12/08/10 - Thoughts

As you all know by now, Mom died this past Sunday, October 5th 2010, at just past 10 a.m. I thought I would wrap up this blog with the obituary Dad wrote for mom and would finish with what I thought to be a very poignant response to the obituary from some friends of mom and dad's, and some quick final words of my own.

Jane Ursula Cooke Brynn died in Charlotte, N. C. on December 5, 2010. The daughter of the late John Joseph Cooke and Virginia Humphreys Cooke, she is survived by her husband of 43 years, Ambassador Edward Brynn (currently the Department of State Historian), five children and their spouses, eight grandchildren, and four brothers and a sister.

One of eight children, she was raised in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn and in Garden City, New York. Mrs. Brynn graduated from Rosemont College in Philadelphia, studied at the University of Edinburgh and San Francisco State University, and received graduate degrees from Stanford University and the University of Denver.

Before her marriage in 1967, Mrs. Brynn worked for AT&T in New York as one of the first generation of computer programmers. After her marriage she saw much of the world through a richly textured personal and professional life. In Ireland, she was one of the first women to hold a position of managerial responsibility in the Irish banking system. In Sri Lanka, she was active in women's rights issues. Three of her five children were born during her husband's assignments on the faculty of the United States Air Force Academy. Mrs. Brynn burnished her skills during that period as an editor of doctoral dissertations while pursuing an advanced degree at the University of Denver.

Mrs. Brynn began work with the Department of State as a contractor in 1978, and entered the Foreign Service in 1989. She served as a budget and finance director in American embassies in Mali, Guinea, the Comoros Islands, and Ghana. She was appointed Deputy Director of Budget and Finance at the American embassy in Bonn in 1991 and finished her career in charge of Budget and Finance at the American embassy in Paris. On excursion tours she helped to open new embassies in the former Soviet Union, promoted improved administration and accountability in our embassies in Congo, Eritrea, The Gambia and at other posts. She hosted First Lady Hillary Clinton during President Clinton's visit to Ghana in 1998. She received numerous awards from the Department of State during her career.

After retirement in early 2000, Mrs. Brynn served on the board of WDAV, the National Public Radio classical music station in Davidson, N.C. She was a docent at the Levine Museum of the New South, and volunteered in local primary schools. She supported the World Affairs Council of Charlotte.

Mrs. Brynn traveled extensively: to the Far East and India; to the Middle East and Sahelian and Southern Africa; to Turkey; to the Coptic rock churches in Ethiopia and up the Nile from Cairo; to the Caribbean; and through almost all of Western Europe, with special emphasis on her beloved France.

Mrs. Brynn was an avid reader, bridge player, tennis player, and fan of Italian and French opera. In addition to pursuing her career in the Foreign Service, she tackled with great determination and humor the challenges of raising five children in South Asia and Africa, and supported her husband's diplomatic and social commitments in more than a half dozen posts overseas.

To celebrate her earnest commitment to classical music, a fund has been established to promote awareness of classical music in the Charlotte region. In lieu of flowers, contributions to the Jane Cooke Brynn Musical Education Fund at WDAV would be welcomed. WDAV can be contacted by mail at WDAV 89.9, Box 8990, 423 North Main Street, Davidson, N.C. 28035-8990, by phone at (877) 333-8990, and on the web at www.wdav.org.

Interment will take place in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. Memorials will also take place in Charlotte and Washington, D.C. for her friends in those areas.

And a particularly well developed response, written to Dad:

While recounting the many dimensions of whom you rightfully describe as a remarkable woman, Jane's obituary resembles the journalist's credo of letting the facts of her life hint at what she was like throughout that journey. They encourage us as its readers to consider, to remember her as the person whom we knew, loved, and treasured. And how could we refrain from that and how could we not love her.

Indeed, from the time we were aware of her illness, Caroline and I were compelled time and again to bring her to mind, drawing on memories and experiences of both long ago and more recently. And she never changed. Jane was beautiful. She was articulate. She was smart. She was full of humor. She was kind and generous. She saw through people, sometimes very candidly, typically with humor, but she always came back to their positive attributes and to their virtues rather than their faults.

