"The Greatest Good"

How does one sum up a life? She was more than her birthdate: December 13, 1925, Detroit, Michigan. She was a secretary, an actress ... and a mother. The date on the death certificate said February 5, 2000. Her name was Ruth Pinsker, later Ruth Marcus, and she was my mother. Her passing doused a bright light in my life, leaving me mere shadows of so much I thought I knew. This speech is the first I've ever done that I didn't call to read to her first. After each of the others, she'd sigh softly and lovingly, savoring her thoughts and feelings like fine wine for a few moments. "My precious son," she'd usually start, "You have truly touched me again." Then together, son and his best-friend mother, writer and editor, speaker and audience, we'd find strengths and shore up weaknesses. No matter my age, my mother's pride always made me feel like a Valedictorian on graduation day. That was my mom. Whether through years of teenage rebellion, an ugly divorce, or career crisis - she listened with love and then reminded me emphatically. "I hate that this is happening to you. It's not right. But you are bigger than this. You are guided. You can do it - and you will. You always do. I believe in you." In return, that unconditional support guided me to try to be the type of boy - and then man - about whom we both could be proud. She was such a strong editor partially because she was so well read. Extremely proud of her literacy because her mother never had the opportunity to go to school and learn to read, she would emphasize, "I'm very particular about words." In a couple of her choice expressions, I am looking for answers. She needed to understand everything; a child-like sponge soaking up a universe of mystery and fascination. When an explanation was unfound, she was convinced it was for "The Greatest Good," her unyielding belief that creation spun on an axis of positive intent - and all would turn out as it needed to in the end.	In addition to "Greatest Good," she gleaned a Yiddish expression from her mother, a fiercely independent, Russian Jewish immigrant who fought to obtain her dream to move to the United States in 1924. "Mann tracht, Gott lought," "Man plans, God laughs." We mortals can scheme, design, and direct all we want, but when it comes to where this bus is going, we're just along for the ride. Her life hit a pinnacle right before her diagnosis. After recently losing 80 pounds and having the time of her life - being thin for the first time in 70 years - she met a gentleman with whom she "palled around." ("We're just friends," she'd insist. Although he pulled me aside one day and whispered, "We ARE courting, you know.") Her newest grandson was on the eve of his first birthday; her eldest making plans to move closer to her. She promised me that she would dance with joy at my wedding this coming August; my fiancée referred to as "her second daughter." Days before he sun went dark, she told me, "Oh Scott - I have so much to live for. I love life." At an afternoon conference in a doctor's office in January, surrounded by her family, all her sweet plans were wickedly slashed from her. Man plans; God laughs. I now have trouble accepting "Greatest Good". I am a spiritual person; it is the foundation of much of who I am. It is hard to understand how a loving, supportive, and healing God could stab so much pain into my family and laugh about it. Something is horribly corrupt. God is neither vengeful nor malevolent, and it disorients and hurts me to have such ambivalence about God. Where is this "Greatest Good?"	I always turned to advice from my mother; the wicked irony being that I am left only with her wisdom and her words, her voice now still. She would not let her beliefs rupture in spite of the inevitable. Even with cancer, she told me the "greatest good" was happening. She didn't understand it. She hated it. For awhile, she fought it. But she accepted it for the best. I've tried to console myself by hearing her and accepting the "Greatest Good" is, as always, afoot. Life is a series of lessons, one of which must be "Greatest good," obviously does not abide by the timetable of my house. My lesson must be to understand I am not the architect of this structure, merely the inhabitant. When will I learn to accept and appreciate joy today, not putting off the pleasures of life until "I lose the weight", or "the kids have grown," or "I've paid off the mortgage," the fuller will be whatever days are mine. When plans are blown to shreds; blasted by a typhoon of events unanticipated nor understood, where do I find serenity? When I hear God's laugh, how long before I know that He is not laughing at me, but with me? How long until I understand - or at least accept? I would love to wrap this up in a pretty bow and give to you answers, yet the only honest one is "I don't know." Over time I hope I will find out. And maybe that is my beacon. Although my world is indee darker, I'd like to belive my mother in this room, maybe sitting up front, or standing in the back; listening and smiling and beaming at me as she always did. And I hear her voice, "My sweet boy - her expression for me until the end - You don't have to understand it all. You can't. All you need to do is remember I am always here and in all things, every behavior, every thought, even this dark period, all things ALWAYS happen for "The Greatest Good."