On this august occasion, as people line up to congratulate you (some armed with gifts and money), and various luminaries shower you with praise while challenging you to reach for the stars, your parents would like to have the floor for a few moments.

First, congratulations on your achievement. As the saying goes, we knew you when. We raised you from a darling little urchin who squalled through the night and dirtied 13.5 metric tons of Huggies; helped you take your first steps and bandaged you up when you fell and skinned your little knees; felt the exhilaration and cried simultaneously when we watched you on your first day of school; savored every Christmas morning we were lucky enough to spend with you; we laughed with you, cried with you, battled for you; and we are positively choked up and overcome with pride at the young adult you've become. So from the people who love you more dearly than life itself, a heartfelt congratulations and thank you for working so hard to reach this milestone.

As you consider where to go from this point, there are a dizzying number of options. Although we are not unbiased, we can say from our own experience that in addition to a diploma, you bring with you something no one else has. You have qualities, skills, gifts, that no other person possesses. In this parent's experience, few things bring more satisfaction than applying one's unique gifts and talents in the service of, and for the betterment of, our fellow citizens. Whether you have a knack for music, art, science, teaching, leading,…our country and our world needs you and your gifts. You have many options in front of you, but to serve your fellow countrymen in a cause bigger than yourself is a huge reward in itself.

Now, as parents, we reserve the right to give you the unvarnished truth, free of sugar coated niceties. We didn't spend all the effort and years loving you and helping you to grow only to see you unprepared for what adulthood brings. So take a moment and look at your diploma. In school, you were identified in large part by your group associations. You were known for being in the band, or in drama, or on the football team, or a member of any number of clubs. You were known as a member of any number of groups. You will notice that your diploma has your name on it,…it doesn't say Band, or Cheerleaders, or Spanish Club, etc. From this point on, you are an individual first, and the quality of the rest of your life will rest on your individual decisions, individual ambition, individual achievement, and individual work ethic. There will be many people, political leaders, union bosses, people in academia and media, who will encourage you to think of yourself primarily as a member of this or that group. Don't fall for it. You are your own person and you have not only the God-given right to act as an individual, but the commensurate and sole responsibility to accept the consequences of your actions and decisions.

A lot of what follows might be things you don't necessarily want to hear, but in a few years you will be glad you heard them. First, your learning phase in life isn't over. As Mark Twain said, "I tried to never let my formal schooling get in the way of my education." The day you stop learning will be the day that you assume room temperature. Stay curious, read books, watch the news, stay informed. Your freedom is a gift purchased with the blood of the very best and brightest your country has to offer. Don't squander it. Cherish it, protect it against foreigners that would do you harm and domestic do-gooders who think they know what's best for you and so try to order and manage your life.

Many of you will try to find your life's partner. Most of you won't realize until you begin working that you already have a partner that will be with you for the rest of your life. That partner won't be there working along side you, but will instead sit by comfortably and wait until pay day. Your new partner will not share in your effort, but will insist on sharing in your earnings. He will be there on behalf of every person who didn't have sense enough to take advantage of the incredible educational opportunities this country offers and chose instead to live on public assistance. Your partner represents every aging hippie who gets a grant from the Nation Endowment for the Arts because they can't persuade enough people to purchase their "art" in the free market. Your agent stands in for every loser who downloaded kids they couldn't afford, every research scientist who is busy studying the mating habits of Caribbean coddle fish, any number of large corporations who made lousy business decisions and want a government bail out, and several foreign dictators with curious and shiny uniforms holding their hands out for foreign aid.

If any one of these people came to you and robbed you, they could be criminally charged and prosecuted. But they don't have to rob you. That's because your new life's partner has complete authorization to take from you the fruit of your labor and simply hand it to any or all of the misfits listed above. You have no choice in the matter. If you resist, this partner can use deadly force to make you comply. Of course, a partner with this kind of awesome power to coerce is very popular with that class of people who want him to use that power on their behalf. The list keeps growing. You really have no choice. Your partner will move in with you, require that you fill out some forms each year, and take more and more of what you produce all in the name of said misfits and to protect their rights. And of course, the more productive you become, the higher the percentage your partner will demand. If you were awake when your teachers discussed a guy named Karl Marx, you might recognize that this "progressive" tax idea comes right from his little mind. Some call this "progress." Others call it theft.

