I did the eulogy for my Granny's funeral. I was glad to do it and wanted to honour her. Of course, we did the usual funeral and then graveside service and then back for tea with everyone. It was a very well-attended funeral - even the premier of Saskatchewan came! (Not that Nellie would have been impressed...)
Here is the eulogy that I wrote and delivered for her if you'd like to get to know her better.
Thank you for being here. For those of you that don’t know me or recognize me, I am Sarah XX. I am Nellie’s third eldest grandchild and the eldest daughter of David and Joan X. It is my honour to share with you today my memories about this exceptional woman
I confess that it was with mixed feelings that I embarked on this. I spent much time thinking and praying because how do you sum up a life in just a few words? It’s a complex journey through childhood, friendship, marriage, motherhood, the loss of her husband of 45 years, grand-motherhood, great-grand motherhood and her faith.
In a way, a life is like a mosaic rather than a painting. A painting is usually planned, ordered or measured. But in a mosaic (and in our lives) God gathers all of these pieces - our fragments, our gifts, our talents, memories and experiences - and then assembles them into a beautiful work of art that tells of the greatness of His plans and purposes for each of us. All of the countless moments in Granny’s life have combined and intersected now to show us her true spirit and life.
Since my Granny passed away on Sunday, I have had a difficult time just realising the truth or fact of her death. It seems impossible to believe that such a strong and vibrant woman could ever truly be dead. She was so ferociously alive. I truly believed when I was little that she couldn’t die. Then as I grew older, I think I still thought that in a corner of my heart.
We all have our own memories and experiences of her. Her siblings, her friends both early in life, throughout her life and at the end, her boys, her daughters-in-law, her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren. I know I can’t articulate what we all felt for her or our relationships with her but I can share my love for her and hope that you get a truer picture of her life.
For years, my grandmother and I have written letters to each other. It started when I was quite young and over the years, we’ve always written to each other even as my return address changed more often than she could stand. J After her first stroke a couple of years ago, she couldn’t write any longer but I still sent my letters every month or so. I have stacks of letters from her over the years. In those letters, I got to see her heart and her focus.
And 10 years ago, our family gave Granny a journal of sorts. It had headings of questions and she spent the next year writing an entry every now and again about her life. I spent hours with that journal and her letters after her death on Sunday, reading and re-reading it. (She was an exceptional writer.)
So here is Nell as I know her:
She loved her mother deeply. She rarely wrote or spoke about her mother without using the phrase “a great lady”. Her mother was her greatest influence and a dear friend. Even when life was hard on the prairie, her mother was deeply religious and impressed her faith on her. Granny never really talked about her faith a lot, but it was a deep and important part of her life. She loved the Bible, loved to pray and she loved Jesus.
She loved her childhood, her brothers and sisters and her parents. Her life was not easy as a child. They made their own bread, churned their own butter, milked cows, raised a vegetable garden and all without the normal appliances I need to use everyday. She attended a one room elementary school until grade 8 but then took correspondence for grade 9 and 10. She cherished dreams of being a teacher but it never materialized. She cried every night for weeks when she realised she couldn’t continue her education. As a result, she ensured that her kids and grandchildren had a love of learning. It was a result of her that we all came to love reading and school.
She had sounds and smells she associated with her childhood such as the chickens clucking, and the rooster crowing. They were always up and early in the morning just like her. The smell of fresh mown hay reminded her of her childhood in the summer and the smell of wood smoke in the winter. She told us, “On an old time farm, you live close to the land and even now, I have never lost this feeling for the land and the sky and the birds and the animals. I think that is why I am most happy working in my garden and around my yard. It gives me a feeling of contentment and peace. I watch the sunrises and sunsets, the new moon and the waning of it, the stars, the wind and the storms – truly I cherish them all!”
Granny loved horses and rode like the wind. To her, nothing compared to riding a running horse with the wind in her face and the movement of the horse’s body with hers. She told me once that she created a bit of a scandal in her town because she used to race horses. No other “proper young lady” did it. But she’d put on her slacks and race with the men.
