Eulogy: For Zona Irene Cooper
by Scott R. Cooper
delivered at the funeral of Zona Cooper, April 10, 2007, Prineville Assembly of God, Prineville, Oregon
Wednesday night just before 5 o’clock, my grandmother slipped quietly out of this world, and into the next.
It wasn’t a hard death. Gathered around her bed were her two sons, two daughters, her daughter-in-law and life-long neighbor, her best friend of the past 37 years, some of her grandchildren, a great grandchild and a great, great grandchild.
There was no pain. Her breathing simply grew shallower and shallower, until pretty soon, she just quit breathing altogether. If you have to go, I guess that’s the way to do it.
Her passing wasn’t something she dreaded. She had just a few weeks previously mentioned on hearing the news of the death of yet another relative that the balance had now tipped and she had more loved ones on the other side than remained here on this earth. The night before she entered the hospital she reported having dreamed of visiting with my departed grandfather, the only true love of her life. She believed firmly that when she closed her eyes one last time on this earth, it would only be a short time before she would awaken to the joyous sound of departed parents, a sister, brothers, sons, aunts, uncles and cousins.
I want to believe that’s exactly where she is now, safely reunited with family she loved so dearly, free of the pain of the ravages of old age, and maybe just a little too impatient for the rest of us to cross over and join her.
If she were here, I know what she would tell us.
She would have looked at the flowers and think that was a lot of money spent, but secretly she would have been pleased.
She would have appreciated the timing of her own departure just before Easter Sunday, and she would have urged me to tell you all that it’s never too late to get yourself right with the Lord.
Most importantly, she would have looked at this sizeable assembly of family, and she would have been very, very pleased. And after she was very, very pleased, she would have started worrying about where they were all sleeping, and who was cooking for all them. Pretty soon, she would have been making up beds with the wildest assortment of mismatched sheets, blankets and pillowcases you have ever seen, all the while explaining that you can’t see them with your eyes closed anyway.
Because she was sure we were all going to catch our deaths of cold, she probably would have nudged the thermostat a little past its customary 84 and she would have worried when we all laid on the floor, started gulping water or peeled off the kids clothes to prevent heat stroke or cool them off.
If she felt up to it, and we were really, really lucky, she might have decided to whip up a batch of doughnuts. For those of you who never ate one of Zona’s doughnuts, let me just tell you that after eating one of Zona’s doughnuts, eating a Krispy Kreme is like chewing wallpaper. They were that good.
And that’s just the beginning of the million different ways she would have mothered, shepherded, hovered and worried about all of us and all of you.
These qualities were never on better display than when she decided in the early 1980s that we all ought to start going camping together at least once every year. Camping with grandma was an adventure everybody in the family at various times was called upon to enjoy, share, endure, or tolerate, depending on how that season went.
Officially, the camping trip was supposed to be the last weekend in July, but for grandma, this was a year-round obsession. One of her principle concerns was that somebody else would get our spot. If she couldn’t get my Dad or my brother to do it, she would drive up to the campsite in the National Forest with her friend Carol sometime before the snow melted and hammer big “Reserved” signs into the trees, warning away trespassers. If anybody did happen to move into our spot, the week or so before the campout, well, grandma had a remedy for that too: she simply knocked on their trailer door and told them they would need to move. About February, she would start harassing the Forest Service about the need to send in heavy equipment to smooth out the unimproved access to the spot, which wasn’t even a designated camping area. If spring floods had done anything to the creekside, they were expected to repair that too. Just before Memorial Day, she would pack her trailer. Sometime before the end of July, she would make a practice run to the campsite for the weekend just to make sure everything was in order. One year, when she learned that her out-of-state daughter would be joining us, she bought a second travel trailer just to ensure that everyone would have a bed. Nothing gave her more pleasure than this annual gathering of family, and in true grandma fashion, she showed us her love the only ways she knew how: by showering us with enough food to feed a small starving country and offering us the considerable benefit of her advice and opinions.
Now to understand Grandma, you have to understand that Grandma treated advice a lot like she treated medicine: one should give it to people when you perceive they need it. If you wait around for them to ask, it might be too late to do them any good.
No one ever had to worry about where Grandma stood. Is your moral compass in need of adjusting? Grandma will be glad to help you set it straight again. Are your child-rearing skills not up to par? Have no fear, Grandma was more than willing to explain to you what the likely consequences of your approach. Does your marriage need some fine-tuning? You could always count on Grandma to help straighten you out, maybe before you even you knew you needed any help.
But all that was just Grandma being Grandma. I don’t think of us who knew her best ever doubted her intentions or the love she bore for all of us, no matter what the words might sound like.
