Reginald D's Eulogy: My Mother's Legacy On Faith, Strength & Knowing Your Worth (Motivational Speech)

A tribute to my Mother, Geneva Sherman Sizemore

This episode is unlike any other episode of Real Talk With Reginald D.

My mother had been battling serious health issues for the past three months. During that time, she prepared her own obituary and funeral program and personally asked me to deliver her eulogy. After the passing of my beloved mother, Geneva Sherman Sizemore, I had the honor of sharing her life story and legacy at her funeral on June 27, 2026—just one week before what would have been her 75th birthday. What began as a tribute to one extraordinary woman became a powerful motivational and inspirational message that moved everyone in attendance and inspired countless people to reflect on their own lives, faith, purpose, and legacy.

Rather than simply mourning her passing, I chose to celebrate her life defined by faith, perseverance, courage, resilience, sacrifice, servant leadership, motherhood, and unwavering trust in God.

Raised as a single mother of two, my mother refused to allow hardship, rejection, financial struggles, anxiety, or disappointment to define her future. She worked multiple jobs, graduated from college with honors, became a gifted church musician, mentored countless single mothers, purchased her first home through unwavering faith after being denied by her own bank, and later reunited with the love of her life in a beautiful story of redemption and restoration.

Throughout this emotional and deeply motivational speech, I share timeless life lessons my mother taught me, including:

• Know your worth and never allow anyone to devalue you.
• Keep your faith during life's darkest moments.
• Don't allow rejection to define your future.
• Choose courage over fear.
• Build your legacy through service to others.
• Never stop believing God has a greater plan.
• Raise your children with love, communication, and integrity.
• Trust God even when you cannot see the outcome.
• Keep moving forward through hardship.
• Live a life that leaves an eternal impact.

This is more than a eulogy, this episode is an inspiring motivational and inspirational story about overcoming adversity, choosing faith over fear, discovering purpose through pain, and building a legacy that lives far beyond this life. A tribute not only to one remarkable mother—but to every parent, caregiver, mentor, and person striving to leave the world better than they found it.

Whether you're grieving the loss of a loved one, raising children, rebuilding after hardship, or searching for hope, I would like to remind you that a life lived with faith, love, and purpose is never forgotten and that t true success isn't measured by what you own—it's measured by the lives you touch.

My mother's life demonstrates that you don't need fame, wealth, or status to leave an extraordinary legacy. Through faith, perseverance, sacrifice, service, and unconditional love, she impacted generations and continues to inspire people even after her passing.

What You Will Gain:

• Powerful motivational and inspirational life lessons about overcoming hardship, trusting God during difficult seasons, knowing your worth, and building a meaningful legacy through faith and perseverance.
• Self-improvement and educational principles that strengthen resilience, family relationships, leadership, communication, personal growth, and the courage to keep moving forward despite life's challenges.
• Faith and motivation insights that encourage listeners to trust God's timing, live with purpose, inspire future generations, and understand that a life of service leaves an eternal impact.

Press play now to experience my heartfelt motivational and inspirational tribute and discover timeless lessons about faith, resilience, purpose, and the kind of legacy every person has the opportunity to leave behind.

Transcript

Today, I'm sharing something deeply personal.

A week ago, I had the honor of delivering my mother's eulogy. I never intended for it to become a podcast episode, but so many people told me afterward that it wasn't just a eulogy. It was a message about faith, perseverance, purpose, and legacy. If you're grieving, raising a family, facing adversity, or simply trying to leave the world better than you found it, I pray these lessons from my mother's life encourage you as much as they have encouraged me.

Man, this is tough here.  This is tough, but we're gonna get through it.

We're gonna get through it. So let's start out with Matthew 25th, chapter 23rd verse. The Lord said,

well done,

good and faithful servant.

You have been faithful over a few things.

I will make you ruler over many things.

Enter into the joy of.

Of your Lord.

Amen.

Amen.

Mama know how to apply pressure on me.

I don't know what it is.

Chancey didn't get this much pressure.

Yes, Shunsa was the angel.

I was just something else.

But this is one of the hardest pressures she ever put on me.

She had told me she had got obituary together,

and she said, I got you down to do the eulogy. I was like, mom,

I said, you know your nephew is the pastor, right?

She said, but I want you to do it.

I said, now, you know it's going to be hard on me.