You may ask exactly what rights you have left, given the dire situation I've described. Well, if you watch the news, listen to any number of professors, etc., you might deduce that you have a huge number of rights. The right to a job, the right to be happy, the right to not be offended, the right to higher education, the right to a new car, the right to health care, the right to have other citizens pay for and support a child you decided to download when you couldn't afford it. This is all total horse squeeze! Take a look at the Constitution,…it spells out your rights. Basically, you have the right to live free and you have the right to the fruits of your labor. On the other side of the coin, you do NOT have the right to the labor, property, or earnings of another person.

For example, let's look at health care. You cannot receive health care unless a doctor chooses to give a portion of his time and efforts to you, correct? If he so chooses, he will reasonably expect compensation for his time and effort, just as you will expect to be compensated for your time and effort at your job. You have no right to force him to give his time and service to you for nothing,…therefore you have no right to his time, effort, nor any other portion of his life. Anyone who tries to convince you that you have a right to any portion of this man's life without compensating him is trying to curry favor with your life's partner who in turn will demand still more from your earnings under threat of deadly force.

And while we're discussing rights and the earnings, time, and property your new partner will take from you in order to fund an ever expanding list of rights, let's discuss the people who will benefit from this confiscation of your property. We euphemistically refer to them as the "less fortunate." This is misleading because it implies that those people who live in a decent home, have jobs that allow them to meet their obligations and still live in a measure of comfort are somehow "fortunate." It's as if life were simply one big lottery with winners and losers determined by random chance. Again, this is absolute horse squeeze, and anyone who speaks in those terms is exercising their Constitutional right to be an imbecile.

People who decided against staying out all night partying, opting instead to hit the books and work hard in their studies are not "fortunate." They are hard working. People who decided to continue and finish their education and develop skills that would benefit their countrymen are not simply lucky. They are committed to excellence. People who don't sit around waiting for 5 o'clock so they can punch out and go play video games, but instead work extra, oftentimes so they can pay their tuition costs as they pursue their education are not winners in life's lottery. They are backbone of this country. They are the productive class, and to refer to them as simply "fortunate" is to denigrate their work, their dignity, and their right to the fruits of their labor. After all, it's easier to justify taking someone's property if they got it by being lucky, as opposed to having earned it through hard work, right? Let's not sugar coat it. The "fortunate" among us earned their way. The "less fortunate" became so usually through laziness or a series of stunningly stupid decisions.

One of the harsh realities about the world you are entering is that the harder you work, the more your partner will take from you and the more he will vilify you. Stay in school, develop superb skills, work hard and apply those skills, and you will be maligned by the political class and much of the egg-headed academic class as well. Why? Because the cultivation of envy results in the "less fortunate" clamoring for your partner to hand out more goodies to them, goodies that were earned by you. And the more your partner hands them, the greater your partner's power grows. You will be told that you're not paying your "fair share." Currently the top 10% of wage earners pay over 50% of the taxes, yet that is still not "fair" enough for the collectivists among us.

Having painted such a gloomy picture, I'm sure you are wondering what in the world you should do at this point. I'm glad you asked. Here are a few suggestions:

* Register to vote. Become informed and cast an informed vote. If you don't know what's going on, then please don't vote. We've already exceeded our quota of idiots, goons, welfare queens, and misfits at the ballot box.

* When you do vote, pay particular attention to House and Senate races. Congress controls the purse strings and with it the appetite of your life's partner, so focus sharply on that.

* Remember, you are not entitled, nor should you wish to be entitled, to another person's property or any other portion of his life. Writing about the fall of the Athenian Republic, historian Alexander Tyler observed that once the public learns that it can vote itself money from the public purse, a democracy's days are numbered. Don't reach into another man's pocket. You have no business there.

* Use your unique abilities and talents to your advantage and that of your community. To willingly serve others in this way is a blessing,…to be coerced into such service is slavery.

* Revel in your uniqueness.

* Go the extra mile. Decide to produce and excel rather than be part of that wretched herd called the "less fortunate."

* Always know that your parents love you dearly and want more than anything else in this world for you to be happy.

If dear Liza Minelli had known the New York that I came to know in the last day and a half, she would have drastically altered the words to her signature song, "New York, New York." I'm sure it's a delightful place if your normal mode of transportation is a limousine. For the rest of us mere mortals, it's as close to  third world driving conditions as anything I've seen since deploying to any number of actual third world countries.

