February 27

Thinking about our wedding day in 1998. Warren's sister, Kim, sang Celine Dion's "Because You Loved Me" during our ceremony.

You'll Feel Better

Mom always said, "Get up, get a shower, brush your teeth and comb your hair - you'll feel better."

A Eulogy For My Mom

The stories we tell to one another are how we come to know each other. For as long as I can remember, my mother shared stories about her life.

Sometimes the stories she told were used to amuse us, other times the stories were used to make us appreciate what we had instead of what we didn't have.

So when I sat down to write this eulogy, the stories she told, as well as my own stories about mom, came to the forefront.

I offer you now, as I remember them, the stories of my mother that have become such a part of who I am.

My mother was born in Muncie Indiana, the first of two daughters, to Mary Alice Daugherty and Jesse William Stansberry.

As my brothers, sisters and I grew up, mom told stories of playing follow-the-leader along the White River and catching lightning bugs with her sister, Jo Ann. She played jacks, jumped rope and cut out paper dolls. Even then she was a good artist and would draw horses on paper for Jo Ann to cut out and play with.

I shuddered every time she told me about going to the coal shed to gather coal. The shed had rats. She would throw a piece of coal at the rats so that they would scatter, giving her enough time to grab a few pieces of coal and run back to the house.

I stared in disbelief when she said that she and her sister only got one new pair of shoes each year, at Easter, and that they wore cardboard on the inside of the shoes when the soles wore thin.

She told us about the extended family that always lived nearby and the ever-present cousins; Jeanie, Rosemary, Linda, Geneva Lee and Bobby. While mom was a young girl, before the family moved to California, her cousin Linda lived with them. First at "the projects" and then on a farm at the edge of town with a cornfield and cherry trees that grew near the house.

As soon as they got to the farm - she, Jo Ann and Linda climbed right up into those trees and ate cherries until they literally could not eat one more bite! My grandmother cautioned them, "Get out of those trees - you girls are going to make yourselves sick", and sure enough, they did.

The girls walked to school with three brothers - Jim, Jack and Jerry - who lived on the neighboring farm. As long as the boys were with them, they could take a short-cut through the cornfield without being afraid of getting lost in it.

Mom was the oldest of the cousins, the caretaker - the one who always watched over the younger ones.

One day Jo Ann got in trouble at school and the teacher made her stay after class as punishment. When she was finally excused and able to go home, she came out to find mom, Linda, Jim, Jack and Jerry sitting on the steps outside the school waiting for her. Mom knew that Jo Ann would be afraid to walk home alone.

She had a tremendous love of family and emphasized the importance of staying together and taking care of each other to all of us as we grew up.

My mother attended Harrison Elementary, McKinley Junior High School and Muncie Central High while in Indiana but it was at Huntington Park High School, here in California, that she met her husband, Lowell "Ed" Davis in a bookkeeping class. It was 1955.

As fate would have it, they each went their own way, raising families and following their own paths, until they found each other again, married in 1980 and celebrated 29 years together as husband and wife. She and Ed bowled together for years and loved traveling to Las Vegas and Laughlin for league play.

They also shared a mutual love for dogs. As a child she had Blackie, Tippy and King. There was Junior and Puppy while we were growing up. Then came Duchess, Heidi, Greta and her sweet Isabelle who she laughingly referred to when she was a pup as "just like Marmaduke". Big paws and all legs!

My most vivid memory of mom is of a woman always in motion. She was the type of person who made a house a home. Mom's essence, I believe, was to be a doer and she loved getting the entire family together. She was one of the most amazing people I have ever met and will probably ever meet.

Every childhood memory I have has my mother in it.

Always there, always doing things that showed me she cared. She was the mom who baked goodies for school parties and volunteered to be a room mother.

She was the one who would load 10, or maybe it was 13, neighborhood kids into the Corvair and drive us to school on a rainy day. We would be packed into that car like sardines, stacked on each other's laps. Do you remember climbing out the back windows in front of the school because the doors were stuck and wouldn't open? I do.

She was at every parade I marched in, doing that last minute run in front of the banner team to make sure that everyone was lined up straight and ready to go.

She helped us with science projects, ran my sisters to dance class and shuttled my brothers to baseball practice. She was my Girl Scout leader and served on the PTA. She taught me to sew and how to crochet a rag rug. She was an entrepreneur - owning and operating three businesses with her husband, Ed. Diversified Interviews, Davis Consulting Services and Jet Ski & Co.

