Eulogy For Sharon Davison

Sharon Davison

Eulogy June 25th 2024

Sharon Patrice-Nicole Davison. What an incredible young Black Woman, who not only knew God, but was an incredible gift from God. There was an abundance of love that flowed out of her/ that touched the lives of many.

Here lies the body of a woman whose life was described by Jesus Himself, when Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that a person should lay down his or her life for a friend.” Many of us have watched Sharon again and again put the needs of others ahead of her own needs even to her own disadvantage and hurt.

Many times Sharon was taken advantage of, but the love of Christ inside of her allowed her to move on and keep loving people anyways. She had a joy in her heart that came out in a loud boisterous manner. It was something else to see her in the middle of one of her laughing episodes in which she couldn’t stop laughing and would be trying to talk at the same time.

There is a verse in Isaiah which prophecies about the coming of Jesus in which it says, “He was despised and rejected by people, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces, he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.” Part of Sharon’s story is that she knew and experienced some of what Jesus would experience in her own life. We can be very cruel in the names we call people, even as children.

Sharon had one eye that was larger than the other. In one eye she could only see light and darkness and in the other one she was legally blind. It wasn’t something she asked for, but it was part of who she was. Children and adults laughed at her and made jokes. She was rejected because of the appearance of her eyes, by some of those who knew her and some of those who didn’t, and she was written off as a nobody.

Yet God used it, to put a compassion inside of her that was amazing. We got a testimony from Anita Peoples who remembered Sharon from back in junior high. Anita would come into class to sign language for deaf students in the class while the teacher taught. She was amazed at how Sharon would go out of her way to try to make the deaf students feel included with the other students. She would even sit next to the students to make sure the student was on the right page.

There was one night of Bible Study that I never will forget. Sharon was in my junior high/senior high youth class. I still remember the Wednesday night she came into our youth class and stunned us all. We were in the fellowship at Glenville New Life Community Church sitting at the table. The class had already begun

Sharon was late as she walked into the class. The left side of her face was swollen twice its regular size. We all looked on in disbelief. Earlier that day, Sharon had been walking down the street when she was attacked from a girl from behind with either a razor or knife and cut Sharon from her ear to her neck leaving a large scar on her face.

It wasn’t because of anything that Sharon had done that she was attacked, but because the person had a problem with someone in Sharon’s family and saw her as an easy target. That night in Bible study Sharon, who was a just a young teenager, wasn’t there to ask “God, why did this happen to me?” She was there to see if she would still be accepted by the class despite the hideous way she was looking. I was so proud of my class for the empathy they showed her that night.

Her physical and emotional suffering, led her to be one of the most compassionate people that I know. If you or your loved ones went to University Hospital in need of care, one of the best things you could hope for was to be a patient on Sharon’s floor, especially if you couldn’t take care of yourself. She would fight to make sure you were comfortable and your bed was clean.

She received so many awards at work, because patients and families would give her such high ratings for how well she treated them. Nobody was beneath her and she truly cared about the least of these. One family wrote a letter to the CEO of the hospital about Sharon’s kindness to their loved one. Even if her shift was over, if she was saying goodbye to you because her shift was over, and she noticed your bed was soiled, she moved into action.