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Good evening ladies and gentlemen and fellow students. We are gathered here this
evening to celebrate the graduation of Rockmart High Schools class of 2006. We have
already come a long way, but there are still miles and miles ahead of us. We survived a lot
to get here. We survived the grueling class hours, the teachers, and the mountains of
homework. We also survived the five bomb threats we had this year, and the lockdown
that came with them. We could not have survived this far without our parents to back us
up. They were there to encourage us to believe that we could achieve what we set out to
do. It was our parents support that gave us hope when we were down and struggling. It is
for these reasons that todays victory also belongs to our parents. Together we stand here
on the edge of time itself looking to the future. Now we must seize the future and strive
to be excellent. As for me, I miss all my friends and all the cool teachers. I will miss
people accidentally setting themselves on fire in Ag Mechanics class. I will miss the
morning TV show with Bryces Safari Adventure. I will miss the Friday night football
games, and all the other sports. Even a part of me will miss the bomb threats.
Earlier I
called this a high school, but it is more like an airport terminal with hundreds of planes.
As we each go to board a plane we wonder, Where will it take us, but one thing is for
sure once we depart each of us will soar high, fast, and far towards the horizon.
Welcome
Thank you all for coming to help us celebrate Liza's life and share our grief at her
passing.
Introduction
My name is Carol, and Liza and I have been best friends since childhood. We lived just
five houses apart on National Avenue, and we spent part of nearly every day together as
kids.
Memories
When I think of Liza as a child, I remember how much she loved exploring the ravine
behind our house. Half of our summers were spent wandering through the woods, looking
for crayfish under rocks along the creek, climbing trees, and generally doing things that
would have given our parents gray hair much sooner if they knew what we had been up
to each day.
I have to share one memory that really illustrates Liza's fearless, and sometimes
impulsive, nature. Some of the neighborhood boys had built a rope swing in a tree along
the ravine's edge. Liza, being fearless, decided to give it a try.
As she swung out over the edge, one of the boys jokingly called out, "Jump!" My heart
leapt to my throat as I saw Liza let go of the rope on her next swing out. Luckily she
wound up with nothing more than skinned knees and a sheepish grin that said she
couldn't believe she had just done that, but it just goes to show what a risk taker she was.
More than a simple risk taker, Liza also had a generous soul, as I'm sure many of you
here this morning can attest to. She never met a person in need that she didn't find some
way of helping. Her work as director of our local family shelter became her greatest
passion, and she put in tireless hours organizing meals and places where "her families"
could all stay together until they could get back on their feet. I say, "her families" with all
seriousness because she didn't just take them into shelters; she really took them into her
heart and kept contact with them even after their lives were back on track.
Mention of Family/Friends
When you combine the facts that Liza was a compassionate soul and willing to take risks,
it's not difficult to understand why she ventured out in that terrible snow storm on
Wednesday night to try to take food and diapers to one of her families in need. Yes,
maybe they would have been alright until morning, but that wasn't how Liza would have
thought about it. She would have worried about their empty stomachs and imagined the
sound of that baby's crying. She would have set any thoughts for her safety aside and
gone to their aid, and that's exactly what she did.
Of course, we now know that she never made it to that family. We can second guess
Liza's decision with 20/20 hindsight, or we can embrace the fact that she died doing
something she believed in so deeply. Knowing her as I did, I can tell you that her only
regret about her decision to go out on the road that night would have been that her
husband, Mitch, is now left to carry on without her. As passionate as she was about her
shelter work, Mitch was truly the love of her life.
It may comfort us all a bit to realize that Liza is now reunited with her beloved parents,
Lee and Meredith, and that someday we'll all be together again when we cross over to the
other side. This is only a brief parting in the larger scheme of life.
Closing
One thing you may or may not know is that Liza was a huge fan of the band Queen. She
particularly loved a song called Dear Friends, and she once made me promise that if she
passed before I did, I would play the song at her memorial, or at least read the lyrics. So,
I'll read those now in closing, and I hope they leave you with the message that time will
heal our wounds, and that life truly does go on.
in a different way.
Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.
The Teaching of Tecumseh
We Remember Them
At the rising of the sun and at its going down,
We remember them.
At the blowing of the wind and in the chill of Winter,
We remember them.
At the opening of buds and in the rebirth of Spring,
We remember them.
At the blueness of the skies and in the warmth of Summer,
We remember them.
At the rustling of leaves and the beauty of Autumn,
We remember them.
At the beginning of the year and when it ends,
We remember them.
As long as we live, they too will live;
for they are now a part of us, as we remember them.
When we are weary and in need of strength,
We remember them.
When we are lost and sick at heart,
We remember them.
When we have joys we yearn to share,
We remember them.
When we have decisions that are difficult to make,
We remember them.