She loved Ken for what she called his “gift of gab”. She was in awe of how gregarious and outgoing he was. Near the end, she saw how courageous he was as he faced cancer. But we all saw that she was also courageous as she nursed him for two years before he passed away. She never failed him in the 45 years of marriage.
Her “boys” as she affectionately called these 3 grey-haired men in front of me have an endless supply of stories about her. The times that she was tender and loving. The time that she chased a dog that was worrying the boys up the street with a 2 by 4. The time at the rinks and the playgrounds. The time she dug a basement under the house just because she could. Her boys were her life. She loved them, protected them, strained to keep them on the straight and narrow and cherished them. They were her lifeblood. She loved their families and was so proud of her grandchildren, often referring to us as “good citizens”. J
She didn’t much like cooking but she loved to bake. She is the origin of my sweet tooth – those peanut butter cookies, matrimonial cakes and jello salads! J She loved to read. Some of her favourite memories were of reading her books. She loved Westerns, especially Zane Grey’s novels. She liked to play bingo with her friends at her apartment. She did crossword puzzles by the book. It seems clear to me that Granny was a hard worker and didn’t ever like to sit still for too long. She worked so hard her whole life that she liked to keep busy even in retirement!
My Granny had a parenting philosophy. It was called “No-2-year-old-is-going-to-boss-me!” We’ve all put that practice into use with our own children over the years.
I rarely remember being with Granny and her not humming. She was always humming under her breath - old country songs or hymns. One of my most vivid childhood memories of her was when I was about 6 and I was in the old truck between her and Ken. The sun was hot - as only a day in Saskatchewan on the highway can be - the wind coming through the open windows was hotter and we were driving to the beach. She was beside me and I rested my head on her warm arm. I could hear her heart beat and listen to her humming, deep in her chest, while my bare legs stuck to the vinyl. I felt at home there.
I’ve taken time to talk to most of her grandchildren and I see similarities in our memories. We remember picking berries with her at the beach. We remember sitting in her garden while she worked. We’d eat strawberries by the handful, snap peas out of the pod, pull carrots out of the ground and then rinse them off with the hose, pick sweet pea bouquets for the supper table or play freeze tag in her expansive backyard.
We all lived together in the summertime at Kanata Valley. We spent hours around campfires, laughing until we cried. We are a family of story-tellers and as the night started to fall, the stories came out in full force. We kids would lay in our beds in the cottage and listen to Ken and the boys tell stories while Granny laughed and scolded.
We have a saying in our family that has its origins in my grandfather, Ken. He used to say “Any idiot can look at a mountain and call it pretty. It takes someone with a real heart to see the beauty of Saskatchewan.” I feel that way about my Granny. She was like the prairie that she loved. At times, ferocious, hard and indomitable but at others, caressing, beautiful and tender. Those of us that knew her loved her for her complexities, her vastness, her sweeping presence. She was never simple or trite; we are unable to sum her up by the usual grandmotherly platitudes. She was fierce and strong, courageous and loyal, deeply private yet intensely feeling. She had times of great joy and times of great sorrow. She had deep friendships and even enemies. She was a force in our lives, our matriarch, and our origin.
Near the end of the book, it asks “What would be the most wonderful gift you could receive?” Here is her answer: “The most wonderful gift I could receive would be to see my sons and their families all on good terms with each other and the grandchildren all on good terms with each other too. Family to me is the most important thing there is in life.”
Her family was there by her side as she faded. They took turns holding her hands and watching her go. And then on Sunday, she went home.
Isn’t home a beautiful word? We are after all but pilgrims here in this life. The ache that is present in all of our hearts is because we were meant for more than just this world. We were meant to have kindness, gentleness, peace and love and goodness. We were meant to feel, at the end of our life - our long journey with all of its bumps and turns, stumbles and victories - that we were at the end of a long road and at the end of that road is home. Like how Nell must have felt as a child, at the end of a long winter evening outside, when dusk was falling and she saw her own home light, knew that inside were people that loved her. She went home like that. And it is the greatest comfort that we do not grieve without hope. We grieve knowing we will see her again, that we will share those stories and memories together, that we will have another chance to hold her. And we have the comfort of a beautiful life remembered.
So this is the way that I know her - she loved deeply and was deeply loved in return.
What greater thing could we say about a life?
