A Eulogy for My Grandmother

Last week, when I received word that Grandma’s health was declining rapidly, I began thinking about the past 29 years I have known her. As the sixth of her ten grandchildren, I have many fond memories of family get-togethers at the little house on Hazel Street--of swimming in the pool on hot summer days; feasting on egg salad sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies; warm fall afternoons spent under the maple tree in the front yard, listening to the hoots and cackles of my aunts retelling stories of their youth… usually at Grandma’s expense; the coziness I felt cocooned inside the house on frigid Christmas Days, as I played with my cousins in Grandpa’s den, the rhythmic snores of our fathers, napping deeply, reverberating throughout the house. 

As I reflected on these things, I realized that my 14-month-old daughter, Lottie, will have no memory of her great-grandmother. So, I started thinking through things I will one day tell her about Grandma Quick...
I’ll tell her about Grandma’s sense of humor, about her infectious laugh, that deep, rich laugh, always accompanied by her raising her hands to her mouth, as if that would somehow suppress the laughter, which it never did. I’ll tell her about the day, after church, when a bird pooped on Grandma, and her indignant response, “They sing for everybody else!”

I’ll tell her about Grandma’s ice cream addiction. I remember the Saturday afternoon when my parents decided to take Grandpa and Grandma, and my sister and me up to Grandpa Quick’s boyhood stomping grounds in Barryton, Michigan. My grandmother was no fan of trips to Barryton, mostly, I think, because she never thought it quite as sophisticated as the metropolis of Vassar. But to make matters worse, it rained that day...hard. And if there was anything Grandma disliked more than a trek to Barryton, it was gloomy weather.

Near the end of the trip, though, after stopping at the dilapidated ruins of Grandpa’s childhood house and the site where his one-room school once stood, my dad offered an olive branch to Grandma.

“Mom,” he said, “do you want to stop for an ice cream cone?”

At that moment, at least for Grandma, the skies turned to a brilliant hue of blue, birds began singing, and the sun warmed everything it touched, even Barryton. Ice cream. Just the words, I think, caused Grandma’s heart to skip a beat and a smile to stretch across her face.

Come to think of it, many of the stories I have to tell Lottie about her great-grandmother involve ice cream. We had, as a family, a kind of ritual with Grandma that took place after every meal. 

“Grandma,” we’d say, “do you want a bowl of ice cream?”

“No...no,” she’d say, her nose wrinkled in an I-don’t-want-ice-cream-It-has-no-power-on-me kind of look.

“Are you sure?” we’d say. “We have chocolate syrup.” (As if we would ever think of having Grandma Quick over for dinner without a fresh bottle of Hershey’s in the refrigerator!)

“Oh...well…” she’d say in mock indifference. “Maybe just a little.”

As Dad scooped the ice cream, drizzled on the syrup and handed it to her, out would come her innocent reply, “Oh, maybe just a little more.”

Yes, I have many stories to tell my daughter about her Great-Grandma Quick. But as memorable and as funny as these stories about family get-togethers, her sense of humor and her love of a Hershey’s-drenched bowl of ice cream may be, there’s something far more important about my grandmother that I want to share with my daughter, and with you…

My grandmother was a success. Many of you have known Marilyn Quick for a long time, and you likely know about many of the challenges and heartbreaks she faced during her 90 years. 

You may know that her first husband, Richard, died in 1966, leaving her with four young daughters to care for on her own. 

You may know that, for several years, she struggled as a single mom to put food on the table for her family.

You may know that she lost her beloved father, tragically.

You may know that a devastating flood destroyed her home in the 1980s.

You may know that her heart was broken by the death of her daughter Jeanette.

You may know that she lost her second husband, Henry, several years ago; and that she has had more than her fair share of health problems these past few years.

Admittedly, none of these things qualifies my grandmother as a success. On the contrary, if you were to evaluate her life on just these things, you might assume that she had an inordinate number of challenges throughout her life that kept her from living what many might deem a life of success.

But despite these difficult things, Marilyn Quick was a success. Although she never went to college, and she didn’t have a wall plastered with degrees or a bank account flush with cash, Grandma was a success, because as a young woman, she made the single most important decision of her life: she placed her trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of her sin.

You see, Grandma believed what the Bible says so clearly…

She believed that she was a sinner. She believed what God says in His Word, that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). Even with all her good deeds and sweet ways, Grandma understood that she was, by nature, a sinner, and that she did not measure up to God’s standard of holiness and righteousness.

She believed that sin has a penalty. In Romans 6:23, God says, “...the wages of sin is death”. That means that the judgement for sinning against God is not only physical death, but eternal separation from God forever in a place called Hell.

But Grandma also believed--and this is the most important thing of all--that there was Good News:

Yes, “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord”. As a young woman, my grandma understood the message of John 3:16--That God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, Jesus, to die on the cross to take the penalty of my sin and Grandma’s sin and your sin upon Himself, and that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life.

Although it is not possible, if my grandma could say one thing to you today, it would be this: Put your trust for salvation in Christ alone today. 

Admit to Him that you are-- like Grandma, like me, like everyone in this room and in this world--a sinner against God. Repent, putting your trust in what Jesus, the Son of God, did for you by shedding His blood and dying on the cross as the final payment for your sin.

That’s it. Being saved from sin is not about going to church or being baptized or doing good deeds, although those are all good things. Being saved from sin is about trusting the in the payment Jesus made on your behalf.

It’s been said--and rightly so, I think--that funerals are not for the dead, but for the living. As much as Grandma loved each one of us, she’s not concerned at all about what’s going on here right now. She’s with the Lord now. 

But we are here. And one day, we, too, will face God. And the question He may ask is not Were you a good person? Did you go to church every week? Did your good deeds outweigh the bad? His question will be: What did you do with My Son? Did you receive the free gift of salvation He offered to you? Or did you turn it down?

​That’s the most important decision you will ever make. And I can think of no better tribute to my grandmother than to settle that question today, at her funeral, by receiving Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. 
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