When we have achievements that are based on theirs,
We remember them.
As long as we live, they too shall live,
for they are a part of us, as we remember them.
Author Unknown
I look at life as a gift of God.
Now that he wants it back
I have no right to complain.
Joyce Cary
E. E. Cummings
A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.
Charles Darwin
There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The
other is as though everything is a miracle.
Albert Einstein
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
Security is mostly a superstition.
It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.
Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
Helen Keller
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Fireworks flowering in the night sky
Achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death.
Ayn Rand
Our care should not be to have lived long as to have lived enough.
Seneca
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts
of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die,
discover that I had not lived.
Henry David Thoreau
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Teddy Roosevelt
Moliere
The world is your mirror and your mind is a magnet.
What you perceive is in this world is largely a reflection of your own attitudes and
beliefs.
Life will give you what you attract with your thoughts think, act and talk negatively and
your world will be negative.
Think and act and talk with enthusiasm and you will attract positive results.
Michael LeBeuf
To reach a great height a person needs to have great depth.
Anonymous
People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but
when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there light is from within.
Elizabeth Kubler Ross
Those who wish to sing always find a song.
Swedish proverb
And life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.
Grandma Moses
Every person, all the events of your life are there because you have drawn them there.
What you choose to do with them is up to you.
Richard Bach
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Person helping another to walk
It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely
Try to help another without helping himself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen,
not touched. but are felt in the heart.
Helen Keller
Honest listening is one of the best medicines we can offer the dying and the bereaved.
Jean Cameron ( dying of Cancer in 1982)
You never know till you try to reach them how accessible men are;
but you must approach each man by the right door.
Henry Ward Beecher
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Love lies bleeding flowers
Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.
Helen Keller
There is nothing the body suffers which the soul may not profit by.
George Meredith
Sometimes, when one person is absent, the whole world seems depopulated
Allphonse de Lamartine
Grief knits two hearts in closer bonds than happiness ever can;
and common sufferings are far stronger links than common joys.
Alphonse de Lamartine
Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to
one only by other human beings.
Elie Weisel
We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than
by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the
trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.
Mark Twain
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and
suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success
achieved.
Helen Keller
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Simple white field daisies
Happiness is different from pleasure.
Happiness has something to do with struggling and enduring and accomplishing.
George Sheehan
People living deeply have no fear of death.
Anais Nin
I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme,
and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not
knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without
knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.
Gilda Radner
Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to
do with it.
Somerset Maughan
This delightfully wry, tongue in cheek comment by Somerset Maughan brings my
collection of inspirational quotations, eulogy quotes and funeral readings to an end.
I sincerely hope you've found what you need.
A godly man
Who served the Lord
All his days.
________
A loving father is now at rest,
For each of us he did his best.
His love was great, his heart was kind,
A beautiful memory left behind.
________
Although we cannot see you,
You're with us everyday.
The love you gave us all in life,
Death cannot take away.
________
Always in our hearts
________
Always remembered
________
A special smile, a special face,
A special Mum we can't replace.
You gave your love,
Your whole life through.
God bless you Mum,
We love you too.
________
As the bird free of its cage
Seeks the heights,
So the Christian soul in death,
Flies home to God.
________
As we love you,
So we miss you.
________
At rest
________
Blessed are the pure in heart,
For they shall see God.
Matthew 5:8
________
Love lives on
________
May God keep you in His love and
care
________
May she rest in peace with God
________
May the peace of the Lord be with
you
________
Memory is a golden chain,
That binds us till we meet again.
________
Memories are keepsakes,
Treasured forever.
________
Neither height, nor depth,
Nor anything else in all creation,
Will separate us from the love of
God,
That is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
________
No farewells were spoken,
No time to say goodbye.
You were gone before we knew it,
And only God knows why.
________
Of tender heart and generous spirit
________
On earth one gentle soul the less,
In Heaven, one angel more.
________
Our Baby
________
Our little angel
________
Forever
in our thoughts
________
Rest in peace
________
Forever
with the Lord
________
Forever young,
Forever in our hearts.
________
Sadly missed
________
She touched everyone,
With special love and kindness.
________
Sleeping peacefully
________
Goodnight, Godbless.
________
________
He gave his today for our tomorrow
________
He honoured us in Life,
We honour him in Death.
________
Her greatest gift,
Was love.
________
Her presence we miss
Her memory we treasure.
Loving her always,
Forgetting her never.
________
"How beautiful life was to me."
________
I am the resurrection and the life.
He that believeth in Me,
Though he were dead,
Yet shall he live.
________
I go to prepare a place for you,
That where I am,
There you may also be.
________
I know that my redeemer lives,
Therefore I too shall live.
________
In glory everlasting
________
In God's care
________
In Loving Memory
________
In memorys garden,
We meet every day.
________
________
__