I said, and then if it don't come out right, it's on you.

Yeah.

So Mama had multiple phrases and names she was called.

She was called a preacher's best friend.

When she's on that piano and they go into them hoops.

She was called Shouting John from that Shirley Caesar song Hold My Mute.

Mama would shout anywhere.

Mama shouted at a church conference.

Not a preaching conference, the conference where y' all talking about business.

As you remember that. Cause as you said, good Lord, I ain't never seen nobody shout out no conference.

Mama was called by Aunt Sadie,

the baddest Altone singer in the land.

Y' all remember them Sherman sisters, don't you? Yeah. You couldn't do nothing with that.

And she was called a spiritual mother for single mothers.

So out of all the things she was called, I'm gonna kind of angle this thing where her passion really was,

and it was towards single mothers.

50 something years ago,

Mama met Daddy.

Mama got pregnant by Daddy.

Daddy got a ring,

engagement ring. He went down there on Sherman Lane to ask Mama to marry.

When he went down there,

he got ran off Sherman Lane.

Then he went on with his life, you know? Then almost three years later,

mom was dating another great man called Bobby Mays. That's my sister's dad.

She got pregnant by him.

He got a ring,

went down on Shermal and got ran right off of Sherman Lane.

And when I hear that story, I said, man, one of y' all should have just picked my mother and took her to Terry shopping center and proposed to her.

I could have got it done then.

But everybody went to separate ways, separate lives. And his mom is a single mom with me and Shauncy.

You know, mama, she worked.

She worked more than one job sometimes.

She went to college,

played for seven choirs in one church.

Now, how do one church got seven choirs,

one musician?

Y' all know how many church rehearsals y' all got to do? Choir rehearsal y' all got to do? How many choir anniverses? You know, how y' all do back in the day?

How many choir rolls y' all gotta buy?

How y' all burning up all these lights, cuz? Y' all in here rehearsing all the time.

But I remember it wasn't easy. Been a single mom,

you know? I remember one time, mama came and she cooked two pieces of chicken,

and she fed me insurancey.

Now, I looked at her and said, mom,

I said, you're not gonna eat?

She said, no, I had a big lunch today.

I knew that wasn't true.

There wasn't enough food in the house.

Mama wanted what she wanted in life,

and she was not gonna let you push her around.

I remember when she went to college, she graduated with honors. What's that called it? What do I call it? So Matt McComb.

Yeah, man. *** laude. That's what you call it? Yeah. I don't know. I don't do school like that, you know?

So this job promotion came up,

and she applied for it.

She had the education,

the college degree, and she had the tenure.

Well, they gave the job to somebody else that didn't have no college degree and none of the tenure. Mama felt some type of way about it, telling the ladies in the office,

I'm gonna talk to the boss.

They said, you better not do that. Cause you know he mean he may fire you.

Mama said, I don't care.

It ain't right.

So she went in there and talked to him,

and he gave her some bull story.

Mama looked at him, said, I quit.

Mama came home.

I said, mama, how's your day?

She said, I quit.

And we was already struggling. I'm like, mom, how you quit?

She said, I quit. That's how.

And she told me, said, boy, let me tell you something. Don't let nobody ever devalue you.

You better know your worth in life, and you better get what you deserve.

So about three weeks later,

the lights went out.

Mama laughed.

She laughed. Mama laughed. Said, no, they didn't.

I said, yeah, they did.

Mama laughed about it.

So don't you know sometimes in your darkest moment, you got to still laugh?

Don't you know in your darkest times, you still gotta find joy?

Mama said, y' all wait right here. Keep this door locked. I'm gonna figure out how to get these lights back on.

So she left.

She left. She came back.

She said, the lights will be on in a few minutes.

The lights came back on.

So we still struggling a little bit. And my mom had this way we can just communicate. I could talk to her about anything.

You know, that's one of the important things you gotta understand in life. You gotta have this open relationship with your kids and let them voice their opinion, talk to you about stuff, you know.

I don't care how stupid it sound.

Cause I did something stupid.

I went in Mama's room, I said, mom,

things getting tight around here. And I know some guys down the street that I'm gonna go down here and I'm gonna sell some drugs. Now, I ain't gonna do it for long.

Just to get your leg up. That's all I'm trying to do.

That's what they all say.

