Tania Kelli Smallwood

Tania 49 passed away November 13, 2018 with her loving husband, Tulio by her side.
The family will receive guests from 4-5PM on Friday, December 7th with a Celebration of Life beginning at 5PM at Stanfill Funeral Home.


Eulogy for Tania Smallwood Garciaz
December 7th, 2018
Introduction
Good afternoon, thank you all for coming. Georgia (Mother), Jett (Sister), my mother and father, brother and nephews.
I’m here today to speak for Tania. How to describe 25 years together? How could two totally opposite people last?
How could this all happen?
My spiritual path through life led me to support relatives, friends and coworkers who had lost a loved one by attending those memorials and services whenever possible. At times I would eulogize those who had passed on if asked or simply volunteering. This was to help others that couldn’t speak or were to shy or didn’t know what to say and how to say it. I thought this would give me the strength to endure the eventual passing of my parents who are both here today, never imagining I would have to do this for my wife.
Here’s her story
As mentioned by Kandy Carver during her beautiful tribute, Tania was born and raised in Miami Perrine and went to Pine Lakes Elementary, Richmond Heights Junior High and Killian High School.
Her Life when young was happy and quite busy as she was a child model into her pre-teen years. Her mother and father were good conservative people that instilled those family values in Tania. She was the apple of her daddy’s eye and her mother’s little beauty queen. The family has hundreds if not thousands of photos and trophies some larger than Tania cataloging her career. I have to say that she grew into a much more beautiful woman.
She played in the street with all the neighborhood kids and was quite the tomboy to her mother’s consternation.
Tania would tell me of countless trips when she was young to visit her aunts, uncles and cousins in Utah and in Montana enjoying real winters with snow and mountains.
After high school Tania joined Southern Bell as an operator in Homestead. Her supervisor was Chuck McCurdy, nephew of Ron & Ed Lubert. Funny thing later on Chuck and I were splicers together and he became my supervisor! Tania then became a Service representative at the headquarters building. She worked through the 1st year of our marriage and couldn’t take any more split shifts, working weekends, never having holidays off and being badgered all day long by irate customers and sometimes supervisors. She thought she could leave because she’d hit the jackpot marrying a fiber splicer FT. Maybe back then that was the case! Tania would come home and not want to speak to me because she was so upset from work and wanted quiet time. After she left BellSouth she was much happier.
She dreaded hurricanes after Hurricane Andrew devastated the Perrine family home. She was in a CBS 4 Hurricane Andrew video.