As I think back on Grandma’s life, an old hymn keeps running through my mind:
There is a balm in GileadTo make the wounded whole;There is a balm in GileadTo heal the sin sick soul.
Now Gildead is some far away place in the Middle East, but for all of Zona’s children and grandchildren, we had our own personal Gilead, and that was Grandma’s house in Prineville. And if you needed your wounds bound up or your soul revised, that was the place to go.
No matter what might be going on in our lives, all of us knew there was one person we could count on for love and support when things reached rock bottom, and that was Grandma. Sometimes, all it took to make things right was just a visit on the telephone. If things were more serious, a visit might be required. And if that didn’t work, then a pan of biscuits, a cup of coffee or some deep-fried pork chops, fried potatoes and cornbread would probably resolve the problem.
I’ve thought much these last few days about what made us all want to go to Grandma for advice. Certainly, it wasn’t because we always wanted to hear what she had to say. Sometimes, it was hard to hear the truth spoken so bluntly, even if it was with love.
I think Grandma’s ability to dispense advice must have been rooted in our knowledge of her own personal experience with real hardship—hardship which she met with spiritual resilience and a toughness that she was able to pass on when needed to the rest of us. It gave her the ability to tell us, no matter how raw a deal life might hand us, to suck it up and keeping moving. As she once told Linda, That’s Just What Adults Do.
Certainly, Grandma’s hardships were many: At the age of 14, her mother suffered a paralyzing stroke and overnight Grandma became mother and caretaker for her parents and seven siblings, all the while pursuing her high school education. That experience left her with an overwhelming appreciation that life is unpredictable, and you should take from it the joy you can get and enjoy it while you can. Certainly, her experience with the Depression and the extreme poverty that surrounded her community had a lasting influence on her. If nothing else, it left her with an enduring love for polyester, durable shoes, sensible cars and a good return on investments. But it also left her with a lifelong empathy for the less fortunate—an empathy which based on her checkbook resulted in an astonishing generosity to those down in their luck a few hundred dollars at a time.
Perhaps the greatest trial of Grandma’s life came to her in 1959, when her beloved 9-year-old son, Larry, was diagnosed with an untreatable bone cancer. For two and half years, she nursed and loved that little boy through a leg amputation and increasing pain with every ounce of energy she had. After Larry’s passing, Grandma said each and every day felt like there was an immense stone pressing down on her chest in the place where her heart used to be. But she even made the most of that adversity. She used her acquired knowledge of medicine to become a dedicated and compassionate nurse whom patients soon learned to ask for by name.
But even after this, God wasn’t done testing Grandma’s faith. In years to come, she was dealt additional blows. First there was the loss of her husband to creeping physical deterioration and at the end, dementia. Then there was having to nurse her eldest son waste away, as he was afflicted with slow paralysis as a result of ALS, Lou Gherig’s disease. A brother died suddenly without warning of an unsuspected shellfish allergy. A sister died on the operating table after what was supposed to be a routine procedure. And in addition, there were her own health issues: a tumor on her brain stem, a life-threatening blood clot, breast cancer which resulted in surgery and treatment for radiation, several fractured vertebrae and various other diseases of the elderly. I’ve wondered sometimes if, like Job, Grandma was the object of some sort of bet between God and the Devil about just how much one person could withstand without cursing God’s name. I think sometimes Grandma wondered about that too, but like Job, she persevered, and her faith remained unshaken to the end.
Grandma would have been the first to tell you: hardship is the basis of character. That which does not kill us makes us stronger. My grandma--your sister, mother, grandmother and friend-- had more than her share of hardship in life, and was rewarded immeasurably with phenomenal character.
My life has been the richer for having known my grandmother, and for loving her and having been loved by her, and I know that many of you out there have had the same experience.
It’s hard to be without grandma. Every day I hear things and see things that I want to relate to her, save for her or discuss with her. I find myself picking up the phone to call her or expecting to see her when I walk into her house. I grieve with the rest of my family because I miss everything about her. I miss trading news with her about family members, the community and the world. I miss her unsolicited advice just as I miss the opportunity to give her the same. I miss her worrying about me just as much as I miss worrying about her.
Yet I know Grandma is happy today, and no matter how much I miss her, I rejoice with her in these facts: I know Grandma’s happy to be back among so many people she has loved and lost over the years. I know Grandma’s happy because finally she is in the presence of her lord and savior, in whose service she toiled and sacrificed for 87 years, and most of all, I know she’s happy because she knows we are all gathered here together to remember and honor her, and in doing so, doing what she would most want us to do: loving each other.
