In Loving Memory
David Copeland
July 2, 1959 – September
24, 2017
David was my cousin but more importantly a close friend. We could talk for hours and this always made my day much brighter. God took David home on September 24, 2017. Our Hearts were broken and we didn’t understand why. But in the last year, we understood there was a reason even if we didn’t see it at the time. If you knew David there is no way you could forget him. He was special in many, many ways. He grew up in the country, he liked to fish and on long summer days him and his cousin Tony who also passed young, taught themselves how to swim in a large lake in Lanely, Tx unbeknownst to their mothers.
David loved his mother with all his heart as some wondered why he had to go first, but that’s the way he would have wanted it. He loved his daughter Kristen Leigh and granddaughter Lilly. David was a Christian and was a member of Steward Methodist Church in Buffalo. He raised Kristin in the church and everything he did was to make Kristin feel love and happiness, he did well, she is a lovely young woman, wife and mother. She married Jordan Padgett a good Christian man. Lilly welcomed a baby sister in June of this year; I wished he could have seen her. In 2013 David married Ginna Linsey; it was the happiest time in his life. They only had five years but filled those years with laughter and a deep love for each other.
Ginna had two children, Morgan and Jake, two grandsons, Paxton and Clay. They were not his step children, he loved them as his own and they loved him. David had three sisters, Peggy, Patsy and Kathy. Growing up they were close and they were there for him always. He had numerous nieces and nephews that he loved very much.
David led a full life. He ran several restaurants, worked on a barge that ran from Galveston to Florida, he did oilfield work and was driving large trucks. Several years before he died he was in a car accident and was hit from behind causing injuries to his neck. He never recovered from this and wasn’t able to do heavy jobs. Because David wasn’t one to set still he started a large garden. He loved to call me and tell me all of the vegetables he had canned.
If you were one of the lucky ones to know David you know he always could tell a story. One of the most interesting to me was when he and his first wife ran a dairy in Missouri. He was raised in Texas, so he knew very little about snow and the need to have a winter kitchen. So, when the snow was above the windows they ran out of food. Finally, he said he got some grain they fed the cows and cooked it and actually said it wasn’t that bad. As soon as the snow melted he ran right back to Texas.
David was an avid reader, so am I, so we always discussed what we were reading he said he didn’t read much until he was snowed in while living in Missouri and found a box of books in an upstairs bedroom and never stopped after that. He would read up to three books at a time and kept books in his truck and a small one in his pocket if it would fit.
The stories that he shared with me could flow out of me forever, but I would have to write a book and maybe one day I will.
David, we love you and never stop thinking of you. I feel blessed in being a part of your life. Charlene Little and your extended family and friends. Gone but not forgotten.
