Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Bob and I want to thank you all for being here to honor the life of our mother, Dina Hyden.
Mom was born in Lomza, Poland in 1921. She emigrated to the US at age 9 with her mother, brother, and sisters. Her father had preceded them a couple of years earlier. She grew up in Brooklyn and after graduating high school worked for a time as a commercial artist.
She met her husband Irving on a blind date. Dad loved to tell the story of the first time he saw Mom. When he showed up for the date, Mom had just come from the beach and was wearing a sarong, the bikini of its day for the younger folks. He thought to himself â??Thatâ??s for Me!â? They married in 1943, then Dad was shipped overseas.
They moved to Amsterdam shortly after the end of the war and raised a family. She had three sons, one of whom died in infancy.
The quality I most associate with Mom is that she was a lady. She would never go out until she had readied herself just so â?? makeup, hair, clothes. And this never changed right up to the day she went into the hospital. And while she hated the food there, her biggest complaint was that she couldnâ??t get her hair done.
She had a lot of pride in herself, not obviously because she was quiet and unassuming. She was as likely to react to a compliment with a shrug as anything else.
She had a lot of class. She set a great example as to how to comport oneself. And she was strong. At age 87 she had of course endured sorrows â?? the loss of an infant son in her youth, the loss of Irving after 63 years of marriage, bouts of cancer 40 years apart and we all know cancer did not do well in that battle. All of this without a lot of drama â?? just quiet strength. She loved reading and painting. In recent years she had retired the brushes, but she was prolific in her time, and her house as well as other peopleâ??s have examples of her talent hanging on the walls.
Her greatest talent, though, was as a mother. She was a wonderful, loving Mom to Bob and me and so supportive â?? well, maybe not when we had motorcycles.
She was a devoted Grandma â?? she loved her granddaughter so much. When Mom visited us she spent many hours with Amy helping her with her drawing and painting. Mom and Amy talked on the phone several times a week. These conversations were so important to Amy, an opportunity to stay close to Grandma. And it was obvious that these precious minutes were some of Momâ??s best moments these last couple of years.
In the end her strength and perseverance couldnâ??t get her through this last illness. She had overcome a painful skin condition earlier this year and we were all looking forward to another longâ??term visit this winter. I was not to be, but her spirit will always be with us, a warm and inspiring spirit that burns brightly even though she is no longer here.
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