Jean Capehart Eng

I’m sure everyone here knows who I am, but I’ll introduce myself anyway. I’m Michael Eng, the fourth child of Jean Capehart Eng. She called me Mikey or her Precious Pooh Bear or sweetheart and I was definitely her favorite son. She also called me her miracle baby.

Most people don’t know this, even some family members.  In 1970, my mother’s doctor didn’t want her to go forward with her pregnancy because they said that I would most likely die and that her life was in significant danger as well.  She and my father were distraught, but they trusted in God, they prayed and prayed and I’m standing here today because of that faith and trust in the Lord.  She lived another 54 years.  That’s how she lived all of them, sacrificing for her family and putting her trust in God, willing to put her own life in the balance against the advice of medical professionals.

Our mother was the best mother in the world.  We were blessed to have her.  She instilled in us TO love the Lord with all our heart and all our soul and our mind and strength.   She provided for us, even when times were tough.  She lived life with generosity and with beauty and joy. She was a pillar of strength and the rock that stabilized us all.  She taught us the importance of family, love, and faith – teaching us that God’s love is the glue that keeps us together.  She set an example – walking with God and having a personal relationship with Jesus.  

Dad

She loved Jesus with all her heart and she also deeply cherished our father.  He was the love of her life and theirs was an incredible love story.  She met him in her teens.  He lived close-by.  She and her friend Susie would walk up and down her street hoping to catch a glimpse of him in his yard. OR that she would catch his eye.  It didn’t take long for them to fall in love.

My mother loved my father, aka “Daddy Cool” with every ounce of her being, just as he had loved her.  They were the perfect pair that no one could have ever imagined would work.  They were from different cultures and dated at a time when this was extremely difficult on both of them.  My dad faced persecution based strictly on his Asian heritage, and there is no doubt my mom faced persecution for choosing him as her mate.  But their love and loyalty to each other kept them strong and bonded and their marriage lasted for over 50 years.

He was her Ku’uipo and she was his Kunipie.  He was Mr. Dove and she was Mrs. Dove.  Her devotion to him, her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren was boundless.

Christmas, Holidays

Growing up, she made ordinary days special. But holidays were extravagant.

Birthday parties had games – pin the tail on the donkey, bobbing for apples. 

Egg Hunts on Easter – so many, you couldn’t even count.  Hand-selected candy only included our favorites.

Cards were very important.  Often one wasn’t enough.  She wrote multiple cards for a birthday or an anniversary.  Even Valentines.  The hand-written personal note in every card was a gift in itself.  After our father died, she signed the cards for him: From Mother and Daddy Cool in Heaven

Our mother truly loved any celebration or holiday and especially Christmas.  One caveat to any family gathering was that if everyone could not attend, we would have to change the date and reschedule.  She never wanted anyone to miss out.  Christmas was an extraordinary time – decorations, trees, nativity scenes and toys.  Her living room filled wall to wall with presents.  There was barely a pathway to walk.

Stockings were given to all, no matter what the age.  Every year we would tell her, there are so many of us.  You need to cut down, but mother loved giving to others.  She would say, next year we’ll cut down, but of course, she never did.

Mother always wanted Christmas to be a time of fun, laughter and making memories together, but most importantly it was about the birth of Jesus.  Before the celebrating began, we always read the nativity because it wasn’t just a holiday.  It was Jesus’ birthday.  Every year she made her famous gooey dark chocolate cake – because you can’t sing happy birthday to Jesus without a birthday cake.

She loved watching everyone open presents.  Most years, at the end of the night, she still had a pile of gifts by her chair that she hadn’t taken the time to open.  It was more important for her to see the excitement and joy of others opening – especially the grandkids and great grandkids.

Home, Cooking and Snacks

Our mother was an amazing homemaker.  She knew how to make a house a home.

It was always clean, neat and orderly.  Even the yellow, shag living room carpet was raked with perfect lines.

Every night by 5:00PM, the kitchen was filled with the aroma of her home cooked meals, complete with dessert.  Favorites included: thin, pan fried hamburgers with crispy edges and grilled soft buttered buns, open-faced grilled cheese with butter, pork chops with cream gravy, homemade yeast rolls, butterscotch cookies, fudge, divinity, and rock candy at Christmas.

If you knew our mother, you knew she was a night owl.  She often stayed up until 4 or 5AM.  Friends that spent that night or came to our house to hang out were always in shock until they got to know her.  What’s that noise?  Oh, that’s my mom vacuuming.  It’s 2AM!  Yeah, she probably just getting started.  An hour or so later, the same question.  What’s that noise?  Oh, that’s my mom playing her tambourine.  She’s probably dancing with Jesus in her prayer closet. They all thought she was the coolest mom ever.  She would appear out of the kitchen in the middle of the night with a tray of fresh broiled nachos or lava-hot pizza rolls, sometimes Doritos, Snickers and Diet Dr. Peppers. 

One of Debi’s favorite stories about mother is, anytime her kids wanted dessert after dinner, they would call their grandmother.  They would say hello and “Momma” already knew exactly what was happening, “Would you like me to come pick you up and take you to get TCBY?”  Melanie said that our mother took her kids for frozen yogurt too, sometimes even with their cousins.  She said they also cherished the times she would take them out to eat or have dinner at their house and we all loved special occasions at Shogun.

