Eulogy for Grandmother

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Eulogy for Grandmother

I'd like to talk today about my grandmother, Ruth Smith - about who she was, what she meant to us, and what this day means.

Grandma was a homemaker and a lifelong resident of Marshall. This might seem like a constrained life to some, but I don't think Grandma would have agreed, and I'd like to explain why.

She was a person with great curiosity - she read all the time, she worked crossword puzzles every day, and she loved watching documentaries on television. In fact, she was working crossword puzzles right on up until the last month before she died, when she finally grew too ill to continue.

Her curiosity also greatly affected me - when my brother Gus and I were little, we used to play a card game called 'Authors,' and from playing that game so much with her, I knew at a very young age who Mark Twain and Shakespeare and Nathaniel Hawthorne and many others were. The way she said these authors' names stirred in me a great desire to read them, and now, later in life, when I have read those authors, and taught them, I can sincerely thank Grandma for first creating that desire in me.

I can also thank Grandma for inspiring a love of animals in my mother and in myself. Grandma always had a cat around her house that she cared for. She loved watching animal shows on television, especially if they involved cats. In fact, she considered herself a cat person, until she met my dog Alex. I say 'my dog,' but he's really my Mom's dog now, and for a lot of the time, when my Mom was traveling on business, it was my Grandma's dog too. We knew that both Grandma and Grandpa really like Alex when they let him sleep on the chest at the foot of their bed - now THAT was a big deal!

She loved Alex, and she loved Libby, my replacement dog that I got once Mom had stolen Alex from me. Nothing tickled Grandma more than watching Libby tear up and down the floor, running back and forth like puppies like to do. Mom told me that she mentioned Alex and Libby to Grandma just a few hours before she died, and that she smiled when she heard their names.

She also traveled widely - Grandpa always said that there was plenty here in Missouri to occupy someone, but Grandma felt a bit differently.

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