I had a trailer full of paper rolls that had to be delivered in Yonkers, New York, which for the happily untutored, is north of the Bronx. The load had to be delivered Friday morning early, so I hit the highway from Carlisle, PA at about 4AM. The rain started shortly thereafter and never stopped. It wasn't pouring,..just a steady drizzle of misery. I took I-78 from I-81 and made my way into New Jersey. I used to think that my home state of Louisiana had the worst roads in the country. I was mistaken. New Jersey would be better served to fire it's road crews and instead pave the highway with giant leggos (the bumpy knob-riddled interconnecting plastic blocks) for a smoother ride than that currently suffered by the wretched souls who must commute through that hideous state.

Of course, in order to have the privilege of driving on roads so riddled with potholes, so treacherously and deeply scarred with successive and incrementally uneven patches of bad repair work as to almost throw your vehicle off the road altogether, one must fork over some money. The worse the road, the more toll booths spring up in the middle of the highway. Really deep craters can germinate a fresh toll booth every 100 meters or so. These people are taxed to death up here. Businesses are evacuating the state like survivors from the Titanic and so the state government in typical leftist fashion continues to increase taxes on those who can't leave. In return for this, people in New Jersey can expect roads that will tear their vehicles to pieces, cramped living conditions that have people hemmed in tighter than Pavarotti in spandex, a crime rate that puts every man woman and child in mortal danger, and government confiscation of earnings at a level that would make Lenin blush. Welcome to liberal utopia.

As bad as New Jersey is, it has one thing to brag about. It ain't New York City. New York City is everything New Jersey is, only there is more of it. More tolls, more dangerously bad roads (a point I will prove in due course), more crime, more people jammed in, etc. etc., world without end, a-men. I crossed the George Washington Bridge (the father of our country would deny child support to this place), bounced like Captain Kangaroo through the tunnels that signal one's entrance to the Bronx, and then found the ramp to get on I-87 going north. Now, interstate highways that go north / south, typically have the exits numbered with the lowest numbered exits in the south, then going higher in number with the highest number being the last exit before one leaves the state in the north. But this is New York. I was to find Exit 2,…so when I got onto I-87, I was greeted by Exit 7. Using the hands free thingy on my phone, I called the warehouse to hear the recorded directions message which again said to take I-87 north to Exit 2. The exit numbers reached 14, I think, when I thought I should pull over to call the warehouse and speak to a live person to sort this out. But then,…the next exit I saw was Exit 1!! Anyone that can make sense of this, please move to New York. Next came Exit 2, and I took it. That's when it got really interesting.

I had entered a placed called Yonkers, New York. Yonkers is an old Latin term, which means Honkers. Honking, you see, is the primary means of safe driving in the area. It is also the substitute for brakes, steering, driving with one's eyes open, and driving with one's head placed anywhere other than squarely up one's arse. Yonkers has an overabundance of streets and cars and pedestrians, but a severe scarcity of street signs. I was looking for a specific street, and came upon this narrow little path lined with cars on both sides, traffic backed up, people all over the place and thought, "Nah, that couldn't be it." But there on the very far corner was a little sign with letters so small you had to practically pass it to read it,..and yuppers, that was my street. So I made the left turn and began negotiating cars parked on the side of the street, cars parked in the travel lanes of the street, cars coming directly at my 80,000 lb. vehicle full speed as I tried to get around the cars that were parked in the travel lanes of the street, etc. After a mile and a half of this fun, I found my next street, which called for a right turn. Of course, there was the obligatory light pole right on the corner, and traffic all over the lanes so that it was impossible to make the turn while attached to a 53 foot trailer without taking up all the lanes, the sidewalk, etc. I waited for a break in the traffic, however slight, and made the turn. This street would continue all the way to the banks of the Hudson River.

This little stretch of heaven featured even more narrow roads with virtually no room to pass, cars parked on the side so poorly that my trailer missed their side mirrors by an inch or so, very low bridges and overpasses with no signs stating the height of the things, etc. This joyride to the Hudson culminated with a very long and steep descent down a very tall and steep hill ending at a "T" intersection at the riverside. I was very concerned that I might lose traction and slide to the bottom of the hill. With a trailer, at least I would have widened the road a bit.

