Eulogy for Sarah Montgomery Marple-Cantrell

I was present at Sarah's birth, helping support Lynn as she pushed, so I have known her for her whole life. Sarah was loved from the moment of her conception, and welcomed with love into this world. I never expected to also be present at her funeral.

Although we don't realize it at the time, when babies are little, they are easy. We pick them up and down, dress them, feed them, and they pretty well go along with it. The older they get, the less we really can do for them, they are separate beings with their own paths to follow. We do not know in advance if their path will be long or short, their disposition sunny or cloudy. If we look at 10,000 teenagers, all 10,000 of them fight with their parents, say they want more freedom, hate us and love us, rebel and cooperate at one time or another. Perhaps 9999 make it through all this and somehow emerge, and finally come to realize how much we love them. But sometimes, one does not, and we really don't know why. If we could predict which one it will be, we could help them, but we can't even be sure of that.

No one can know what someone else is thinking, even if they tell us. Maybe it's just what they think we want to hear. No one can know why they think it, and often they themselves don't know why they think certain things. Psychologists try and figure this out, but it's an art, we just keep talking and hope things work themselves out.

All parents want the best for their children. They love their children, they do what seems like the best thing to do at the time, with the resources they have available. You don't always get the results you hoped for but you keep plugging away, doing your best to steer your children into adulthood. And sometimes it doesn't quite work they way you wanted, sometimes it goes sadly awry. And really, no one knows exactly why. Maybe the child read something on the internet that makes them interpret what you say a different way. We don't know why.

What we know now is that Sarah was cute, and short, and fun to be with. She was smart, loved nature and animals, she had a wonderful wacky sense of humor. She enjoyed summer camp, she got good grades in school. She had many friends who loved her. She had a family that treasured her. So we don't know why she did what she did. We hope she is free of pain, free of the natural disaster that enveloped her. And we hope her family can find peace, and support each other, as they must, to move slowly through this time of grief . We all mourn with them and we remember and celebrate the child who was Sarah.