Eulogy For Tamika Scott Funeral Homegoing

Tamika Scott

Psalms 12/16/2021 139:13-16 John 14:1-6

The people of the United States of America were getting ready to celebrate their 200th birthday as a nation with only 34 days to go in the year 1976. But for Eugene and Yvonne Scott, the waiting was over, because the most exciting event for them in 1976 was the birth of their daughter Tamika Lakeisha Scott on May 31st.

Even though it was 1976, they were not celebrating in Washington DC in the nation’s capital, nor in Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence was signed. They were celebrating in the great city of Hornell, NY which was made famous in our hearts by Louise and Ludie Bascomb and the five star restaurant known as L and L Diner.

Many of us have forgotten how July 4th 1976, influenced our lives, but we have not forgotten how our lives have been touched by Tamika’s

It was on a Monday in May in the year 1976, that God did something special as God so often does. God presented the world with a wonderful gift through the lives of Eugene and Yvonne Scott as Yvonne gave birth to her first daughter, Tamika, but known by many of us as just Tammie.

There are some people in the Bible who we know instantly at the sound of their name. Names like Moses, Esther, Peter, Mary and Paul. Yet there are people whose names we don’t know yet their actions changed history, the little girl who told Namaan the great Syrian General how to be healed, the little boy who shared his lunch with the disciples so that Jesus could feed 5,000, or the woman who used her hair to wash Jesus’ feet with her tears and her perfume so that Jesus could teach us the heart of forgiveness.

Though we do not know their names, their actions are emblazoned in the Christian hall of fame.

God creates some people who are to become well known in the world, and God creates some people who to be very special in the world. Now some would say it is better to be well known than to be special, but I think when we come to the end of our days, we’re not looking back to see how well known we were, but rather were we special in the lives of others.

When death is staring at us in the face, we do not usually take great pride in our degree from Syracuse University or Alfred State College, or in our position as executive vice president of the Upstate University Hospital, nearly as much as we do from a child saying I love so much because of all that you did for me and I’m going to miss you, or from a person coming in and saying, when I was hungry, it was you that saw to it that I got a meal and for that I am grateful.

Tamika LaKeisha Scott was not created by God to be somebody well known whose name would cover the country and the globe at large, but I cannot think of anyone else who has been more special in the way that she has touched the lives of others.

You will not find her name listed in the Who’s Who Book Of American Actors, but her family has great memories of the church plays she was in as a child. You won’t find her in the list of grammy music awards, but heaven has her name recorded as a child singing in the church choir.

You will not find her name listed in the Who’s Who Book of American Counselors, but how many of your looked to her as someone you could go and talk to about your problems?

How many of you found her to have the ability to genuinely listen to you share your pain and to be able to walk with you through it? How many of you got some advice you didn’t like, but you knew it was true? Tammie had the ability to both empathize with you and to be brutally honest with you. She was her grandmother’s child.

She never was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, but she lived such a life of love and putting others first, that she had a calming effect on the lives of others. Somehow she could bring peace in the midst of a storm you might have been going through. Part of that has to do with going through so much pain in her own life and yet being determined not to complain or to be a burden to someone else.

We sometimes forget, that no matter who we are, what we have done, or who we have become, we all started out in the hands of God.

For the Scripture tells us in Psalm 139:13-16