She had a wonderful smile, sometimes arch, always kind and indulgent. She was direct. She could not be bottled up, and who would want that, as she shared her thoughts, opinions, hopes, insights, and information. Jane was resilient and strong and knew exactly what had to be done. There was not a moment's hesitation in adopting, raising, loving her sister's children as her own. Those five children you mentioned in the obit were truly her own and yours.

Jane's embrace extended beyond ther family to the whole world around her. It was aesthetic, yes, and that was important, but it also swept in people. Her relationships with others communicated sincere interest in them, an ability to accept who they were but, also when needed, to lend a helping hand and a kind thought.

We saw all of this first hand, close up, in the time we shared very intensely in Sri Lanka, now 35 years ago and counting, but consider multiplying that by the multiples of years since then, as we have, marveling, and - one shakes one's head and reflects - what a life she led, what impact she had. If these memories and firm judgements, formed so many years in the past still remain fresh to us, when those of others who were there then have faded, they speak of the "remarkable woman" Jane was. Remarkable not only in her achievements in the worlds of raising a family so well, in the world of her career, and the world of volunteer work, but as a lady who stood above the crowd.

"Edward", she always called you - not always approvingly, depending on circumstances and perhaps on the dubious characters Foreign Service work requires association with, and on ventures that gripped you - you were a lucky man. If a pair was ever made for each other it was you and she.

We mourn her and mourn with you. The images and memories we have of her will always remain with us. And we are the lucky ones also for having known and loved Jane Cooke Brynn.

Well, impossible to follow that without sounding like a "maroon", but what the heck. . .

Mom was, among other things, a "giver". And as I have reflected on the very rewarding and challenging times we spent with mom over these past several months, I have come to realize that even in her final horrific battle with brain cancer, mom continued to give more than we could have imagined. As we stood around her bed on Sunday morning, crying and hugging each other as she took her final breaths, it was clear that the family had never been stronger than it was at that very moment, and that it was our efforts to rally with mom over these past 16 months that had gotten us there and prepared us for the years ahead without her.

Thanks for everything, Mom. You will always be loved, missed, and remembered.

12/1/10 - Update

I am sitting in mom's room in Charlotte - opera music in the background, mom in the hospital bed next to me. Hospice has just come through to give her a bath and change her bedding.

Thanksgiving was very good, all things considered. Lots of youthful exuberance (Kiernan's girls, my kids, Justin's three month old baby girl Sofia) led the charge in games of chess, croquet, checkers, basketball, and, in Sofia's case, cheerful gurgling. The trip to some friends' to fry a turkey was a clear highlight (as it was last year - once you go fried, you'll never go back!). Kiernan's smoked turkey was - in his own words - spectacular (others agreed), and between the two turkeys even Dad has had his fill of turkey legs.

So all in all a very positive family expience, despite the clearly difficult times. The kids handled their interactions with mom very well, much to my relief (though I should have remembered that kids have an incredible ability to adapt to whatever situations come their way and should not have been as concerned as I was).

As I indicated in my last post, we had been observing that mom was progressing into the final phase, and this progression has continued since. She is now in the final stage of that phase. She has slept almost without interruption for the past 48 hours and has taken little food and water over that period. We met with the head hospice nurse yesterday, and she indicated that once the body no longer wants to eat or drink we should not force it to do so as it would only make things harder on the body. She indicated that mom's body is beginning the process of shutting down and we should allow it to do so on its own terms. Not a surprise, though clearly saddening nonetheless.

Our final mission at this point remains the same - keep mom as comfortable as possible. We have pain and anxiety medication - both in liquid form - that we now administer on schedule (as opposed to on demand). She is no longer on any Chemo regimen. Aside from managing her medication and changing her bedding and the dressing on her wound, we simply spend time sitting with her in her room and remembering all the good times we've had together. A very good friend of mine recently wrote to me that the one blessing of cancer is that it allows time to say goodbye and to grieve. This we continue to do.

Love to all, and thanks for all the support and well wishes.

Ted