The eulogy I wrote for Nan's service.
Nana meant a lot of things to a lot of people.
To talk about Nan is to talk about the hair salon in the basement, which many of us had the pleasure of being a client.
To talk about Nan is to talk about her wild adventures traveling within the United States and abroad. One particular story that came around more often than not was her traveling in a red convertible in California with her hair blowing in the wind.
To talk about Nan is to talk about her flare for fashion and her love of accessories. Finding an unusual piece of jewelry always made her day. Except maybe the time she came home from the boardwalk excited to show her new necklace with an interesting leaf which we immediately informed her was of the cannabis species. To which she said, "Well, so what!?!?"
To talk about Nan is to talk about a die-hard sports fan that knew every player’s name and stats not only on her favorite Philadelphia and Penn State teams but on others as well. And had no trouble telling the coaches and players what she thought during a game.
To talk about Nan is to talk about generosity, commitment, and strength. Her generosity to the numerous organizations she volunteered for and to the people she continually reached out her hand to. Her commitment to see things to the end, to never give up, and to always stay hopeful. Her strength to be a wife of a service man, to raise a family through difficult times, and to lose the love of her life after 60+ years of marriage.
To talk about Nan means to talk about her and pap and our garden. As kids we spent endless hours in the garden with her and pap. We grew a little of everything. Spinach, carrots, snap peas, cucumbers, potatoes, a variety of flowers, and most importantly our tomatoes. It always seemed like the preparation for our tomatoes took the most work. I remember that pap and the boys would hammer in the stakes and Nan and I would rip up old bed sheets into strips that we used to tie around the plants so they would grow straight. We would set up a roadside stand to sell our vegetables and flowers. The money from the stand was our spending money for Ocean City every September.
Finally to talk about Nan means to talk about our family. Looking back on my childhood memories as an adult I see the impact that Nan had on not only my life but also the lives of everyone in our family, her and pap both. We were those little tomato plants. We could have grown without the support of a stake, however, we may have ended up hunched over with many more bumps and bruises.
But thankfully, Nan and Pap were our stakes. Keeping us upright and allowing us to grow into all we had the potential of being. And all the while, Nana’s arms were like those old ripped up strips wrapped around the tomato plants, not too tight but always a sense of them being there.
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