In March 2023, Amy George died from glioblastoma. A woman who liked to remind us all of our insignificance had her life stripped away by this rare disease. She fought hard despite failing treatment. We need your help to raise awareness and find better solutions for patients with this terrible, aggressive cancer. Please help support Alice as she runs in honor of Amy (who would have hated all this fuss), in celebration of Alice's 40th birthday, and support the NBTS for their great efforts in fighting brain cancer.

-Mamie's Marauders

"You aren't that special!"

I’m supposed to be a writer, but finding the right words for today seemed impossible. My mom gave us a lot of guidance for what she wanted her memorial to be like, including the hymns for today, but she didn’t leave any lists for what should be said in this eulogy. 

Maybe the German words that my mom so loved would better explain my feelings and the feelings shared by many of you. Like Erlösung—a single word with religious connotations that is used to describe deliverance or easing of pain. Because I’m not relieved that her suffering has ended. I am not grateful that we got to spend the last eight months with her before she died. I am sad that I didn’t realize until after she was gone that my mom was my best friend, someone I talked to every single day about my job, about being a mother, being a wife, being a sister. I know my brother did the same—about career, fatherhood, and family. In these conversations, mom was right about everything. 

Mom would not have liked that you were all here. One of the last lucid things she said to me was “Don’t fuss.” “Over you?” I said. “Over everything,” she answered, before falling back to sleep.

She hated all the fuss. I don’t know if she realized how loved she was. By my brother’s wife Chrystie—who braved all of this while pregnant and then with a newborn—and her family, my husband’s family, my dad’s sister and their cousins, and their families—all who loved Amy and were there for us, praying for us during this difficult time.

Concerned colleagues and friends who fussed by sending letters, flowers, and words of encouragement—every one of which meant so much to mom. Even though she didn’t like the fuss. Those who came to visit. Lorraine. Kumar. John. Friends in Germany who never got to say goodbye but who loved and prayed from afar. We owe you all a debt of gratitude we can't express in a simple eulogy.

To know and love Amy was to accept her, as is, because she was the most sure, the most determined, most stubborn person I and probably all of you knew.

There are dozens if not hundreds of people who knew Amy George the tax director, some for more than 20 years. Had her life not been cut short by a horrifying disease, I am not sure she would have ever left SAP. Anyone who ever worked with her knows how hard it was for her to stop working when she got sick. Impossible, even. Mom kept up on "her emails" despite us reminding her that her team would take care of everything. She was so diligent and committed, she just couldn't stop.

She loved her colleagues. The outpouring of condolences and stories from them has been at times overwhelming. Over and over, they shared the same words about Amy: Kind. Generous. Someone who always made time. Magnanimous. I had to double check the meaning of the word: the definition includes “showing a courageous spirit.” How perfect, how right to describe mom as magnanimous. Her colleagues said she was beautiful. A mentor. Always knew the right answer or always found the right answer. A gentle soul. She wanted to do what is right in her job, every single day. And because of that, many of her colleagues also considered her a friend.

Amy George the friend. Those people that my mom called a friend are as special as my mom was. Chantal. Dan. Merci beaucoup mes amis. Thank you for all you did for our family. And for our dog Reilly. I am sorry I cannot mention everyone. Vicki. Sandy—Sandy, I don’t know if I ever thanked you for being there the day I took my mom to the hospital. Thank god for good neighbors.

Neighbors like Alice (the only other Alice I’ve ever met) who graciously gave her time to tell my mom, who wanted to know, what this same rare brain cancer did to Alice’s husband Bill. How generous and courageous of you, Alice. These neighbors and friends are the ones who like my mom are doers of the right thing, and who appreciate life in its simplest forms. A backyard garden. A roasted chicken. A linen table cloth. A stone picked off the shore in Maine. Mom was not material—even if she held onto things, that one day might come in handy. For cleaning.

