My father, Roy Jack Ross, passed from this life to the next on May 15, 2026, at the age of 91 in Winchester, Kentucky. We held his funeral on May 23rd, and it was my honor to fulfill his wish that I lead the funeral. Below is the eulogy I shared that day, telling about the many ways I will remember Dad. I’ve taught, preached, and spoken in public more times than I can count in my life, but no occasion has been more important to me than properly honoring my father on that day. If you knew Dad, you’ll recognize him in the following remarks, and if you didn’t know him, you may feel like you did by the end of this post.
My Eulogy for Dad
Many years ago, Dad asked me if I would lead his funeral. Of course, I said, “Yes.” So, I stand here today with very mixed emotions, not just to keep a promise, but to honor my father as I want to do and as he so richly deserves.
I thank God for the incredible privilege and blessing of having Roy Jack Ross as my dad. If I were to start saying “Thank you” to God and did so every second of every day and night for the rest of my life, it would not be enough. Thank you, thank you, thank you, God, for the blessing of my dad.
I also want to thank each of you for your presence here today, your kindness, your prayers and expressions of love, sympathy and support, your cards and phone calls, your visits to Mom and Dad, the meals you have shared, your friendship, and so much more. Many of you were present when we celebrated Mom and Dad’s 73rd wedding anniversary last Christmas Eve. That was a blessing. You are a blessing.
I want to thank the kind people of Fountain Circle and Hospice East for their compassionate care of Dad in this final season of life, and I want to say a special thank you to Pastor Keith Felton and the family of First Baptist Church, where Dad was a member and where Mom has been since her bed-baby years. It’s where I grew up through my childhood, college, and seminary years. Know, First Baptist, that you have loved our family well. Mom and I will forever be thankful and grateful for the intentionality, consistency, and generosity of your compassion.
In the sadness of this time of loss, it is tempting to disproportionately remember Dad’s final difficult season of life. But even in this season, God was kind and allowed Dad to experience moments of happiness. One day last December, when Mom and I visited Dad and were at the table where he was eating, he said, “I don’t know if I’ve ever been as happy as I am right now.” On several occasions, as he ate a generous portion of good food, he said to us, “I love this place. We need to come back here.” The day after Mother’s Day this month, Dad looked up from his bed at Mom, who was sitting by his side. He puckered his lips to blow her a kiss and smiled. So, there have been good moments amidst difficulty.
In late April, as Dad and I waited in a doctor’s office for him to be seen, Dad shared with me a recent night when he had a lot of pain and recalled being somewhat afraid to go to sleep, thinking, “I may not wake up in the morning.” But then he told me that he thought to himself, “Well, if I don’t wake up again, it’s been a good ride.” Indeed, it has been an amazing life of more than 91 and a half years. He was a blessing to many, so allow me to share several of the ways I choose to remember Dad.
I will remember Dad as the patriarch of the family. He was a tower of strength. He had the final word, and once he made up his mind about something, that was the way it was going to be. No more discussion was necessary or welcome. In a world that berates men for being the leaders God made them to be in the home, the church, and the community, we could use more godly patriarchs.
I will remember Dad as a man of great integrity. If Jack Ross told you he would do something, you could take it to the bank. He would do it no matter what it cost him in time, effort, or money. Dad was my role model in many ways, but especially for integrity.
I will remember Dad as a man who wasn’t afraid of hard work. He loved working on his farm, and it didn’t bother him that those hours had to be put in on weekends and before and after a full-time job at IBM for decades. He may have had a soft heart for family and friends, but he had tough hands and a tougher hide, and he earned them both.
I will remember Dad as a man who loved his family in word and deed. Since moving back to Winchester in 2021, I can’t tell you how many times Dad told me he loved me. There were so many times when, leaving the farm, he’d say, “You know what?” I’d say, “What?” He’d say, “I love you.” It got to where all he had to do was say, “You know what?” and I could reply, “I know, Dad. I love you, too.” He loved through his actions as well as his words. He would sacrifice his wishes to make Mom, my sister Jo-Jo, or me happy as we were growing up. In fact, that was his greatest wish and pleasure. He would do anything he thought was good for us or would make us happy. The same is true for his grandchildren, great-grandchildren, siblings, parents, nieces, nephews, in-laws, outlaws, and all the extended family.