From my mom, I inherited a love of reading and writing.

As I became an adult, my mother became my best friend. We shared common traits, a passion for genealogy research and a desire to document our family history.

We started doing that in 1993 and began searching for her father.

He disappeared, without a trace, on his way to California in 1954 and she wanted more than anything to solve that mystery. We still have yet to.

We wanted to know more than just the beginning and ending dates of one's life. We wanted the stories - for it's the stories that mold us, that tell of how we came to be and who we are.

A couple of years ago mom accompanied me on trip to Indiana. It was a business trip for me, an adventure for her, and the memory of it makes me smile.

While we were there, she had her first non-fat sugar-free vanilla latte at Starbucks and loved it!

Mom quickly became a Latte Lover but could not remember how to order it, so for months she called me from whatever Starbucks counter she was at and asked, "what is it I want?" so that she could place her order.

From then on, I made it a point to stop at Starbucks on my way in to visit and pick up Vanilla Latte's for the two of us.

One of my favorite memories of mom took place in September 2007 when my sister, Cathi, hosted a Girls Weekend at her condo in Oceanside.

Mom, Cathi, Patty, Jackie and I laughed, ate, talked and walked along the beach.

One evening we whipped up a luscious concoction that fell somewhere between Sangria and a Wine Spritzer, grabbed some munchies and dropped ourselves onto the floor around the coffee table to play L-C-R.

When Cathi was done explaining the game and going over the rules, Mom threw her arms up and exclaimed, "And the one who wins is the winner!" We roared.

My mother was my Matron of Honor when I married Warren 12 years ago.

Mom spent her life caring for others, instilling that quality in her children. But most importantly, she taught us about life.

She taught us to never to give up, to keep moving forward, to find your passion and do the best you can. To "rise above it" and that "two wrongs don't make a right".

After raising six children, she received her Associate's Degree in Business Administration at Orange Coast College.

She was named an Honoree Mother at the Annual Awards Presentation and Luncheon honoring The California State Mother of 1976, sponsored by the American Mother's Committee of California.

Mom loved to paint and was a natural artist. During the 1960's she studied oil painting and dabbled in water color, but found her passion in China Painting.

Over the years she perfected her technique and had a special gift for creating beautiful china plates decorated with exquisite floral designs.

She shared her talent with all of us through gifts of beautifully painted nativity sets, dated Christmas ornaments and the delicately painted baby shoes that she made for each newborn.

She won several awards for her work and was a member of the International Porcelain Artists and Teachers Association.

Mom loved roses and enjoyed gardening.

She was a Lakers fan and loved wearing her Kobe Bryant jersey.

She has always loved Elvis but had recently discovered country music and Trace Adkins.

Her favorite song quickly became Honky Tonk Badonk A Donk and she was very excited when we purchased tickets to see Trace and Alan Jackson perform in November 2008 at the Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario.

She immediately went out and bought his CD so that she could memorize the songs and be able to sing along at the concert.

I've heard it said that only the best mom's are promoted to grandma's. Her legacy leaves 24 grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren. Well, "that's a life you can hang your hat on".

While Mom is not here in the flesh, she is definitely here in spirit. She will always be in our hearts. So much of the person I became can be traced directly to my mother.

In a way, I am the walking embodiment of Janet Wray Stansberry Davis, as we all are. We are her legacy, because while we live - she lives on. So I cannot grieve too much today - because she is not just all around me, she is a part of me.

Knowing this, I can accept her passing. I am relieved that her suffering is at an end and that she is no longer in pain. When I miss her, I close my eyes and feel her spirit close to me.

In an essay about her father, author Marion Winik wrote, "Before you lose a parent, you think, Oh God, what will I do if one of them dies? Then it happens, and you find out you can't do anything. You just go on. Maybe you can try to become what you miss most."

Danielle Knew

Thinking of mom today as I write the eulogy for tomorrow's service and remember her telling me about the time she and Danielle, who was just 6 or 7 years old, watched the movie Beaches. At the end of the movie, Hillary (played by Barbara Hershey) dies and leaves her daughter in the care of CC Bloom (played by Bette Midler). Mom said Danielle turned to her and said, "Auntie Sue would want me, huh, Gramma."