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A Eulogy for Our Friend, Cathy Grinolds of Turlock, California
When Dawn asked me to eulogize her mom, I jumped at the chance. Some people are easy on the heart and sweet in your memories. No one better fits in that category than my longtime friend Cathy Grinolds.
In May 1985, I saw Turlock for the first time. I was a 23-year-old preacher and the sole candidate to take over the pastorate of the fledgling ministry at Bible Baptist Church. Of the people I met that day, no one made more of an impression on me than Vic and Cathy Grinolds.
Vic was a slight man with a personality big enough to fill any room. He had an infectious laugh and a twinkle in his eye. Cathy was like his sidekick, there for all of the jokes. But she was well more than that. She bubbled with life. She had open arms and an open heart for this kid preacher and his little family. We loved them as much as any couple we had ever met. Forty-one years later, we still do.
I asked Dawn to share a few thoughts about her mom, so she wrote me a couple of heartfelt paragraphs. I feel like she captured the essence of Cathy Grinolds in the first two sentences:
“Mom had an impact on everyone around her. She was supportive to everyone she met, and always willing to lend a helping hand”
Cathy was that person. When I needed a Sunday school teacher for the younger kids in the church, I approached her. She told me she had never done that and wasn’t sure she was qualified. I told her no one was more qualified to make a good impression and positively impact young kids and I would teach her how to teach the Bible. She said yes. Whenever I needed something from her, she always said yes.
When I told Donya (my wife), I was writing Cathy’s eulogy, I asked her what she remembered about her most. She said this:
“I remember thinking what a hard worker she was. She was always working, helping to provide for her family. Sometimes, she came to church straight from work, still in her work uniform. I remember the first time I went to her house. It was a small home and it was immaculate. I wondered how she managed to carry the workload she did, do all the things at church, and still keep a home completely in order.”
Vic was one of my best friends in Turlock. He was a Vietnam veteran who had seen intense conflict. It was during those days that the alcohol demon took hold of him. Like so many before and since, he fought tooth and nail to shake it, to conquer it once and for all. Cathy never wavered in her love for him or in her determination to help him win the battles. She was a warrior. That is what I remember about Vic and Cathy: they were warriors, fighters for good. Not long into my ministry in Turlock, some folks wanted to rid the church of me. They had their reasons and some of them were legit. Vic and Cathy were having none of it. They faced that fight with the fierceness of wolverines, and like mother hens, they engulfed my family and me in wings of love.
“He’s our preacher,” they said. “He’s not going anywhere.”
Another couple, John and Bertie Tabor stood right there with them. If it was a fight the troublemakers wanted, then it was a fight they would get.
This was my first taste of that kind of love, loyalty, and commitment from church members.
Vic and Cathy’s children, Shawn, Dawn, and Kenny grew up under my ministry.
In our communications about this service, Dawn wrote me on September 27th: “Good morning, Pastor Strother. I say that because my family says you will always be our pastor.”
My birthday was the next day. Those words were the first and best gift I received this year.
My daughters were very young when we were in Turlock. Dawn was a young teen. She was also our babysitter of choice when we had a chance to go out on a date. I never worried about my kids when they were in Dawn’s care. She was such a good person. She was reliable and responsible. I remember thinking those qualities are rare in teens her age and don’t come about accidentally. She got it from her mother.
Vic was the funny bone. When he laughed, you had no choice but to laugh with him.
Cathy was the backbone. She was the strong, resilient, untiring champion of her family.
Dawn, Shawn, Kenny, and your kids”¦you have a wonderful heritage, and a legacy of love and loyalty. You have something to stand on, to live up to, and to pass on to your children. I know you will. Donya and I love you. We grieve your loss with you. We also celebrate with you.
The Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians some instructions on how the believer should view the death of a loved one:
But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are aliveandremain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are aliveandremain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
Hope is why we are here: hope that passes understanding; hope that does not fear death; hope that never says goodbye.
Paul also wrote the greatest description of love ever penned in 1 Corinthians 13. Listen and see if you do not see Cathy Grinolds written all over it:
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I havethe gift ofprophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feedthe poor,and though I give my body]to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
Love suffers longandis kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. But whetherthere areprophecies, they will fail; whetherthere aretongues, they will cease; whetherthere isknowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which isperfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of theseislove.
In 2021, Donya and I returned to Turlock for the first time since leaving in 1991. We returned to the place that birthed our pastoral ministry and the people who poured themselves into us. It was a last-minute decision, and Cathy was unavailable that day. We did not get to see her.
Cathy called me and said, “I am sorry I missed you, Preacher.”
I missed her, too. I still do. I will, until we meet again on that happy golden shore, where all of the hard work is finished, the demons are all conquered, faith has ended in sight, and hope has been swallowed up in glory, and all that remains is love forevermore.
God bless the memory of my friend, Cathy Grinolds. God bless you, her friends and family.
All that is left for me to do here today is echo St. John’s prayer, the last words of the Revelation: “Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus.”
Amen.