That’s what Grandma did, that’s what she always wanted us to do and if want to honor her memory, it’s what we’ll continue to do.
delivered at the funeral of Zona Cooper, April 10, 2007, Prineville Assembly of God, Prineville, Oregon
Wednesday night just before 5 o’clock, my grandmother slipped quietly out of this world, and into the next.
It wasn’t a hard death. Gathered around her bed were her two sons, two daughters, her daughter-in-law and life-long neighbor, her best friend of the past 37 years, some of her grandchildren, a great grandchild and a great, great grandchild.
There was no pain. Her breathing simply grew shallower and shallower, until pretty soon, she just quit breathing altogether. If you have to go, I guess that’s the way to do it.
Her passing wasn’t something she dreaded. She had just a few weeks previously mentioned on hearing the news of the death of yet another relative that the balance had now tipped and she had more loved ones on the other side than remained here on this earth. The night before she entered the hospital she reported having dreamed of visiting with my departed grandfather, the only true love of her life. She believed firmly that when she closed her eyes one last time on this earth, it would only be a short time before she would awaken to the joyous sound of departed parents, a sister, brothers, sons, aunts, uncles and cousins.
I want to believe that’s exactly where she is now, safely reunited with family she loved so dearly, free of the pain of the ravages of old age, and maybe just a little too impatient for the rest of us to cross over and join her.
If she were here, I know what she would tell us.
She would have looked at the flowers and think that was a lot of money spent, but secretly she would have been pleased.
She would have appreciated the timing of her own departure just before Easter Sunday, and she would have urged me to tell you all that it’s never too late to get yourself right with the Lord.
Most importantly, she would have looked at this sizeable assembly of family, and she would have been very, very pleased. And after she was very, very pleased, she would have started worrying about where they were all sleeping, and who was cooking for all them. Pretty soon, she would have been making up beds with the wildest assortment of mismatched sheets, blankets and pillowcases you have ever seen, all the while explaining that you can’t see them with your eyes closed anyway.
Because she was sure we were all going to catch our deaths of cold, she probably would have nudged the thermostat a little past its customary 84 and she would have worried when we all laid on the floor, started gulping water or peeled off the kids clothes to prevent heat stroke or cool them off.
If she felt up to it, and we were really, really lucky, she might have decided to whip up a batch of doughnuts. For those of you who never ate one of Zona’s doughnuts, let me just tell you that after eating one of Zona’s doughnuts, eating a Krispy Kreme is like chewing wallpaper. They were that good.
And that’s just the beginning of the million different ways she would have mothered, shepherded, hovered and worried about all of us and all of you.
These qualities were never on better display than when she decided in the early 1980s that we all ought to start going camping together at least once every year. Camping with grandma was an adventure everybody in the family at various times was called upon to enjoy, share, endure, or tolerate, depending on how that season went.
Officially, the camping trip was supposed to be the last weekend in July, but for grandma, this was a year-round obsession. One of her principle concerns was that somebody else would get our spot. If she couldn’t get my Dad or my brother to do it, she would drive up to the campsite in the National Forest with her friend Carol sometime before the snow melted and hammer big “Reserved” signs into the trees, warning away trespassers. If anybody did happen to move into our spot, the week or so before the campout, well, grandma had a remedy for that too: she simply knocked on their trailer door and told them they would need to move. About February, she would start harassing the Forest Service about the need to send in heavy equipment to smooth out the unimproved access to the spot, which wasn’t even a designated camping area. If spring floods had done anything to the creekside, they were expected to repair that too. Just before Memorial Day, she would pack her trailer. Sometime before the end of July, she would make a practice run to the campsite for the weekend just to make sure everything was in order. One year, when she learned that her out-of-state daughter would be joining us, she bought a second travel trailer just to ensure that everyone would have a bed. Nothing gave her more pleasure than this annual gathering of family, and in true grandma fashion, she showed us her love the only ways she knew how: by showering us with enough food to feed a small starving country and offering us the considerable benefit of her advice and opinions.
Now to understand Grandma, you have to understand that Grandma treated advice a lot like she treated medicine: one should give it to people when you perceive they need it. If you wait around for them to ask, it might be too late to do them any good.
No one ever had to worry about where Grandma stood. Is your moral compass in need of adjusting? Grandma will be glad to help you set it straight again. Are your child-rearing skills not up to par? Have no fear, Grandma was more than willing to explain to you what the likely consequences of your approach. Does your marriage need some fine-tuning? You could always count on Grandma to help straighten you out, maybe before you even you knew you needed any help.
But all that was just Grandma being Grandma. I don’t think of us who knew her best ever doubted her intentions or the love she bore for all of us, no matter what the words might sound like.
