Eulogy given for my friend, Phyllis Garrison

Written and spoken at her funeral by her brother-in-law, Bill Reach (Charlie's sister's husband)

My earliest memory of Phyllis goes back more than 50 years. Lila and I were high school sweethearts and Phyllis and Charles were just married. I remember well how happy they were, how much in love they were. At that moment they seemed to have it all. I hoped that one day Lila and I would be able to follow in their footsteps.

A few years passed and when I returned from the Navy, some things had changed . . . . Babies had arrived, and our families were growing. But Phyllis and Charlie still had it all -- now even more. Our families stayed close over the years. Our children grew up together, loving each other, more like brothers and sisters than cousins.

We visited often and would send the kids to another room to play games while we had a drink or two and sat around the kitchen table discussing how things used to be back in the hills of Southwest Virginia. Phyllis, having grown up on a farm in Tennessee, was a little bit of an outsider in these conversations. She often found these lengthy recollections about coal mines and Big Stone Gap less than exciting. But if Charlie B. wanted to talk about it, Phyllis would listen, intently trying to keep straight who was who and where was where. She was abundantly blessed with patience and tolerance.

I will remember Phyllis as always lively, warm and happy. In terms of experience, travel and sophistication, she came a long way from farm fields of East Tennessee, acquiring the ability to be at ease in any place and with anybody.

She devoted a good part of her life to teaching young children, and she must have been a wonderful teacher and a great role model with whom her students could identify.

Although well educated, well traveled and well to do, I always saw something in Phyllis that was carefree, happy and uncomplicated . . . she always seemed to radiate a little bit of the innocence and love for life that one would see in a happy child. She lived, it seemed to me, in a wonderful world somewhere between sophisticated lady and cheerful third-grader.

These qualities were not only suited to her profession as a teacher, but even more to her role as wife, mother and grandmother. Charlie, Joe and David were the center of her life. Her patience with them was endless and her love for them was boundless. As the family grew with Stacey, Annette, Katie, Alex and Jake, so did her love for them. And that love, I firmly believe, molded this family into the wonderful people they are today. I suppose when you grow up surrounded by so much love things have to turn out right.

All one can do at a time like this is to share what is in his heart and hope that it brings some comfort in our time of grieving. It is so hard to put things in perspective when we seem to have no control. It is so hard to accept the inevitable, natural course of events.

But the time has come to say goodbye. Goodbye to a very special person whose spirit was as free and happy as the countless children she shaped over years, to one whose love for her family will continue to glow in their hearts and on their faces.



That innocent, happy laugh has gone silent. The sparkle in her eye has given way to sleep. The warmth of her person is now just an ember that glows in our memory. We will terribly miss our Mom, our Grandma Phyllis, our sister and our friend.

How difficult it is to say goodbye . . . and how true it is that time flies by . . . and as it does, so many memories flood the mind. It seems only yesterday, when young love bloomed like the flowers of spring and heaven smiled on all of us who were then so young. Dreams were realized, jobs were worked; sweethearts were wed and babies were born. It was our time. We talked and sang; we walked in the sun; we ate and drank and laughed and loved. We lived life to fullest.

There were many of us then. Death was a stranger from far away who seldom came to call.

And the future … the future stretched out ahead of us like an endless highway to any place we might wish to go.

But the years flew by. That dark stranger from far away began to seek us out more and more. We became fewer and fewer. We became older and older. Dreams became memories; brides became widows; our children had children of their own and that endless road . . . that endless road to any place now stretches much further behind us than ahead.

We are saying goodbye to our loved one, the happy one, the carefree one, the one with the childish air of innocence. We were not ready, nor could we ever have been prepared for this.

At times like this, we simply do what we must do. We have no choice. Our lives are full of choices, except for the beginning of life and the end of life. Those choices are made for us and we can only accept them. There is nothing we can do to change that. There is nothing we can do to turn back the clock.

Though written almost a thousand years ago, these famous poetic lines still ring true:

"The moving finger writes; and, having writ, moves on.
Not all your piety nor all your wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all your tears wash away one word of it."

As time runs out for each of us, what remains is the memory of how we lived our life. Did we make the most of the time we had? Did we make the right choices? Did we enrich the lives of those we lived with?

Phyllis did all this . . . with family she nurtured, the students she taught and the friends she cheered. Yes, with her life, we shall never wish to cancel half a line nor wash away one word of it. So, Phyllis, Mom Grandma Sister Friend, go now and rest in peace beside the love of your life. You had it all and you made the most of it.
Bill Reach May 31, 2013