Even in his final months, I recall a time when we were discussing whether to hang out in his room at Fountain Circle or in the common room where many gathered, and he said, “I want to do what you want to do.” God gave us a wonderful gift on Christmas Day last year when Dad had several hours of clear speech and thought, unlike any he had experienced for months before or since. What did he do with that time? He had Kyle, who was visiting him in the hospital, call Mom so Dad could talk with her and check on her, making sure she was OK. And then a little later, he had a nurse call me to check in on me. I heard the familiar, “Hey, boy! What are you doing?” It was the pre-dementia sound and strength of voice and exact words I had heard from him a thousand times before. I will forever be thankful to God for that last lucid Christmas Day conversation gift, when we were able to exchange clear, meaningful “I love you’s” with each other, knowing we each heard and understood the other clearly.
I will remember Dad as a fierce protector of his family, and especially of Mom. That never wavered one bit through all the 73 years they were married. In fact, even as senior adults, when Mom and Dad were still going shopping together, if some old man looked a little too long at Mom in the grocery store and Dad noticed, Dad would scowl and stare the man down until the perp cowered away to another aisle. How dare he look at Mom! Mom has always been the most beautiful woman on the planet to Dad, and he guarded her as such. A few months ago, when Mom and I entered his room to visit, he was asleep but soon woke up. When he opened his eyes, Mom was the first person he saw beside him, and the first words out of his mouth were, “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”
Oh, he joked about the fact that both Mom and I have second toes that are longer than our big toes. He thought that was weird and ugly. I remember him saying at a family gathering once that if he had seen Mom’s feet before marrying her, he never would have married her. He was joking, of course. He was hooked on Mom from the beginning.
Some of you have heard Dad tell the story about the first time he ever saw Mom. She had just transferred from Winchester High School to Clark County High School as a sophomore in 1949. Since no one could tell the story like Dad, I have a treat for you. A few years ago, my sons Brian and Jason, my nephew Kyle, and I took Dad to the National Museum of the Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, for his birthday. Unbeknownst to Dad, we installed an extra dashcam at the front of the van and turned it around to face inside so we could capture as many stories as we could get Dad to tell on the trip there and back. So, enjoy hearing and seeing Dad tell in 2021 about the first time he saw Mom in 1949. And, yes, I must warn you about salty language.
That’s my dad. For more than 70 years, Dad proudly carried this photo in his wallet. It is Mom’s high school senior photo of her in her cheerleading outfit. He eagerly showed it to anyone who would look and listen.
I will remember Dad as a giver rather than a taker. He gave me my first gun, bought me the mini-bike that I hounded him relentlessly for as a young teenager, and gave me a full-size pinball machine for my seventh birthday that still stands in my dining room and that my grandkids and I now enjoy playing more than 60 years later. Even in his final months at the farm, there were times when I’d leave in the evening after our ritual watching of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy together, and Dad would say something like, “Do you need anything? I’ll go write you a check right now for anything you need.” “No, Dad. I’m fine. I don’t need a thing.”
I will remember Dad as the man who loved to take me fishing as a kid. Once, after I caught a large catfish at my great uncle Chester Green’s pond, I pulled it in and said, “Sorry, Charlie!” mimicking the popular Star-Kist tuna commercial at the time. Soon after that, Dad presented me with that catfish stuffed and hanging on a wall plaque with a brass plate under it with the date I caught it and the words, “Sorry, Charlie!” It hung in my bedroom well into adulthood.
I will remember Dad as a man who loved riding horses. His beloved horse Cloudy, which he had for 23 years, is buried on the farm on top of a hill near a tree. Dad was at peace with life riding his horse. I’m thankful for his friends like David Goolman and others, who enjoyed riding with Dad from time to time. I’m wearing Dad’s horse head and horseshoe ring today in memory of that part of his life.
I will remember Dad as a disciplinarian when I deserved to be punished. After all, one does not get picked up by a railroad detective for covering the train tracks at the back of the farm with rocks and then not experience the consequences of Dad’s belt afterward. It worked. I never came close to wrecking another train.
I will remember Dad for the fatherly advice he gave me as a teenage boy about to walk out the door to go on a date. It’s unsuitable to share publicly, but I’ll remember it.
