Writing From the Heart

Paying tribute to the woman who has been holding me up—and letting go when the time is right—my whole life.

As a once-single mother, first-born daughter, and self-proclaimed family historian, I’ve juggled my fair share of responsibilities. But none weighed so heavily as having to write my mother’s eulogy after she died a year ago, unexpectedly, at age 86.

It was only natural that the task fall to me. I volunteered, knowing that it would be hard to write—and even harder to deliver. I also knew it would the best possible way to honor the woman I loved more than anything in the world. My safe place. My inspiration. My playmate. My teacher. My mom.

Once I made up my mind to write, the words came easily, as though guided by her hand and my memories—the two collaborating to help me put into words all the things that needed to be said.

My goal wasn’t just to help people remember her, but also to help people know her even if they’d never met. I wanted them to see what made her so remarkable—the energetic, mischievous, adventurous, silly, dedicated, loving side of her that drew people in. I wanted my tribute to be memorable. Inspirational. Non-traditional. And funny—it had to be light-hearted. Mom wouldn’t have it any other way.

So, I created a framework for my tribute, using the words of wisdom she spent 60 years teaching me, sprinkled with stories from her life that let her authentic self shine through. With that, the words flowed.

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Seven Lessons I Learned From My Mom

Hi everyone. I’m Karen, Jo’s daughter. Thank you all for taking the time to celebrate Mom’s life. It means so much to us that you’re here. The only one missing is Mom—she would have loved to be here to see all of you and wrap you in one of her big bear hugs. Even as I say that I can see her smile. I can hear her laugh. It’s hard to believe she’s gone. Not just because I miss her, but also because she has always been the most alive person I’ve ever known.

Mom had an enthusiasm that was contagious. When I told her I was writing a book about her years as a missionary in Southeast Asia in the 1960s, her response said it all: “I can’t wait to read it and find out what kind of character I am!” She certainly was a character, and it would take a lifetime to sum up all that she’s meant to me.

In the 60 years I’ve known her, she’s taught me so much. She was an amazing teacher. Not in the academic sense. It was more of an apprenticeship—digging in, getting your hands dirty, and learning by example. I was fortunate enough to have a front-row seat. So, I’d like to share with you seven of the most important lessons I’ve learned from my mom.

Lesson number one: Be true to who you are. Mom wrote those words to me on my 20th birthday, in a card I’ve kept to this day. To her, being true to yourself isn’t a “one and done” proposition. Self-discovery takes time and courage, and she was never one to shy away.

Joanne Pedersen grew up in St. Peter, Minnesota, with two older brothers, Donnie and Vern, and a younger sister, Kristi. It was a small town, and because her brothers called her “Sis,” everyone else did, too. She once confided in me that she didn’t care for that nickname because it sounded too much like “sissy.”

At the time, I wondered why that was an issue—after all, nobody uses the word “sissy” anymore—so, I looked it up. Sissy: Soft, timid, or oversensitive. Overly interested in things traditionally associated with women. I think we can all agree that Mom was more the “Tom boy” type. She knew that about herself, and she embraced it.

Once, when she was a teenager, she decided she wanted to learn to swan dive. The house she grew up in was across the street from the town pool, so she asked the swim instructor to teach her, but he refused. Undaunted, Mom climbed over the fence and snuck into the pool after dark, climbing up to the high dive platform. After much trial and error, she taught herself to dive. In college, she even competed in swimming and diving competitions.

She was an amazing athlete—strong, capable, and fearless. Which brings me to the next lesson.

Lesson number two: Live life to the fullest. Mom was adventurous and fun-loving—and it was a combination that sometimes got her into trouble. As you may know, St. Peter is a college town and, as a teenager, Mom and her friend Jan Egersdorf decided it would be fun to pull a practical joke on the school. They made a figure of a man, stuffing Jan’s dad’s pants and shirt with straw and hanging it from a sign on Main Street that read “Gustavus Adolphus College.” When the police arrived, they hid in the bushes to avoid getting caught. But the Sherriff found them the next day, after tracking down Jan’s father, whose name was sewn into the clothes.

Not long after that, she and some friends snuck into an abandoned one-room schoolhouse. The door was unlocked, so they walked in to look around. Since the school was clearly no longer being used, Mom decided to take a couple of souvenirs home with her. She was sure they wouldn’t be missed. But somebody must’ve spotted her walking away with a portrait of George Washington under her arm, and the next day the Sherriff was back at her house. “I cannot tell a lie,” Mom told him, handing over the picture. And so ended her life of crime.

Lesson number three: Think outside yourself. Mom found joy in taking care of others, and she was very good at it. She loved animals and collected a menagerie of pets throughout her life. Not just cats and dogs, but other animals, too. She had a horse named Trigger, a pet fox named Reggie and even a pet skunk. As an adult, she once had a pet monkey, a musang, several goats, a parakeet named Pete—and his successor, “Re-Pete.”

Mom had a tremendous capacity for care, but it wasn’t always easy. Her mother, my grandmother, had multiple sclerosis and was bedridden by the time Mom was 11 years old. It became my mother’s job to help take care of her until Mom had to move away from home to finish nursing school.

Her dad was a doctor and caring for people ran in the family. Her two older brothers went on to become doctors and her sister eventually became a social worker. Career options being what they were back then, Mom decided to become a nurse—and she made it her life’s work. Not just during her many years as a nursing supervisor at Ramsey County Public Health, but also during retirement, as a nurse for the Dorothy Day homeless shelter in St. Paul and a volunteer for the Red Cross—where she responded in the aftermath of the of the 35W bridge collapse.

