Ladies and gentlemen, family and friends,
We gather here today to celebrate the long and beautiful life of my grandmother, Norma Dean Cooper, known to most of us as Si.
Some years after my grandfather’s death, Si gave me a shoebox full of old papers. These papers were Ta’s research on his Cooper and Morgan family tree. There were copies of old records and pages of printed names and birth and death dates, and an outline of a book on the family’s history that Ta wanted to eventually write. On one long printout of the family line, he wrote notes next to each ancestor. He notes that Sion and Malachi Cooper fought in the American Revolution at the Battle of Utah Springs. That James Cooper was a well-regarded Baptist Minister. He writes with pride that his grandfather, Dr. David Whitt Cooper, put down the plow at the age of 30 and picked up an old copy of Gray’s Anatomy, teaching himself enough about the way the human body worked to graduate with the first-class of the University of Cincinnati Medical School. Ta recorded that his father, Dave Cooper, was a “good salesman, gay blade, dancer, and teller of tales in a variety of authentic brogues.”
Next to his own name, my grandfather wrote of his greatest achievements. That he served in the US Navy during World War 2, that he was Mr. DJ in 1953, and that he had built and sold three radio stations. He ended with, “Best move in life married Norma.” They didn’t always agree on much, but they agreed on that.
When Si and Ta were married on the first day of March 1952, they had been on exactly three dates. If you see pictures of Si at the time, it's easy to understand why Lee J felt the need to proceed with haste.
Next to her entry in the family tree, he wrote “Good mother, good wife, very capable general office manager.” He also notes that she was the “Prettiest girl in Alabama.”
It isn’t enough to say that it was a whirlwind romance…it was a whirlwind life. I’d love to tell you that they lived happily ever after, that every day after they said “I do” was filled with happiness and sunshine, but that would be a lie. In the field for divorce, left blank for every other marriage in the family tree, my grandfather dryly wrote, “Not yet.” But I can tell you this truth. They loved each other as vehemently and passionately as they disagreed and as intensely as they sometimes fought with each other.
Si, like so many of her generation, lived through a lot. Not just the big moments like seeing her brothers go off to fight in World War 2, or moon landings and assassinations, but also profoundly heartbreaking personal moments. When she was eleven years old in June of 1943, her little brother went fishing with their grandfather. He fell into the Tennessee River and drowned. When I was younger, I remember her sister, my Aunt Sue, telling me that Si didn’t speak for nearly a year afterward.
She would outlive her father Clede who died in 1976 at the age of 77, her mother Era who died in 1878 at the age of 76, her brothers Harry Ditmer Hillian who died in 1996 at the age of 68, Soloman David Hillian who died in 1999 at the age of 77, James Cullen Hillian who died in 2000 at the age of 71, and her beloved sister Sue Ann Hillian, Aunt Sue, who died in 2008 at the age of 77. She outlived my grandfather, who was 66 when he died in 1992. And she sadly outlived her grandson, my cousin Lee Jackson Cooper III, who died in 2016 at the age of 32.
But she also welcomed, loved, and cherished the joy of life. She loved, and loved tormenting, her three children, my mother Leesa, my aunt Pat, and my Uncle Jack. She loved the nieces and nephews and cousins that made up the wide-spreading branches of her family tree. She cooked country breakfasts after rambunctious sleepovers for her five grandchildren and packed us all up to take us to the 99-cent movie at FourSquare or the Soddy Daisy Flea Market. She was there for our weddings and to love on her great-grandchildren. And they loved her.
I was the oldest grandchild in the family, which in many ways meant I was the luckiest because I got to spend the most time with my grandparents. When I was a little kid, Si would always give me money for my birthday. When I was 5, I got a $5 bill. When I was 6, I got $6, etc. This continued until my twelfth birthday when she gave me a check for $12. The next year, when I turned 13, I opened the card, read the message, and got a check for $12. Every year after, up through my thirties, I got a nice card with a Happy Birthday message and a check for $12.
It became a kind of family inside joke. I was never sure if she was doing this with all the grandkids, or if it was just something that she decided to continue with me—a little game between the two of us. So, for her 80th birthday, the whole family got together, and each of us gave her a birthday card with a check for $12. The smile on her face said it all. Everybody laughed, but no one laughed harder than Si. Like my dad said, "Everybody loved her, and she loved everybody." I've seldom felt more loved than when I received that $12 worth of love from my grandmother every year.
In closing, I want to leave you with another Si tradition. Si had a special hug. She taught it to me when I was little, and she taught it to my brothers, my cousins, and her grandchildren. She might have taught it to some of you. I’ll need a volunteer from the audience to help me demonstrate.
That’s the basics. It’s a hug, plus a sound, plus a side-to-side motion. So I want all of you to stand up, turn to the person next to you, and give them a Si hug.
About a year ago, I visited Si to wish her a happy 92nd birthday. When the visit was done, we did our Si hug and I told her that I loved her. She looked up at me with that twinkle that was always in her eye, and she said, “I love you too, honey. I just never got over it.”
So, as you leave here today, remember Si’s life was a beautiful, long, and winding journey filled with love, humor, tragedy, joy, passion, argument, and so much beauty. She will be remembered fondly and missed dearly, and her legacy will live on in all of us who knew her and loved her and were loved by her. Rest in peace, Si. We all love you. And we’ll never get over it.
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