|
Dear Folks:
My father died February 2, merely 9 days before his 82nd birthday, which would have been yesterday. He was a jazz musician (bass), a librarian, designer and builder of both a house and the hull of a sailing boat, and he mentored many people into music and librarianship. He outlived his second wife, his younger sister and brother, and my mother (they were divorced by the time of her death). He loved to hike and camp, and as a younger man he canoed long-distance with a friend.
He spent the last 8 years living in northeastern North Carolina in a location often called the Inner Banks, a reference to the Outer Banks barrier islands. His house was along a canal that was fed by the Albemarle Sound, and he watched turtles lay eggs and hatch and enjoyed regular visits by herons. In October, my spouse and I took him to his favorite Outer Banks Island and had a great time with him before his decline began to define his last few months. A month later, he moved into my sister’s home to be cared for in his last 2 months, and I was able to visit him twice in that time. Two weeks after that last visit, knowing he was close to death, he asked that we come back, and we were able to spend a few days with him saying good-bye.
My father was not religious. He was kind, loved children and dogs, saw beauty in nature and art, and instilled in me a sense that all people were equal. To me, he was one of the most Christ-like people I knew.
There will be no funeral or memorial service. We donated his body to a mortuary school so that part of his legacy will be to continue his love of teaching.
My sister and I have struggled to find the midpoint between him not wanting any memorial and us needing something. What seems appropriate is a not overtly religious prayer I use when I lead funerals. “We hold in grateful memory this one who is now separated from us by death. Though we cannot recall him to life, we can remember him and fix his memory within our hearts for as long as we shall live. We can celebrate the fullness of his life, with all its strengths, foibles, goodness, and weaknesses; and rejoice in the ties that bind us one to another.” 1
I don’t know if death is an end point or a pivot point. I know the living are left to grieve. I know that while we mourn and remember, the world goes on with its machinations, meanness, and mindless killing. It also continues to be profoundly beautiful.
As the fog of grief begins to clear, I step back into ministry with all of you as we love kindness, do justice, and walk humbly with God.
In peace and prayer,
Pastor Tony
1 Chalice Worship, compiled and edited by C.S. Cartwright and O.I. Cricket Harrison, (St Louis, MO: Chalice Press), p.
| 