How we met
My circumstances. I was a lineman (OPT), rough around the edges having been out of the house since I was 17. My parents raised me to be courteous and polite and somehow those values eroded slightly when I was a young man living in St. Croix in the Virgin Islands and here in Miami. So it wasn’t their fault. I was single and wild having failed at meeting and keeping that one special person. I had a great single life but was rapidly getting tired of it.
We met through mutual company friends Halloween Night 1993 when a group of 10 of us went together to 3 or 4 house parties. She was dressed in red as a she devil. I was dressed as a female Viking with a blond wig and I had a beard then. I thought she was the most stuck up woman I had ever met and she thought I was the most obnoxious person she had ever met. Some of you can probably relate to that!
About a month later we were all at large company picnic at metro zoo with our parents present. My mother said after meeting Tania “that’s the kind of girl you should marry”! I said yes Mom but she’s taken!
Amazingly enough since I was friendly with the person she was breaking up with she tried to set me up with 5 or 6 of her girlfriends. They all hated me! She would call to tease me about the lack of success with her friends and we would have long conversations about life and being the jokester that I am I would crack her up!
About six months after she broke up we started dating. It was great at first but during that year we would fight at parties because I was a wild social butterfly and she was a wallflower. She was Miss Manners and I was the show! I wanted to talk to everyone and party, she wanted me all to herself and hold quiet conversations in the corner. We even broke up at Barry Fennell’s house party! We patched things up the next day.
At an eagles concert that year when the song (desperado) came on I was crying and Tania and my brother asked me why because I knew I had finally found the one after riding those fences for so many years with nothing but heartbreak to show for it. Her friends asked what did she see in me? I wasn’t the greatest looking guy, she was stunning, I was older. She told them I made her laugh like no one else and she felt sorry for me!
I asked her father for her hand in marriage, he said if I could handle her I could have her. I promised Georgia and Max I’d take care of her. Everyone knows she had a comfortable life as a homemaker..
I took Tania to New York where she had never been for our engagement. We had a fairy tale engagement, a fairy tale engagement party, a fairy tale wedding and a fairy tale honeymoon in London, Amsterdam, Brussells and Paris in May of 1996
Our first year of marriage was rough it wasn’t a fairy tale as we got used to living together. Being conservative she moved in a month before the wedding. Throughout our marriage we battled over everything.
In 1998, her beloved father Max passed in the early morning hours of December 26th the day after Christmas. Christmas became a sad time for her and she never got over it. I have always taken Xmas week off in order to be there for her. Another source of sadness was our inability to have a child. Tania always wanted a girl to take to take to Disney and share her love of Tinkerbell. We thought we had that miracle 10 years ago when we were on vacation in Ormond Beach but it wasn’t to be.
Tania came home one day in 1996 with a Pomeranian puppy. I hated that dog because I wanted a boxer having been around big dogs growing up. That little pup would squeal, yap and cry and was sickly. I didn’t want it in the bed with us. One night the pup was crying so I told Tania okay put her up here. The dog promptly vomited and did everything all over Tania’s brand new Martha Stewart comforter. That did it I fell in love with the pup and laughed so hard Tania made us both sleep on the couch! I named that pup Nikita Nikki and she was our fur baby for 16 years. When Nikki passed 6 years ago, Tania was inconsolable. After several months we brought another Pomeranian puppy from an animal shelter home. Piper is with me now.
Tania became a devoutee 22 years ago of healthy eating, a gourmet cook and foodie. Her favorite is Chef Adrian from West Dade. She was well known as a baker early in our marriage as I would bring her chocolate cakes, banana breads and real Danish coffee cake to my crews.
Some of you may remember a reception at Coral Way probably 15 years ago where Bernie and I think Roger Puerto was there and I brought in as she was part Danish, a real Danish coffee cake she made.  Bernie went nuts over that cake!  
In 2005 after the hurricanes of 2004 where I was out of town for 4 months I took Tania on her dream vacation to Italy. It was a food and wine tasting tour of Rome, Florence and Venice. With a 5 star chef in Florence. What a blast!
As I said before we battled many times during our marriage, she was hard headed and stubborn and sometimes it seems as if we wanted different things.
So I ask again how could this be? How could 2 people from completely different backgrounds, cultures, religions, values, mores, musical tastes (Luther Vandross, Barry manilow, country Music: I liked classic rock, fights) stay together? She was a Republican I was a Democrat.
Somehow we found a happy medium and sometimes we just agreed to disagree. How otherwise could we have lasted 25 years? Tania believed in the sanctity of marriage and even though we threatened each other an hour later were happily watching the food channel. That’s all I could take Rachel ray and mario battalli. When she would switch to QVC or CSI new Orleans it was time to go to the other room!
Tania was very old fashioned prim and proper in some ways and never let her hair down except with extremely close friends. She was very private and kept a lot to herself. Tania ran the household finances, made my dinner and lunch every day and a salad when I came home from work. Everyone saw me at work teasing about how she was turning me into a bird growing feathers with these damn healthy oatmeal & grain breakfastes and lunches.
A special mention about Ray and Pincho Factory
Some people remarked they felt they knew her because of my constant speaking about her. She would tell friends I was a big baby incapable of taking care of myself with no self responsibilities.
The last two years were the best of our marriage. It seemed as if we had finally settled in and as she admitted she finally grew up.
Her stubbornness may have contributed to her illness because she hated doctors and especially male doctors. She didn’t want any other man touching her besides me. I had to keep begging her to see a doctor.
I wish I could’ve done more and that will be my words to live by, “Do More”.
Tania’s favorite charities were the disabled veterans of America, the humane society especially the Pomeranians rescue and teenage foster girls going in to the real world needing clothing and shoes for interviews.

She was the light of my life and I was so proud of her. As I said at our wedding reception when we toasted, she was and is my ”Honeez”!