My own kids have similar stories too.  They loved when my mom would take them to Incredible Pizza.  I’m going to reveal a closely guarded secret that my sisters may not even know.  She and Daddy Cool would sometimes go Incredible Pizza alone, without the grandkids, just for the food buffet.

Maybe it reminded them of trips to Las Vegas to stay with my grandparents.  We would drive out every year to see them AND for a solid week or two, they were regulars at midnight bingo and ninety-nine cent dinner buffets.

Travel

After the trips to Las Vegas, there were trips to San Francisco and their annual journey to Hawaii to see family and enjoy the weather, beaches and of course, the food.  Hawaii was their happy place and they always wanted all of us to come along.

When my mother and father were building houses, there were trips to go shopping at the Dallas Home Furnishing Market.

Shopping

Our mother was such a great shopper.  She could make money go further than you could imagine.

Stephanie remembers our Mother taking my sisters to a bargain warehouse store to buy clothes for her 7^th grade school year.  The store was a big open room with tables made of plywood and 2x4s.  Each piled high with a mound of clothes in various sizes – pants, skirts, tops and dresses.  It was tedious work rummaging through it all to find something in her size that matched, let alone something that looked nice.  With teamwork and persistence, they all found their wardrobes.  That year, Stephanie received the award for Best Dressed in her class.  Mother said that it was a testimony of the goodness of God. 

Mother loved to shop.  She loved pretty things and dressing up.  She loved jewels, sparkles and her favorite color, blue.  She was always meticulously put together – clothes, hair, jewelry and lipstick.  She was beautiful, dark hair and stunning blue eyes.

Family Pride

Another one of Melanie’s favorite memories is our mother taking HER children shopping.  She filled their lives with love and unforgettable moments.  And she was there for their moments, attending her children’s events – soccer and hockey games, cheerleading and gymnastics, awards ceremonies and musicals.

She wanted to attend them all for all of her grandchildren and great grandchildren.  She wanted to be there to support, encourage and pray for them while they were competing or performing.

In later years, when she didn’t feel good, when she was tired, exhausted and in pain.  She would trudge across parking lots and grids of fields to sit in an uncomfortable chair and watch them run up and down the field while she cheered from the sidelines with joy and pride and a beautiful smile.  And afterwards they got a big hug.  She gave the best hugs.

She and my father sometimes came to see me DJ at nightclubs on Brookside.  They would stand by the DJ booth for hours, in a sea of people drinking and dancing, with techno music blaring in their ears.  They would always sneak in a quick dance step or two on the sidelines.

The most common thing we hear from others is that our mother was always so happy to share how proud she was of her entire family.  Even her husband and children’s Chinese heritage was important to her.  So much so that many of our relatives would tell her that she was “honorary Chinese!”

Our mother carried around a lot of stuff in her purse, but the most important item was her photo book of family pictures.  She loved to show us off.

She was proud of my father and their home building business.  They won awards and recognitions.  They were featured in magazines and to this day still have an incredible reputation of quality, craftsmanship and innovation.  But she never took any credit for that.  She always deflected to my dad and pushed the honor onto him, even though she played such an important part.

Ministry and Faith

The only time I ever knew my mother to be proud of herself is when it was an accomplishment that gave God glory.  She was proud of being an ordained minister under Francis’ church.  She was proud to be recognized as a spiritual mentor to others.  She was only proud of those things because they weren’t about her.  They were about her relationship with God.

Before I had my license, my mother would drive me to school.  One of the things we did every morning, on the way, was pray.  There are not many things that my mom would get aggravated with me about, she had a LOT of patience!  But anytime I would fall asleep during the drive, she would grab my arm and shake it.  Wake up!  This is important.  You have to start your day off with prayer!

She loved to pray for others and minister to them.  She volunteered for children and known as the candy and treat lady.

Treats and Giving

She always carried a bag filled with treats everywhere she went, to spread love and cheer.  It was very important that you didn’t forget the treat bag before taking her anywhere – to volunteer, to a doctor’s appointment – or even to the bank.

When our family continued to blossom with great grandchildren she would say, “I just want them all to know me and to know that they are loved.”  She always knew their favorite snacks and passed them out from her bag each time she saw them. She knew each of our favorite things by heart.  She always made sure I was well-stocked with Aunt Lula’s homemade toffee.

Giving and sharing was her language of love.  And it will be part of the legacy of her life.

She had a calling from God to write a book on prophecy that will be a blessing to many.  It will be finished and published and she will continue to share and give through her book, even after her time on this earth.

We will all miss her.  Everyone here.  She loved you all.  And the stories you’ve told my sisters and me remind us of that.  Each one of you had a unique and special relationship with her.  She meant so much to all of us.

Closing

Going through my mother’s photos over the last few days, my wife Sasha found a printed paper titled The Mother’s Creed and Prayer.  I would like to read part of that.

I believe being a mother is the holiest privilege given a human being.  Grant, Heavenly Father, that I may in motherhood meet the great opportunity of training my child to be child of Thine.

If there was anything in my mother’s life that was of the utmost importance it was spreading the Word of God and God’s love, to her own children and family, as a mother, but it was not limited to us.  She was a mother to more than just her children.  She was momma, Gammie, Great Momma and auntie to so many that loved and adored her.  And to this end I know that when she made her transition from this earthly life, she was welcomed into the Kingdom of God and told: “Well done, good and faithful servant”