Elizabeth Simms Hollingsworth - my niece Liza

My sister Sophia delivered the eulogy below at the Mount Pleasant Presbyterian Church on Saturday July 10, 2010 (also TGP's 73rd birthday).  Those of you that know Sophia should imagine her voice and dance movements at the appropriate places.  It was beautiful, but as Soph said, she had great material.

Elizabeth Simms Hollingsworth

A long name for a little girl.  Liza; that fits better.  Sounds kind of quick, bright even.  That’s the essence of my Liza. 

Quick with a smile.

Quick with a joke.

Quick with a hug.

Quick to say I love you.

Cheery with her funky Chuck Taylors.

Cheery with her love of polka dots.

Cheery with her wonderful drawings.

What a wonderful gift Liza has been in my family’s life.  Absolutely the funniest kid I’ve ever met.  Watch a movie with her.  She will catch the subtle humor and, like her daddy, insert it in a conversation with perfect comedic timing.  Last summer Liza and I bought the movie Monsters Inc.  We had both seen it a million times but we wanted to see it again.  She could mimic the woman/slug thing in it…”I’m watching you Wizouski, always watching….”  Hysterical.  What Liza didn’t remember is that one of my favorite memories of her is when she was about 3 or 4 years old.  Julie, Dunn, Jordan, Liza, Mother, Father, and I met in the North Carolina mountains for a ski weekend. Liza was too young to ski so she and I had spent the day tooling around town – eating ice cream and visiting a cavern.  That evening everyone was piled in one room watching Monsters Inc.  It was around bedtime but the girls really wanted to watch the rest of the movie so the adoring adults broke curfew.  Anyway, at one point, I was lying down on the bed – head at the foot of the bed – and Liza stood in front of me – we were eye to eye.  She starts dancing around right in front of me, shaking her hands and her behind saying “Soph-Soph-Soph-Soph.”  I looked in her beautiful blue eyes and said “Liza, you need to slow down.”  So, at 3, she starts moving in slow motion, still shaking her hands and behind saying “S  O  P  H – S O P H – S O P H.”   Hysterical.  That’s her humor.  That and the 3 Stooges.  And SpongeBob. 

I was fortunate enough to take the girls to visit Piel and her family in Boston a few weeks ago.  We visited Plimouth Plantation.  While there we toured a replica of a family village of the native Americans that inhabited that area 300 odd years ago.  The staff was all native Americans, dressed in native attire, and performing the same tasks their ancestors did.  Liza and I were watching one gentleman (in loin cloth) make a canoe from a truck of a tree.  It was really cool.  This man was answering questions while he worked.  Someone asked him his name.  He said Phillip.  Liza turned to me, with her beautiful blue eyes, and said “Phillip?  Really?”  We had a huge chuckle.

A kind, gentle little girl.  Eager to try new kinds of food.  Eager to make her famous guacamole.  Always ready to go swimming, to learn how to surf, to play the guitar, to sit in her mother’s lap, to climb the mulberry tree, go fishing with her daddy, write a nice note, go on the boat with her nana and papa, put a puzzle together, beat Jordan at something, play with her great friend Olivia, listen to Chicken Heart with her grandfather, draw a picture of us, sing a song with her Grandmother.  The only kid I know that wanted a gift card to Staples for her birthday!  She stole my heart when she admitted that she really does love TAB.  My kitchen is a bright candy apple green based on a little star she made me.  She said she loved that color and thought it would look good in my kitchen.  It’s bright, it’s cheery, it makes me happy.  So much like Liza does.

I tell all my nieces that they are each my favorite niece (My favorite niece named “Jordan” or “Eleanor” or “Caroline” or “Lucy” or “Liza”).  I usually get – “you’re my favorite aunt.” Period.  Liza says “you’re my favorite aunt…named Soph.” 

I am fortunate that I got to spend some time with Liza on Saturday.  We talked about Cartooning Camp.  She loved it!  On Sunday I got to tell her I loved her.  And the best gift I’ve ever received is she told me “I love you too Soph.”  I am the luckiest person in the world.

She loved so many of us.  But mostly her sister Jordan, and her parents Dunn and Julie.  And she knew they loved her more than anything in the world. 

What a phenomenal child.  What a gift.  What a quick, cheery light in our world.  We are lucky to have gotten to spend time with her.

I will love her forever.

As will all of us that knew her.  Here are more pictures.