Mama looked at me and said, boy, I am so disappointed in you. She said, where's your faith?

She said, God got us.

She said, ain't no son of mine gonna sell no drugs.

And as she was talking, I started feeling bad. I said, ma, I'm tripping. I said, I'm sorry.

I said, I'm not gonna do it.

But one thing about Mama, she'll capitalize on you in a minute.

She capitalized on that statement I made, even though I repented and said, I'm sorry.

She said,

you got to get out.

I was like,

mom, I said. I said, I'm sorry.

She said, you got to get out. And I know what she was doing.

She said, I'm gonna capitalize on this. If I put him out, then I ain't got to figure out how to feed him. I'm gonna let somebody else feed him.

That's how mom is. She packed my clothes and dropped me off at Ain't say this house.

I stayed about two weeks, Then she came back to get me. But then Mama had this opportunity at the bank that she was applying for downtown at the corporate building, she felt prideful of that.

She got the job. They had to run a credit and all that kind of stuff. Everything was fine.

She got to the bank and she was talking. She said, hey, I want to buy this house I saw in the Valley Brook subdivision. It's a split level house for me and my kids.

I want to be a homeowner.

Well, she went to the bank that she was working for for the loan.

The manager came out.

The manager said,

you know, this is going to be risky if we can't do it with you raising these two kids.

Mama said, all right,

y' all gonna lose some money.

She said, I'm gonna get in this house and my father's gonna help me.

So Mama went and finding finances somewhere else and all that kind of stuff had to do things all over again.

The next thing I know,

we moving into this house. Mama got access to this house before anything was even done.

She had done got the deacons over there at Lounge Hill Church,

moved us out of this one house into this house.

And I asked mom when we was in the house, I said, mom,

I said, how you feel to be a homeowner? How you, you know, everything? He said, well, dealing went through yet?

I said, what you mean the deal ain't went through yet? She said, they still ask for this and ask for that. I ain't even got the closing and all that stuff.

I said, what, did the deal fall through?

She said, what was your faith?

She said, I've been teaching you faith all your life,

and you still ain't listen.

He said, no wonder you weren't good in school.

You don't listen.

So couple weeks went by.

The realtor came in the house when everything was done and closing, all that kind of stuff. He came into the office Mama was working at,

and he was dangling the keys.

He said, Ms. Sherman, your faith got you through. He dangled the keys, and he didn't know Mama already had the keys.

So we move in the house,

you know, we live in there. Mama's working and doing everything she was doing, priding herself on what she has earned and what she has done,

you know, living in a better community and things like that.

But I'm gonna go back to one thing I missed this point.

When the realtor came into the office with the keys,

the manager that denied Mama said, how did you get this house?

Did your daddy help you?

Mama said, no, my dad ain't help me.

She said, but you said your father was going to help you.

Mom said, that's where you got it twisted.

I wasn't talking about my biological father.

I was talking about my father in heaven.

So we went on,

moved in the house. We lived in there. Everything's good.

Mama worked a lot,

did a lot.

One night,

I heard mom in the bed screaming.

I ran back there to see what was going on.

Mama had a breakdown.

She had a breakdown.

Then she started dealing with anxiety and panic attacks and stuff like that where she couldn't even work anymore.

She had to go on disability.

That made her depressed because she prided herself on grinding every day.

You know, she prided herself on getting up, going to work every day.

And she got to her lowest point.

But don't you know, when you were at your lowest point,

God has a ram in the bush.

Mama was at her lowest point then. Here come Daddy again.

Mama called me one Sunday, and she said I had to go to the Pastor Barry's church and play for the male choir because the musician was out sick.

And she said, when I got over there, guess who was up in the choir?

I said, who, Ma? She said, your daddy.

And then she said, I looked up in that choir. I said, look at Tory up there, knowing he can't sing.

I said, yeah, Mom. I said, I'm on my way to his house right now.

So I got to Daddy's house,

and Daddy said, yeah, I saw your mom today.

And this and that and the other. He said. I said, yeah. She told me.

He said, well,

invite over here for dinner.

I said, okay, I'll call sister come.

So I called mom,

so Daddy wants you to come over here for dinner.

And she came. And I remember you could rib my stakes that day.

So you got together and they reunited.

And through the whole thing, you know, Mama was torn. I mean, you know, she's on fixed income and all this stuff and still got bills to pay and still want to live life right.

