Sofronia "Sophie" Tallent

Sophie is survived by her husband of 63 years, Ova David Tallent, 2 children; Dave (Betsy) Tallent, Theta (Pat) Fernandez, 5 grandchildren; Sam (Emily Oprish) Tallent, Sophie Tallent, Sarah (Jeremy Montano) Fernandez, Alita (Nathan) Cowan, Rico Fernandez, 2 great grandchildren; Nehemiah & Ariah Montano. Visitation will be Wednesday 5-7pm at Olinger Andrews Chapel. Memorial service will be Thursday, April 7, 2pm at Olinger Andrews Chapel, 407 Jerry St. in Castle Rock. Private committal service for Mrs. Tallent will be at a later date at Fort Logan National Cemetery, Denver.

Eulogy written by grandson Sam as delivered at the Memorial Service: Thank you all for being here to remember my grandmother. My dad’s mother. My grandpas wife. Grandma loved all of you, and she would have been so moved. She would have been so happy here today, surrounded by all these people that love and admire her. She would have sat in that corner, holding a mug in two hands, smiling and sipping coffee as each of us took our turns trying to make her laugh. We’d be stuffing our pockets and lining our purses with the perfect tortillas she made as she apologized repeatedly, saying “Sorry, they aren’t that good. They could have come out better.” There was nothing she loved more than being with those that loved her. As far as I can tell, that was all my grandmother cared about. She didn’t care about sports or movies or clothes. I’m gonna be on cable TV tonight for the first time ever and she wouldn’t have cared about that in the least. My grandma had real priorities, the best priorities. She loved to eat, she loved to dance, she loved to laugh. Besides gossip and the occasional slot machine, she didn’t care about all the dumb stuff we waste our time on. She knew what mattered: family and friends. Everything else was just filler.

There was no one she loved more than my grandpa. I don’t know if I’ve ever known anyone that loves the way they did. It was blinding. It filled rooms. My grandparents love was straight out of a storybook even if they weren’t the typical Cinderella and Prince Charming. My grandmother was a shy New Mexican canyon dweller that was forced North by nuclear tests. She met my grandfather, a trainhopping hillbilly hobo ranch hand from Possums Scrotum, Missouri, at a barn dance-because where else would those two meet?- where she described him as “drunk as a skunk”. My grandfather is nothing if not charming. He wooed her, they fell in love and they started an interracial family in rural 1950’s Colorado way before that was safe. They didn’t care. These were two people that spent the first 25 years of their lives with nothing except matching work ethics and optimism. They had nothing for so long but then they found each other, and that was all they needed. They were everyone's favorite people, everything they touched became richer, lovelier. I aspire everyday to love my soon wife as much as my grandpa loved my grandma. They taught me love is larger than pain or fear or anything else in this world. Love is everything. It is the only thing.

It is impossible for me to write about my grandmother without crying, something she wouldn’t have understood. She was unflappable, tough in an old world way that gave her an omnipotent calmness, like she’d seen it all before and knew how it ended. She knew death and lived with pain. I don’t have the exact numbers, but she had cancer something like 35 times. Her hips were made of Lincoln Logs. She drove me and all her grandkid’s around long after she went blind. The fact that she lived to be 93 is a medical miracle. It was all will power, she just wasn’t done yet: done laughing at my dumb jokes, done rolling her eyes at my dad, done cheating at gin rummy with my sister, done holding hands with her husband. She lived on her own terms and she decided when it was time to go. Her last day was beautiful. Even in death she was gracious, waiting until after the birth of her darling new great grand child until she left-painlessly in her sleep next to her adoring husband of 65 years. That is how storybooks end. We should all be so lucky.

I spent most of my childhood trying to make my grandmother laugh. Today I am a comedian. The common logic on comedians is that we are all messed up, the product of awful broken homes. Not me. All I did was a child was laugh. Laugh at my grandpa mooning the neighbors, laugh at my Uncle Pat’s inside out eyelids, laugh at my dad answering a banana like a phone. All we did was laugh, and no one as hard as my grandma. That’s all she did. She was either laughing, cooking or complaining about what she cooked. She didn’t have a lot of good jokes. The only one I remember is when she’d set the Thermostat to 85, cover herself in blankets then say “I’m cold.” Told that one a lot. She didn’t have a lot of good jokes, but she did have the best laugh. There was no better laugh in the world than when my grandpa or dad would swear or do something vulgar, and my grandma, against her better judgment and in front of the grandkids, would bury her head in her hands, say “Oh shit” and laugh as she shook her head. In those instants, my grandma was as free and happy as anyone that ever breathed air. Emily, every time I do something dumb or silly or say something weird or gross, all I’m trying to do is get you to laugh like my grandma did then, because that laugh is my idea of bliss and love.

She’s not gone though. Before I wrote this, I thought that was just a thing people said to those in grief because when someone dies, there is nothing to say really. But she is not gone. She’s everywhere in this room. She’s in the way my dad clasps his hands under his chin when he is deep in thought. She is Patricio’s excellent sense of humor. She is there every time Alita laughs as she says “Oh shit!”. Whenever my sister can’t stop laughing for ten minutes. She is in the way that Sara and Jeremy look at each other. She is there any time my aunt tells us her tamales could be better. My grandma is anywhere love is. And love is all around. Thank you.