at the golf course that she had come by herself and was hitting the ball off the green and in the wrong direction.

It was a funny story, but my sense is that, in the telling, Keith was talking not about golfing in the wrong direction, but about Mom’s strength and determination and her willingness to try new things regardless of her age, and about how she passed those qualities down by example.

“She was a remarkable woman,” Keith said.

More than once during the last weeks, there was an expressed fear that, without Mom, we would splinter as a family. “She drew us together,” Keith said that final day. “I don’t want that to ever stop.”

In my heart, I know that will never be the case. Ed and Dot taught us the value of family and hard work and sharing and we have passed it on to our children who will, in turn, pass it on to theirs.

I need only to think of the scene in the hospital Friday morning, and at David’s on Saturday, to know that as truth. The memories of Christmas, Thanksgiving, July Fourth, big birthdays, birth’s and marriages being celebrated and shared together will continue.

And we all know that during times of strife and grief, the people we will count on the most will be those Dot reached. We are a family forged together as one and taught by those who knew what the word family really meant.

Funeral from the Keefe Funeral Home, 5 Chestnut Street, Rt.60 (adjacent to St. Agnes Church) Arlington on Wednesday, April 16th at 9:00 am, followed by her funeral mass in Saint Agnes Church, 24 Medford Street, Arlington at 10:00 am. Services will conclude with burial in the Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Arlington. Relatives and friends invited. Visiting hours will be in the funeral home on Tuesday, April 15th from 4:00 to 8:00 pm. Donations in her memory may be made to Massachusetts General Hospital, Pulmonary Unit, 55 Fruit Street, Boston, MA 02114. For obituary, directions or to send a condolence visit www.keefefuneralhome.com