Pamela Yenawine

Written & Read by Andrew Raitz, Pam’s Younger Son

According to a recent google search, around 75% of the population experiences some level of fear or anxiety when speaking in public. This is not the case for a child born to Pam Yenawine. That said, I will not make it through this without crying and I will express my appreciation early for your patience later.

I sat at a blank page for a long time while writing this. I considered how to describe and discuss my view of my mom’s vast life for days. I was finally able to start writing because I realized that the other people that are talking to you today will be able to tell you who Pam is, what she stands for and how amazing she is. But, I am the only one on that list today that can tell you what Pam was like as a mother.

First, and in my opinion possibly the most important, to this day I am unable to leave a toilet seat in the up position. Thanks, Mom!

I have spent a lot of my life in this building. Without dating myself too much, I remember the community center before this one and I remember helping during the move to this location - that is, as much as a six year old would help in that situation. Through my mom’s involvement in the community of the Soka Gakkai International, I have met many kind, loving and supportive people. During Kosen Rufu Gongyo, I would take my station at the intersection of the alley and the parking lot and discourage people from parking in this full lot and direct them to the closest lot down the alley. Very important stuff for a seven year old.

My mom wed David Yenawine in this Community Center. If memory serves, my aunt Valerie wed my uncle Brian the day before. For Valerie’s wedding, I wore khakis with a jacket and tie. When I learned that mom and David would be having a ceremony here, I decided that is was just another day at the Community Center and wore an airbrushed St. Louis sweatshirt and cargo pants. I believe, maybe somewhere, that there is video from that day of me with a post-it note, once seat marker bearing my name, squarely attached to my forehead. To say it best; I have always felt welcome, comfortable and at home in this community.

Today, the people of the SGI have opened their Kentucky Community Center to my family and to Pam’s friends and they join us in celebrating my mom and share with us the honor of knowing her. To Toki, Polly, Terri, SueB and every member of the SGI who contributed and who is in attendance, I am so grateful to be with you in this room again. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo

I want to take a moment to recognize my family here today. In no particular order, we have my Aunt Valerie, mom’s sister and her husband, my Uncle Brian. Their daughters are also with us today; Abbey and Hallie, Hallie’s husband Curtis and their beautiful new baby, Maven. Mom’s nieces and nephews, my cousins, Jessica, Chris, Katie & Eric. Jess’ husband, Scott and Katie’s husband Jeff. My brother, Alex and his daughter, mine and mom’s absolute favorite little girl, Olivia. Maria, Olivia’s mom and Maria’s mother Judy. And finally, my partner Jillian and her daughter, Eleanor. Thank you to my family for being here today, and I am especially grateful to some of you for the distance you traveled to be here.

Finally in recognition of Pam’s eternal family of friends, especially if you changed your Easter plans to join us, I genuinely thank you for being here today. I have had many familiar names from my childhood appear in my messages to offer their condolences and support. In addition, several strangers to me have reached out to wish the best and share their stories of Pam with me. To all of you, I offer my wholesome gratitude for sitting with me in the grief of saying goodbye to my mother’s physical form.
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For those of you that are not aware, my mother met my father when she took his class, entitled Philosophy of Education, during the pursuit of her Masters in Education at the University of Louisville in 1975. She once told me, in so many words, that when she laid eyes on him, she knew that she wanted to have his children. Two years later, my brother was born.

It is because of that story, and because my mom donated her body to the University of Louisville School of Medicine, that when I spoke to the Director of the Willed Body Program at UofL, he told me that I was now a part of the University of Louisville family and I was able to confidently say to him; “Oh, you have no idea.”

I grew up watching my mom teach. I grew up watching her lead. I grew up watching her heal people. And, I grew up watching my mother learn.

One of her favorite stories she likes to tell is about when her and I were in the kitchen one day and, at the wise age of four years old, I asked her if she remembered when I was the mommy and she was the baby. I have memory of this occasion, and it holds the title of first memories. Along with that memory, I have another memory from a similar time of mom walking down the hall in our house in Floyds Knobs proclaiming loudly and happily that she had found Buddhism - possibly with her hands in the air. She claims that I made that up but, for better or worse, that is my memory of mom discovering Buddhism.