At the bottom of the hill, I made a right turn and found the warehouse, which of course didn't have any signs to designate it as the correct place. The folks there were kind enough to unload the trailer within an hour and I was set for the trip back. Looking for my road away from the Hudson and back toward the interstate, I was distracted by people stopping their cars right in front of me, on the road, and going into the adjacent business to do whatever it was they came to do, other people trying to get around them by cutting me off, city buses rocketing down the road like dragsters, and other symptoms of the hospitality and warm spirit this little slice of Hell is known for. Finally, I got around the people who used the travel lanes as their own reserved parking space, and was looking for a street sign to show me which street to take out of this place, the sign wasn't there. You see, there are fine upstanding members of the community up here in this collectivist paradise that remove the street signs so as to confuse truckers who, in due course, get stuck somewhere and leave themselves vulnerable to being robbed (the citizens are just trying imitate the example set by their government). In short order, I was staring at a sign that said that the clearance on the bridge in front of me was 10'1". My truck stands at 13'6". This was a problem. Backing up was not an option because of the mass of traffic rushing up from behind me. There was no place to pull over, no place to turn around,…I was stuck.

So I called my dispatcher and announced my general discontent with this assignment and asked her to contact the Yonkers police to see if they could manage traffic for me so I could back up and escape. She patched me through, I told the dispatcher what happened, and she said officers would be enroute. Meanwhile, traffic on this two lane street utilized the one lane that was open to them by rushing at each other at high speeds while honking their horns to see who would chicken out first. The size of the vehicles had no deterrent factor. A Geo Metro would take on a school bus or a bicycle. Any number of people waved at me in a fashion confirming that I indeed am Number One as far as they are concerned. I was touched. An hour later, I called Yonkers' finest back to see if they might make time in their schedule to assist me, and was told that another truck had met a similar fate and I was next in line after that. I advised that some investment in signs might preclude this sort of thing from happening so often. I thought about calling them back and telling them I was being robbed, which given the sort of folks walking up and down the street watching me, was a reasonable prediction. Finally, after 3 hours of waiting, a police cruiser pulled up and the officer asked if I needed to back up. I said yes, and he got behind the trailer, hit the lights and siren and bullhorn and instructed traffic to back up out of my path. It took awhile, as the good folks of Honkers kept trying to defy the officer and my trailer. Finally, I got to the street I needed, and it took all the lanes available to make the turn (Honkers' streets were not made for anything larger than a VW minibus).

Upon starting my ascent back up that very steep hill, I saw another 18 wheeler in front of me, stopped midway up the hill. The officer that had helped me was now talking to this driver. He advised all of us to back up. Evidently, the truck couldn't make it up the hill due to the angle of ascent and the slick roads (it was raining). We all backed up and gave him room to back to a more level surface and then get a running start. He made it. Then it was my turn. I got about halfway up,…to the first intersection, when the light turned red and I had to back off the throttle. I lost traction and just sat there with my drive tires spinning. The officer was not happy,..but there was nothing I could do. He called more officers to block the next two intersections (full of angry traffic). I backed down the hill and got a running start again. The road was in bad condition with so many bumps and holes that keeping traction was even more difficult. Add water to that road, and it gets ugly. My tires kept losing traction and spinning, which caused the whole 80'+ vehicle to fish-tale uphill. With officers blocking two intersections, I blasted through the red lights, with cars parked to my right, and opposing traffic inching toward me on the left, all while trying to keep the trailer from swinging around while my tires intermittently lost traction. I made it to the top of the hill sweating bullets. Unbelievable.

By this time, it was afternoon rush hour. Traffic going back over the George Washington into New Jersey, and then on the NJ Turnpike headed south, was crazy, nigh suicidal. I saw wrecks. I saw people evidently trying to run into my truck as their lane merged into mine. I saw people refuse to allow me to move over into a lane that was designated for trucks. My air horn got a tremendous workout. Finally arriving at a drop lot to get rid of the empty trailer, I went to the one truckstop nearby, and found that they charge money for overnight parking,…and it was nothing more than a dirt lot next to a gas station. The hospitality up here truly knows no bounds. So I went back to the drop lot, parked next to a porta potty, and slept for the night.

This morning, I had to go into Jersey City, just across the river from Manhatten. Picked up a loaded trailer bound for North Carolina, and then got lost trying to get back to the highway. They just don't believe in signs. I was headed for the Holland Tunnel when I found an exit and got turned around. On the positive side, I drove right next to Liberty Park, where people go to visit the Statue of Liberty. The sight of that majestic lady standing the harbor brought a welling in my throat. She stands for liberty and the freedom to pursue excellence,…or not. Mark Twain observed that the Constitution gives us the unalienable right to make asses of ourselves, a right which the people of this area exercise the fullest. Surveying the mass of anger, rudeness, and misery that surrounds Lady Liberty, I wonder if the states of New York and New Jersey wouldn't be better advised to purchase a blindfold for her. They could fund it by yet another toll increase.