Mom was modest. Never vain, even when she lost her hair. Mom was careful, at times cautious. We wouldn’t describe her as someone with a sense of adventure, but that is because she didn’t need or want over the top experiences. She valued life’s details and most intimate, carefree, genuine moments. She did not need things to be new or flashy, but comfortable and secure. She did not want to finally, at last travel to England. She wanted to spend time with her children and her grandchildren, including her newest grandson Ryan, whom she was so eager to meet at least once before she died. Family was her greatest adventure.

Amy the sister. Amy Pamie. My mom has one sister, Diane, who was with us nearly every day at the end (the end, which lasted such an impossibly long time because my mom is a fighter). It would get me in trouble with whoever is in charge if I were to say Diane and Amy were the best of friends, peas in a pod, because that would not be true. When it comes to Diane and Amy, Amy was a fighter in another sense of the word. But that is because Diane and Amy were close. They shared the bond of being sisters. They were different, but it didn’t matter because they were family.

Diane, like Amy, wants to do the right thing. Sometimes doing the right thing can be very hard, like deciding to stop chemotherapy. Like going along with the conversation when a mother can’t remember her own daughter. But sometimes doing the right thing can be funny. My Aunt Diane, my mom, and I laughed a lot while my mom was dying. I know for some people that might sound crass, but when your body and your mind start to fail you, would you rather be afraid or would you rather laugh? When you can no longer hold yourself up and your daughter has to bathe and clothe you or your sister has to cut your food and feed you, isn’t it better to laugh? Isn’t that the right thing? My mom laughed. We laughed until we cried.

Colleague, friend, sister. Daughter. Amy George the daughter. I'll never forget Mom’s bravery, a trait inherited from her mother, our grandma, who braved the impossible during all of this, yet kept each of us and her daughter in her prayers every day. Mom, ever the fighter, understood that glioblastoma was beyond her control. "What am I going to do about it?” she would say. “I’ll be fine.” We knew she wouldn't be. But that was Mom. Always so sure, especially in front of her children. "I'll be ok Max, I just have cancer,” she’d say.

There is only one other person who knows the pain of losing Amy George the mother, and that is my brother Max. We had a motto in this nightmare, and that was “it takes two.” None of what we faced in my mom’s terminal diagnosis could be done alone.

Max the peacemaker, the fixer, the one who does all things without any expectation of thanks. And while my mom questioned whether we were thankful for our ever so carefully selected gifts each Christmas if we did not jump up and down with gratitude, the humility Max posseses was learned from my mom. She did not do anything for recognition. Whatever she did, she did because it was the right thing to do. When she lost her ability to walk and eventually care for herself, Mom never made this hard on us, always encouraging us that she was just fine, and that we were just "fussing" again. I am not grateful, but it was an honor for all of us to take care of my mom, and a lesson in doing the right thing that her grandchildren will carry with them, whether they are old enough to remember her or not.

And of course there is only one person who knew Amy George the wife. Dad. I know you did and do your best every single day, because doing your best is the right thing to do. That is all any of us could ask for. You will learn to exist without your wife of 48 years. You will. We all will. Because she prepared us all to work without her, to roast a chicken without her, to raise our children without her, to keep going without her, through her guidance to do what is right over her lifetime and throughout the course of her disease.

Thank you colleagues, friends, and family for being here today. My mom told me that I would be okay. I am going to hope that she is right about that. We will all cherish the time we were given with mom; let us not focus on her premature death but on the lessons she taught us, up until her last breath: Work hard. Enjoy the little things. Be brave. Laugh. Don’t fuss.

That was supposed to be the end, but because we are in a church, I wanted to share a Bible verse that I came across in one of the many, many cards sent to my mom. It felt right to close this way, with God’s word, not hers—because that’s what she would have wanted. My mom read her Bible every single night, until she couldn’t. It’s from Romans 12, and it sums up what her 8 months with glioblastoma looked like: Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer.

Thank you.