I will remember Dad as someone who wanted to instill confidence in me when I was unsure of myself. The incident that comes to mind is when I had my first car accident on my way to work at Gaunce’s Market at age 16. I had only owned my first car for a short while when I got distracted looking at a girl on the sidewalk and ran into the back of another car on this block in front of the funeral home. (By the way, here’s a pro tip for any of you young people who may need to call your parents after a wreck: Don’t tell them you’ve had a wreck and are at the funeral home. They’ll go nuts.) Well, I called Dad, who came and took care of the car logistics, and then dropped me off at work right up Lexington Avenue, where the Craft Nook is now. But a little later that evening, I noticed Dad back in the store talking with Mr. Gaunce. Dad then walked over to me and said, “Come on, son, we’re going home.” I assumed he knew I was upset because of the wreck and thought I needed the night off, but he had something else in mind. As we walked out to the parking lot and toward his car, he reached in his pocket, took out his car keys, and handed them to me as he walked around to the passenger side. He didn’t say anything. He just placed confidence in me and knew that I needed to get back in the saddle again, so to speak, and quickly get over any fear of driving the accident may have caused. I never forgot that quiet lesson and was eager to pass it on to one of my sons when he had his first accident as a teenager.
I will remember Dad as someone who could spin a tale and have a room full of people believing his story until he cracked a smile, and you knew you’d been had once again. Dad would never lie for personal gain, but he’d make up some whoppers to get a rise out of you for a few minutes before confessing to its untruth.
I will remember Dad as someone who was a bit of a hell-raiser in his younger days before I came along. I only know a tiny fraction of the stories that could be told, but I’ve heard enough to get a feel for how he was in his Air Force days. For example, he and his buddies would occasionally have a night on the town, and one of them would always carry a piece of chalk with him. They used it to draw a circle on the floor of the bar or on a sidewalk and dare someone from another branch of service to enter that circle. Other service members would, of course, take them up on the dare, after which a brawl would break out, which was the goal of the whole thing. Mission accomplished!
That instinct and loyalty to the Air Force never faded. In 2010, when Mom and Dad went with Linda and me to Charleston, SC, to visit our son, Brian, we were walking downtown shopping when a couple of young men from another branch of service started walking in our direction on the sidewalk. At age 76 at the time, Dad still instinctively doubled up that fist just in case one of those men more than 50 years younger than him dared to look at him or Mom the wrong way as they passed by.
Dad wasn’t afraid of anyone, ever, volunteering to serve in Korea at age 18, even when his superiors assured him that they could find a safe position for him in the U.S. He wanted to be a tail gunner in an aircraft but was denied that opportunity. He didn’t even fear his Air Force superior officer who, one day, leaned up over his desk with Dad sitting on the other side and called Dad a name that Dad said nobody could call him. Dad didn’t hesitate to rare back and swing a punch that sent that officer flying backward in his chair. Dad paid the consequences, of course, but he wouldn’t have changed anything about what he did.
I will remember Dad as someone who didn’t have much interest in church or Christian matters in my years growing up, but who experienced a change after he retired. He wanted to go to church every week with Mom. He loved attending Bill Pumphrey’s Sunday School class and sitting on the back row at First Baptist with Mom for worship.
I remember coming in from Louisville one Saturday after Dad retired, and he was eager to show me his new favorite TV channel on Dish Network. He switched to a channel that showed mostly Bill Gaither Family Homecoming shows. His favorite soloist in those days was the long silver-haired Guy Penrod. He eagerly told me about the amazing song Penrod sang earlier that week. Dad’s love for Penrod is why Penrod’s songs were played immediately before this service began.
I will remember Dad as someone with a simple faith in Christ. His baptism as a 16-year-old in a creek that runs along Irvine Road may not have “taken,” as they say, at the time, but it was his testimony later in life that he believed in Jesus. I was pleased one year in his retirement when I heard him say, “I want a new Bible because I want to read through it next year.” It was Dad’s old King James Bible that the Lord used to bring me to faith as a 15-year-old laying on the top bunk in my bedroom at the farm reading the first several chapters of Genesis. The one and only CD Dad kept in the CD player of his truck was Alan Jackson’s Precious Memories – a collection of hymns that Dad knew most every word to and would happily sing along with as he drove his truck. Since that was his favorite CD, that is the source of the songs that will play when this service ends. On more than one occasion, Dad went outside at the farm, looked up and saw a magnificent, unusual cloud formation and said, “The Lord is going to step out of that cloud any minute.” Well, he no longer must wait for our Lord’s second coming. His faith has become sight.