Pam is always on the cutting edge of trends and technology. We had the internet and email in our house in 1991. She woke me and hurried me out of my bed and into to the living room to watch the OJ Pursuit on live TV in 1994. And in 1996 when La Bamba opened its doors on Bardstown Rd., dinner that night was a burrito as big as your head on the front porch of Tyler Parkway.

Like some teenage boys, I did not make life easy for my mother in the years leading up to the turn of the century. Maybe that is because I spent my childhood being told by everyone that I have a “cool mom.” My mom is, more or less, a celebrity in several rights throughout my life. Throughout most of my kindergarten through eighth grade education at Louisville Collegiate School, my mom taught French to high schoolers. And, for that reason alone, I elected to take Spanish.

Everything to which Pam dedicates her time gets her whole heart and soul. Having Pam as my mother, I didn’t just go to Collegiate, I knew the teachers and staff and, most importantly, I spent hours and hours waiting for my mom to be done working.

In seventh grade, my father gave me a wristwatch for Christmas that was a universal remote to control TVs and VCRs. After the winter break when it was time to watch an educational movie in science class, I promptly gave Mrs. Szabo an aneurysm by bending the TV/ VCR combo to my will and blatantly disrupting the educational process. To my knowledge, which could be flawed, Principle Atkins pushed hard for my expulsion but somehow, even though she no longer worked there, my mom arranged for me to stay enrolled to finish out my seventh and eighth grade years (on some sort of probation I’m sure). And, once I completed eighth grade, I would then go to public school.

For this, and many other reasons, I am eternally grateful for my mother’s commitment to my education.

Once I reached the age where, I guess skeletal growth, or something, allows one to remove their cranium from their sacrum, I found a cherished bond with my mother. And then, rather than be aggrieved by our relationship, I found myself very grateful for our relationship.

There was a memorable strengthening of our bond when I was out to dinner with her and dad in 2003 at Wick’s Pizza to celebrate my birthday. At this point mom had been divorced from dad for seventeen years but, we made an effort to get together for my birthday every year. I was telling them of my newfound career in Audio Visual and how I had already become the manager of the property. Now, my dad is a very kind and caring soul but, sometimes he says the right thing the absolute wrong way. Dad said to me with a sigh of relief that he never thought I would make anything of myself and was delighted that I had, as opposed to choosing a life of degeneracy. Swiftly, my mom turned to him and asked sharply; “why the <expletive> would you say that to your son?”

While I knew that my dad was referring to my select encounters with poor decisions in my youth and how I had seemingly overcome them, and I took what he said for exactly how he meant it and not how it sounded, my mother’s swift and unwavering protection of me was noted as a pivotal moment marking the beginning of our adult relationship.

Every moment I spent with my mom after that was joy filled. We are definitively cut from the same cloth and we can both slice through the tension in any social situation with a poorly timed, and quite possibly inappropriate joke. And, if we were together in that room, we would at least be the only one laughing at the other’s poor comedy.

My favorite thing to do with my mom is to make her laugh.

I inherited her ability to not be ashamed of the attributes that make us human, but instead to give those pieces of ourselves away to other people to show them that humanity, even at its most painful, is the most beautiful thing that we will collectively experience in this life.

In the last few weeks, I have been talking with my mom a lot. And, if you know her and have not been talking to her recently, I encourage you to start - she is listening.

I could stand here and talk to you for hours about my mom. In fact, I spent more time deciding what not to include in my words than I did exploring all of the ideas that came to me. Nothing I could say would feel complete to me. Nothing I write will capture something so ineffable as experiencing my mom, let alone experiencing Pam and her wholesome, healing gift. In fact, I hesitate to even end what I am writing now because I know that even though my mom as I know her has left the physical world, my story with her continues eternally.

I love you, mom. I am forever your little baby boy.