So Daddy said to mom, and you made a promise,

and you kept it. You said,

if you marry me,

you won't have to worry about another bill.

That's a king now.

That's a king. Now,

see, everybody had this terminology. I needed somebody to hold me down,

but you need somebody to hold you up.

So they had to figure out what house they was gonna live in. Daddy's house on the other side of town or the one in Valley Brook. They chose the one in Valley Brooklyn.

Cause I think they wanted to be close to the grandparents because they was getting elderly and getting older.

So then Daddy came into the house and first thing he did,

pay the whole house off.

Mom always bragged, if something happened to your daddy, I don't know what to do. I don't know what Bill come to us. I said, you better start looking for him and looking at him, because I ain't gonna know what to do.

I remember one time when I left out of town, I had an opportunity with a career. I left out of town. It was the hardest thing I had to do.

I had to leave my mom, had to leave my church, you know, leave this beautiful city of Greenville.

But I knew I had to take this opportunity because I want to put myself in a position where my mom would never have to worry about anything again.

So God blessed me in that area. So I used to come home on Mama's birthday and Mother's Day and just take mom shopping.

So one time I came home,

I said, mom, you want to go shopping? Where we going? First place you want to go is Jordan's Bootery.

That's her church store.

That's where she get her stuff to wear the church.

Then we left George's Boonery. She said, take me by Burlington.

I need some makeup.

I said, well, mom, won't we just go to the mall and get to a higher end store?

And they got a whole line of makeup, and you got the people in there can tell you and educate you on it and all that stuff.

She said, okay,

so we get to the mall,

all this makeup. I don't know which store was all those makeups that were. The lady was talking to her and she was getting excited,

and she looked at me and she said, what's my limit?

I said, ma, you ain't got no limit. I said, you didn't have no limit when it came to raising me insurance, and you ain't got no limit. Now,

mom said, boy, I'm finna shout out all over this mall.

I said, no, no, no, we ain't doing that.

I said, we ain't coming here acting like we ain't never had nothing before.

I said, you all right?

She was like, yeah. I said, okay, just take your time.

Take your time.

So Mama health started declining a few months ago,

and it was a road that I could never imagine, because I know it's hard. It's hard on Shanta. She's in Texas.

Hard on me, because I'm four hours away up in Durham.

But I want to thank the family, everybody who's been there helping dad through this whole thing.

Daddy called me one day.

He said,

the hospice people told me that I Got to put her somewhere, that I need to put her somewhere,

he said, because they're saying that it's too much for me to bear.

He said, I want you to talk to your sister about it. Y' all get together and tell me how you feel about it.

So I called Shanti, told the situation we was in agreement. Like it's too much is too much,

you know? So I told Daddy that,

then called him back the next day.

I said, dad, you call the hostage people and they gonna do something. Mom, take her somewhere.

He said, man, I can't do it.

He said, if she gonna leave here,

she gonna leave here in her house.

I said, you sure about that?

He said, yeah.

So I believe,

Daddy,

that God is telling Mama well done for every challenge she has overcame.

Well done, my child,

for loving the kids the way you do.

Well done, my child,

for the way you loved your husband.

Well done, my child,

for the way you served in the church.

Well done, my child,

the way you mentor single mothers.

Well done,

my child,

and the way you served me and trusted me.

Well done, my child.

Take your rest.

Take your rest because you've done everything I've asked of you.

Do you know the most powerful thing you could do in life is do what God asked of you.

People want money. They want stuff.

But if you do everything God asked of you, then he'll add everything to you.

Now back to you. Daddy,

you always tell me how proud you are of me and how proud you are my accomplishments.

But I'm gonna tell you, don't be proud of me yet.

I got one more big accomplishment I gotta do,

and that's be the man that you are.

You have held this thing down flawlessly with Mom.

Flawlessly.

And the message that Mama would say now to single mothers,

make sure you got a relationship with Jesus.

Keep the faith no matter what.

Don't give up.

Keep striving to be better.

And lastly, make sure you know your worth.

Don't you settle for anybody or anything.

Know your worth.

That's the life of Geneva Sherman Sizemore.

Thank you for listening to Real Talk With Reginald D.  If you enjoyed listening to Real Talk With Reginald D, please rate and review on Apple Podcasts.   See you next time.