When I read the very last chapter of the Old Testament, Malachi 4, I can’t help but think of what brought Dad so much joy in his years of raising cattle. He loved to see new calves born and soon skipping along the hillside. Malachi 4:2 says, “But for those who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings, and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.” The time has ended for Dad to be unsteady, to stumble or fall. It’s time, Dad, to celebrate being in the presence of the Son of righteousness and to skip about like calves from the stall.
For those of us who are in Christ, we can look forward to that day with joy, anticipation, and hope that is not merely wishful thinking but confident assurance that we belong to a God who keeps His promises. If we are in Christ, we need not fear death. Charles Spurgeon wrote, “There is no true deliverance from the fear of death except by looking to him whose death is the death of death.” Our brief, mortal years on this earth are not all there is. Our time here is, as Randy Alcorn says, a small, momentary dot on a never-ending line of eternity. The question is, where will you spend that eternity? Will you spend it in the presence of Christ at the marriage feast of the Lamb in the new Heaven and Earth Christ will one day usher in when He returns, or will you spend it in Hell paying for your sins because you refused the payment Christ made on the cross?
If you are not a follower of Christ, the only words I care that you hear from me today are these: “Be reconciled to God. Be reconciled to God.” That was the apostle Paul’s plea in 2 Corinthians 5:20, and it is my plea to any of you who do not know Christ as Lord and Savior. Jesus Christ—God, the second person of the Trinity—came in the flesh. He lived the perfect, sinless life that you and I could never live. He endured the full wrath of God on the cross as the perfect sacrifice in our place to atone for the sins of all who would be saved by grace through faith. He conquered death and the grave, rising on the third day. He ascended to Heaven, where He now reigns, and he will come again to raise to eternal life all who are in Him and to righteously judge all who have rejected Him. The only reasonable response is to confess your sins, place your faith in Christ, experience His forgiveness, and let Him fill you with His Holy Spirit. Dive into His written Word daily and do what it says. Serve His bride, the church. Live your life for the glory of God and grow in Him daily until He calls you home. I know many of you know exactly what I’m talking about when I share that, but some may not. So, please let the passing of my dad from this life into eternity have eternal significance for you as you reflect on your readiness for that inevitable day of judgment to come. Jesus died for sinners, and He said in John 6:37, “The one who comes to Me I will never cast out.” If you don’t know where to start or what to do, talk with a pastor or me in the coming days. It would be a joy to have that conversation with you.
There is far more I could say, but I need to close. As we have opportunities today and in the coming weeks, Mom and I would be blessed to hear your stories of how you will remember Dad. There is so much to remember with joy.
When I published my Next Step Devotions book in 2022, I wrote the following on the dedication page: “This book is dedicated to my parents, Roy Jack Ross and Virginia Mae Ross, who have loved, supported, and encouraged me every day of my life.” What more could a son ask for? I am blessed and shaped forever by the gifts from God of both of my parents. Mom, you are a rock–your own tower of strength through recent difficult times. You are a treasure, and I am so thankful to walk this journey with you.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, God, for your gift of Roy Jack Ross to me, to my family, to many friends and acquaintances, for these past 91-plus years. The world has been made better by his life and legacy. There are many ways in which I know I’ll never fill Dad’s shoes, but I will try to walk in his footsteps where it brings honor and glory to my Lord.
One final thing: When I would leave the farm after spending time in the evening with Mom and Dad, if it was dark outside, Dad would always flash the porch light a couple of times as I backed the car up to pull away. I would flash my headlights back at him. It was our way of saying, “Goodbye for now.” So, as I end, I have asked that these lights flash a couple of times as a final “Goodbye for now. Until we meet again, Dad. I love you.”
End of Eulogy
If you’d like to watch the full funeral service for Dad, the video is below. The welcome and opening remarks are by lifelong friend, Don Burkhead. My eulogy follows, then remarks from Dad’s pastor, Keith Felton, from First Baptist Church, Winchester, KY. An Air Force Honor Guard closed the service with a flag ceremony. Many thanks to Scobee Funeral Home in Winchester, KY, for their excellent, compassionate, and professional care for our family during our time of loss.