Mom was always drawn to the people who needed her most, so it wasn’t always easy to find time to spend together when things were going well. But when things weren’t going well, she’d be the first to drop everything and be right there at your side. You could always count on her to help, no matter what. As someone who’s been on the receiving end of that generosity, time and time again, she was a Godsend. And I’m so incredibly grateful. On to the next lesson.

Lesson number four: Never stop moving. For 86 years, Mom lived a full and active life. When she was 12 years old, her father took her on a canoe trip to the Boundary Waters and introduced her to Dorothy Molter, the “Root Beer Lady.” Throughout her life, Mom went back to Knife Lake, again and again, staying in Dorothy’s cabins or favorite campsites, where she’d scare away the bears while we cowered in the tent. She was so strong, she could portage a canoe while wearing two packs, front and back.

Mom loved the outdoors and wanted her three kids to grow up loving it, too. When I was about 10 years old, she decided to teach my brothers and I how to downhill ski. We didn’t have a lot of money, so she bought an old blue camper and some used ski equipment and took us to Afton Alps to show us the ropes. Once we learned to snowplow, she’d pile us into the camper for ski trips to local resorts, like Lutsen, Indianhead, and Telemark. We couldn’t afford to stay in the lodge, so we’d park at the resort and run in to use the pool. She’d have dinner cooking in the camper, and I remember walking through the parking lot, following the smell of roast turkey. 

When she wasn’t skiing, she was in-line skating at the Metrodome or playing ice hockey on a team that included Mark Dayton (before he was governor). She played softball, she went scuba diving, she waterskied, she golfed, she biked. She was a hard woman to keep up with. And whatever she was doing, she made it look like so much fun it made you want to try it, too.   

Lesson number five: Whatever it is, you can do it. Mom had a sort of motto that I heard her say any number of times throughout my life whenever she was presented with a challenge: How hard could it be? Whether it was building a deck, installing hard wood floors, putting in a sliding glass door, or re-roofing the house, Mom never backed away from a single challenge. There was simply nothing she couldn’t do.

When I was a single mother and my garbage disposal broke, Mom dragged me to the hardware store and stood there, scowling, when we were told to hire a plumber. “If a man could do it, we could do it,” she told me. And together, we installed a new garbage disposal that worked without fail for 15 years.

She had faith in herself, and she had faith in me. Even now that she’s gone, she continues to inspire and amaze me. During those moments when I’m filled with self-doubt, I hear her whispering in my ear: How hard could it be? In time, I understood that “how hard could it be” does not mean things won’t be hard. It means all things are possible. If you want something, you need to work for it.

When I was a teenager, Mom decided she wanted a deck. She’d never built a deck before, but she didn’t let that stop her. She read up on it, consulted a friend who had some experience, and drew up plans and a supply list on a piece of paper. By mid-summer she’d dug and poured the footings and started construction on a huge cedar deck in the back yard. She didn’t have a chop saw, so she made do with a skill saw and a lot of patience. The deck turned out beautifully, and soon she found herself building decks for friends in her spare time. People helped as best they could, sporting T-shirts that read: “Jo’s Deck Crew.”

On Mother’s Day a few years back, Connie and I conspired to get a story published about Mom in the Star Tribune. It was Connie’s idea. They were running people’s tributes to their mothers, and she thought: Who better to pay tribute to than Mom? I couldn’t agree more. So, I put some thoughts together and ran them by Connie, and together we submitted them to the newspaper and promptly forgot all about it.

Fast forward a month or so and Mom and Connie were spending Mother’s Day with Jeff and I at our cabin in Hayward—one of many wonderful weekends we spent together there. It wasn’t until the drive home that Connie remembered the newspaper, and she swung into a store in town and there—right above the masthead—was a picture of Mom teaching me to ride a bike.

She’s been holding me up and letting go, when the moment is right, all my life.

Lesson number six: Choose to be happy. Mom knew that happiness isn’t something you wait around for. It’s a choice you make every single day—a choice that seemed to come easily to Mom because she was always so positive. She did things that made her happy, like building decks, making stained glass windows and intarsia—beautiful works of art from wood.

Despite the many hardships she faced, including two battles with breast cancer and a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease just a couple of years ago, she could always find something to be happy about. As the disease slowly progressed, she stopped driving and needed more help with things. I thank God for Connie, who was there, lovingly caring for Mom—something I will be eternally grateful for and something Mom appreciated beyond measure.

After all those years of taking care of others, she was finally being taken care of—and she liked it. She once told Connie that she didn’t mind having Alzheimer’s because she no longer had to drive herself anywhere or worry about anything (not that she was ever very good at worrying anyway). Leave it to Mom to find the silver lining.  

Lesson number seven: Love unconditionally. Mom once wrote to me: “You’re easy to love because you respond with love.” It’s a quality she treasured, and I think that’s a big part of what drew people to her. She loved enthusiastically and unconditionally. She loved even when it was hard to love. She radiated love. It came so naturally to her that she made it look easy. And we basked in it. We bask in it still.  

She is an over-achiever, after all. I think we can all agree on that. It was never enough to just believe in someone or something. She gave herself over—fully and completely—to the people and the causes she cared about. She loved life and embraced it with her whole being. She loved her wife, Connie—her soul mate of 44 years. And she loved her kids, her grandkids, her family, her friends, and her “framily” boundlessly, with her whole heart.

She and Connie taught me how rich and wonderful life could be when you find someone you truly love. We are so, so lucky to have been loved by her and to love her, still. She may be gone, but her love lives on in all that she’s taught us. In all of you. Mom’s light still burns bright, and I like to think it always will.

I love you, Mom. I miss you. And I thank you, from the bottom of my heart.