My earliest memories of her are of being carried in her arms as she would sing "I love you a bushel and a peck." I was too young to be really good at walking yet, I was too short for her to press her cheek against mine unless she were carrying me, and I couldn’t move as fast across the floor as she did (neither could anyone else for that matter). I knew that she was "Granny Bob," and though I didn’t know exactly what a bushel or peck was, I knew my Granny loved me and I got the impression that she thought I was incredibly special and just about the best thing to hit town. As the first of four grandchildren and many great grandchildren, I was not the last person to have that impression.

Marguerite Beeson Young was the oldest of two children born to Myra and Ben Beeson. My great grandparents were both strong willed people, but I think even they must have been surprised at the little firecracker they brought into the world. Marguerite’s younger brother, B.F. Beeson says that as a youngster, his big sister’s name was difficult for him to pronounce and came out sounding something like "Bob-eese." This was eventually shortened to "Bob," and became her calling card throughout the family. It was entirely appropriate that she would have a masculine nickname, for though she was surely a lady with far more class than most, I’ve seen my Granny address a room full of deacons and seem like the only man in the room. She had no equals with one exception. Her little brother grew to be not so little after all. A tall man with an equally sharp wit and powerful mind, my Uncle BF was the only person I saw who could debate Granny to a draw if not actually get the better of her. My cousins and I used to sit in the next room and listen in on the debates. This, sports fans, was the true clash of the titans. That they loved each other dearly was obvious, but a debate amongst this bunch was not for the faint of heart.

My second oldest memory is of sitting next to Granny Bob on what seemed like a very tall bed, watching television. When my family and I would visit Granny and Grandaddy, the beginning of Johnny Carson’s television show would signal the start of bed time. I would climb the bed and perch next to Granny to discuss things. You see, Granny didn’t engage in "child speak" with me. It wasn’t Mr. Rogers saying, "Can you say Tonight Show?" No, Granny spoke to me as an equal, and I did my best to reply in kind. I’m sure my sentences were mangled beyond comprehension, but I reasoned that if she was going to talk to me like I was smart, then I would have to sound smart. That’s how Granny taught; by example. She taught me the proper and effective use of the language.

As Johnny Carson got into his monologue, Grandaddy would bring Granny and me a plate full of seedless grapes. Now, this was living! Granny and I discussed the monologue, or any subject we pleased. Whether it was politics, cars, music, or why I shouldn’t have climbed to the top of the outside television antenna that was attached to the house, we munched on grapes and had a grand time. Granny Bob was the first person I remember talking to me on their level.

I also have distinct memories of going to a department store downtown with Granny. A trip with Granny was an adventure, but one needed to be rested in advance. Granny shopped the way she drove her car, and she drove her car the way she lived; in high gear. When Granny was behind the wheel, I would find something to hold on to and say that we were going to "ride the horsey." For someone raised on the Lone Ranger, riding the horsey signified something very nearly like high speed pursuit. So Granny and I would take off in a cloud of dust for Mullers, the big department store in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Granny approached shopping as if it were a surgical strike by a Navy SEAL team: get in, get it done, and get out. Of course, with her "Little David" in tow, she took time to take me to the second floor where there was a counter for refreshments. Here, Granny introduced me to the wonders of a Cherry Coke. It was like grapes during Johnny Carson all over again, we would enjoy a simple snack and chat.

Part of visiting my grandparents was going to church with them. As a little fellow, I would lean over to my parents or to Granny when the preacher would get really worked up over something and ask, "Why is he yelling at us?" The guy was red faced, sputtering, hollering in our general direction, and I had never met the man and so couldn’t figure out what I had done to tick him off so much. Granny would tell me he wasn’t mad, he was just very serious. As long as I wasn’t in trouble with the guy, it was okay with me, and I’d fall asleep in someone’s lap.

As years passed by, I learned more of Granny Bob’s faith. Church was a central point of her life, but it wasn’t an end to itself. It was a means. A means to bring her closer to God. It’s a distinction lost on many church goers,…the goal is not the church,…the goal is to serve and love the Lord and in turn to bask and grow in God’s love for us. Granny didn’t just teach it, though she taught and served in the church for her entire adult life, like everything else, she lived the example.