As I think back on Grandma’s life, an old hymn keeps running through my mind:
There is a balm in GileadTo make the wounded whole;There is a balm in GileadTo heal the sin sick soul.
Now Gildead is some far away place in the Middle East, but for all of Zona’s children and grandchildren, we had our own personal Gilead, and that was Grandma’s house in Prineville. And if you needed your wounds bound up or your soul revised, that was the place to go.
No matter what might be going on in our lives, all of us knew there was one person we could count on for love and support when things reached rock bottom, and that was Grandma. Sometimes, all it took to make things right was just a visit on the telephone. If things were more serious, a visit might be required. And if that didn’t work, then a pan of biscuits, a cup of coffee or some deep-fried pork chops, fried potatoes and cornbread would probably resolve the problem.
I’ve thought much these last few days about what made us all want to go to Grandma for advice. Certainly, it wasn’t because we always wanted to hear what she had to say. Sometimes, it was hard to hear the truth spoken so bluntly, even if it was with love.
I think Grandma’s ability to dispense advice must have been rooted in our knowledge of her own personal experience with real hardship—hardship which she met with spiritual resilience and a toughness that she was able to pass on when needed to the rest of us. It gave her the ability to tell us, no matter how raw a deal life might hand us, to suck it up and keeping moving. As she once told Linda, That’s Just What Adults Do.
Certainly, Grandma’s hardships were many: At the age of 14, her mother suffered a paralyzing stroke and overnight Grandma became mother and caretaker for her parents and seven siblings, all the while pursuing her high school education. That experience left her with an overwhelming appreciation that life is unpredictable, and you should take from it the joy you can get and enjoy it while you can. Certainly, her experience with the Depression and the extreme poverty that surrounded her community had a lasting influence on her. If nothing else, it left her with an enduring love for polyester, durable shoes, sensible cars and a good return on investments. But it also left her with a lifelong empathy for the less fortunate—an empathy which based on her checkbook resulted in an astonishing generosity to those down in their luck a few hundred dollars at a time.
Perhaps the greatest trial of Grandma’s life came to her in 1959, when her beloved 9-year-old son, Larry, was diagnosed with an untreatable bone cancer. For two and half years, she nursed and loved that little boy through a leg amputation and increasing pain with every ounce of energy she had. After Larry’s passing, Grandma said each and every day felt like there was an immense stone pressing down on her chest in the place where her heart used to be. But she even made the most of that adversity. She used her acquired knowledge of medicine to become a dedicated and compassionate nurse whom patients soon learned to ask for by name.
But even after this, God wasn’t done testing Grandma’s faith. In years to come, she was dealt additional blows. First there was the loss of her husband to creeping physical deterioration and at the end, dementia. Then there was having to nurse her eldest son waste away, as he was afflicted with slow paralysis as a result of ALS, Lou Gherig’s disease. A brother died suddenly without warning of an unsuspected shellfish allergy. A sister died on the operating table after what was supposed to be a routine procedure. And in addition, there were her own health issues: a tumor on her brain stem, a life-threatening blood clot, breast cancer which resulted in surgery and treatment for radiation, several fractured vertebrae and various other diseases of the elderly. I’ve wondered sometimes if, like Job, Grandma was the object of some sort of bet between God and the Devil about just how much one person could withstand without cursing God’s name. I think sometimes Grandma wondered about that too, but like Job, she persevered, and her faith remained unshaken to the end.
Grandma would have been the first to tell you: hardship is the basis of character. That which does not kill us makes us stronger. My grandma--your sister, mother, grandmother and friend-- had more than her share of hardship in life, and was rewarded immeasurably with phenomenal character.
My life has been the richer for having known my grandmother, and for loving her and having been loved by her, and I know that many of you out there have had the same experience.
It’s hard to be without grandma. Every day I hear things and see things that I want to relate to her, save for her or discuss with her. I find myself picking up the phone to call her or expecting to see her when I walk into her house. I grieve with the rest of my family because I miss everything about her. I miss trading news with her about family members, the community and the world. I miss her unsolicited advice just as I miss the opportunity to give her the same. I miss her worrying about me just as much as I miss worrying about her.
Yet I know Grandma is happy today, and no matter how much I miss her, I rejoice with her in these facts: I know Grandma’s happy to be back among so many people she has loved and lost over the years. I know Grandma’s happy because finally she is in the presence of her lord and savior, in whose service she toiled and sacrificed for 87 years, and most of all, I know she’s happy because she knows we are all gathered here together to remember and honor her, and in doing so, doing what she would most want us to do: loving each other.
That’s what Grandma did, that’s what she always wanted us to do and if want to honor her memory, it’s what we’ll continue to do.
posted by Scott Cooper | 11:30 PM
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