My almost 90 year old grandma passed away suddenly a few weeks ago. She was 100% healthy, living in her own home and not taking any medications, so it was a complete shock to my family and me. I was asked to give the eulogy at her funeral. Below is my tribute to her. It's been a very hard few weeks for me and talking about this is helping me to heal. Thank you for reading.

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GoodMorning. I am A, L's granddaughter. You are all here today because you knew and loved L. On behalf of L's family and myself, I would like to thank you all for coming today, here to this place that meant so much to her, to celebrate the life of a very special lady.

When my mom asked me to say a few words at the funeral, I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be. Not because I couldn’t think of anything to say, but because I couldn’t figure out how to quote grandma without swearing in church. I’ll do my best.

A couple of days ago I was helping my mom do some things in preparation for the funeral and we went over to grandma’s house. We started looking though this big buffet in her dining room that was chock full of everything you could possibly imagine. In grandma’s buffet, we found a button box. You know, a box or a tin where you keep all your extra buttons and miscellaneous small things. We opened it up and found a lifetime’s worth of buttons and little trinkets…grandma could not throw anything away. According to grandma, everything could be used again and she hated waste. One time, I gave her really nice fluffy towels for Christmas and she cut the ends off them and made the ends into hand towels. The towels were too big she said!

The next day I brought that button box home and I showed it to my kids, A and B. When I opened it at my house, it smelled like my grandma. It smelled like her house, and her perfume, and 35 years of my memories with her. A and B said it smelled like an old person.

We started looking through it together and found a huge variety of things. Some buttons were colorful…and some were understated...some traditional…some wild…and I started thinking about how my grandma was a lot like her button box: each button or object in that box was different but when you put them all together they made a whole. Just like there were so many parts to my grandma, but when you put them all together they made who she was.

Inside that button box were many bright, shiny, and beautiful buttons. Growing up, grandma always had fun clothes and shoes. My cousins and brothers and I used to play dress-up from the things she had in her closet. I’m sure we made a mess of her closet, but she never cared.
Grandma liked to wear lipstick and nail polish, and she routinely got her hair set and curled. When my mom was growing up, my grandpa worked away from home Monday through Friday. On Fridays, my mom remembers grandma cleaning the house, setting her hair, doing her nails, putting on makeup, putting on a nice dress, and sitting at the kitchen table playing solitaire waiting for grandpa to get home. No matter how hard the week had been being a single mom, she was always dressed up and ready for A to get home.

We didn’t only find buttons in the box, we also found some nails...and Grandma, she was tough as nails. L was born on a farm in 1923. When she was a young woman, she decided to leave her home town and travel to Washington DC to work for the war effort. She found a job and got on a train with a friend and left. As a young woman in the early 40s, that was a courageous thing to do. After the war, she met my grandfather and they were married shortly after in Las Vegas. Little ol’ L had a Vegas wedding. She had spunk, she did. She told me she knew she loved grandpa right away and they got to know each other on the car ride to Vegas (it took a few days). When grandma made up her mind, she did it. And when she knew what she wanted, she got it.

There were coins and objects from far-away places inside the box. My grandma loved to travel. She and grandpa would hop in their converted Dodge van, it had a bed and a small kitchen, and drive all over the U.S. They went from Arizona to Alaska to the Southeastern US. In 1981, they brought my cousin and me with them to the Black Hills and Yellowstone, and in 1983, they brought us grandkids to the World’s Fair in Tennessee.
After my grandpa died, grandma still traveled. About 10 years ago she went with my aunt and uncle and cousins to the Daytona 500 for Nascar.
She also would go with her traveling club all over the world. She made trips to Iceland, Belize, and Costa Rica. My dad asked her once Why Belize? and she replied: “Because I’ve never been there!” After hello, the first thing she ever said to my husband when he met her was, “I went to Costa Rica! I saw monkeys!” Imagine a little 4 foot, 11 inch tall 70-something-year-old woman saying that to you. She left quite an impression, she did. That was grandma.

We found little buttons with flowers on them inside the box. Grandma always had a garden and she canned her own fruits and vegetables. She had a wonderful raspberry bush along the house but she wouldn’t let us grandkids eat too many raspberries because she had to save them to make jam! She was also a member of the Rose Society and had over 60 rose bushes along the fences in her yard. She baked her own bread and could always be counted on to bring the deviled eggs to any family gathering.

Inside the box there were dice and marbles and even a stub of a crayon. That crayon must have been about 30 years old! Grandma loved games and she loved to keep her mind active. For years she played the card game 500 at the Community Center and she was always in the middle of a solitaire game at home. Grandma also loved her family and being a mom and grandma and a great-grandma. The crayon in the box represents that for me. She and grandpa were the grandkids’ babysitters and there were always crayons and Legos and other fun things to play with at grandma’s house. There was also a lot of candy too; especially circus peanuts, but we didn’t find any of that in the box.

We are all going to miss my grandma dearly. She was very special to me and we all loved her very much. But I am consoled and happy that she lived a long and healthy life and that she is with my grandpa now. She missed “Daddy” immensely and waited over 25 years to see him. I hope he wore his best bolo tie for her.

The next time you watch a Twins game, remember L and say a little prayer for her…..and for the Twins. They’re going to need the extra prayers without their biggest fan to cheer them on.

Thank you.
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This post was edited by geokid on Tue, Apr 23, 13 at 23:55