I remember around 1977, after my Mom, and my Sister and I had moved back to Lake Charles and were living with Granny Bob and Grandaddy. The church had lost its pastor and was searching for another. The search committee had located a promising minister and he came to preach one Sunday and spend a little time with the congregation. Well, he must have impressed everyone because the church voted to invite this minister to be their pastor. This was a large church, a prestigious position for any minister to occupy, so it never occurred to anyone that the minister would turn down the church’s offer, but that’s exactly what he did. What followed was an exercise in self loathing by the congregation. One person after another, usually men, stood to make the case that the minister’s refusal to be their pastor meant that they had fallen short in some fashion. Surely, if this good man didn’t want to be the pastor of this church, something must be wrong with this church. I was sitting next to Granny and could see that she was not going quietly into this wilderness of guilt with the rest of the speakers, whether they were deacons or not. So my grandmother stood and with eloquence and grace, yet with conviction and a command of the language, she completely rejected and destroyed the very premise of the other speakers’ arguments. Did we not, she asked, routinely pray to the Lord asking that His will be done? When the church prayed about extending an invitation to this minister, did we not say, "If it be thy will?" Could it be, she asked, that the Lord heard our prayer and took those words more seriously than we did? "Has it occurred to anyone that just maybe it wasn’t the Lord’s will that this man be our pastor?" Granny asked. Granny asked if anyone had considered the possibility that the Lord had another minister in mind for this church, and that rather than kicking itself, the church should give thanks that His will had been revealed? You see, while the other speakers were focused on what was happening to their church, Granny’s eyes were focused on her Lord, and she knew if that she was faithful in that, God would take care of the details.

That’s how Granny lived her life. Through the good times and the bad, when we were all together and happy, or when a divorce or death in the family would break hearts, Granny stayed focused on God and his will. In this and many other respects, she was a giant in our family.

As the years went by, Granny and Uncle BF buried their grandparents and their parents. Though the grief was strong, Granny and her brother were stronger. Granny knew that one day she would see them all again. Eleven years ago, Granny buried her husband of over 50 years. When her beloved Woodrow went to heaven, we think Granny’s heart went with him. From that point forward, she wore his wedding band on an elegant little gold chain around her neck. Growing up, I noticed that while others cried profusely by a coffin at funerals, Granny recognized the body as an empty shell, and looked forward to the day that she would be reunited with her loved ones. Last Tuesday, March 11, 2008, Granny finally made it to the reunion.

Cancer had taken Granny’s strength, but not her spirit. As I wrote last week to my cousin, "Gran is awake for an hour or two at most before going back to sleep. When she is awake, it takes every ounce of energy she can muster to try and communicate, and at times her speech is indecipherable. It’s tough for her to keep her eyes open for any amount of time. I was taken aback by how frail she looks. She still musters the energy to get off a witty remark now and then, to let everyone know she’s not down for the count. But it was heartbreaking to see her in this condition. As you know, she’s always been a woman of indomitable will, impeccable manners, consumate dignity, and a razor sharp mind. Her spark is still there, but the light burns dimly."

The knowledge that cancer was running its course gave Granny some time to spend with family. Christmas was magical as always. With Granny there was laughter and a certain ease that made everyone around her know that they were home, and that in this home there was love and happiness enough for everyone. On February 24^th, my own Mother retired from 30 years of church work (another strong and remarkable example Granny’s influence). Granny attended the retirement banquet, though her body was weakening. Afterward, the family gathered at Granny’s house. My sister told me that Granny was in the bedroom resting, but that she had not wanted to go back there for fear that her "Little David," wouldn’t come visit with her. As my mind went back 40 years, time was erased, and a few minutes later I was sitting on that bed next to my Granny eating grapes and talking. What a special time. What a special lady.

In a eulogy delivered many years ago, William F. Buckley Jr., struggled to find the words that focus on the special spirit of one of his loved ones. Unable to articulate that special quality, he finally asked, "How does one illuminate a sunburst?" How indeed. How does one put into words that special feeling that Granny gave everyone in her home, that they belonged and that they were loved. How can one articulate that look of complete joy and elation she would get when one of her grandkids or great grandkids entered the room? At her funeral, Granny’s pastor said that for those that knew her, no words were needed; while for those who didn’t know her, no words were adequate.

Toward the end of her life, Granny lived daily with my Mother always at her side, gently and lovingly tending to her. With typical grace and eloquence, Granny told my Mom, "You gave up part of your life to help me live mine. Thank you." Granny departed this life with her eyes still focused on her Savior. As her example and her words linger in our minds and in our hearts, we say, "Granny Bob, you lived your life in a way that showed us how to live ours. Thank you. We love you dearly."