That’s the question isn’t it? When someone dies. Why?
I wasn’t feeling that this time, I was feeling, “What a blessing.”
Let me explain. My uncle wasn’t sick, he wasn’t bed ridden or taking treatments for anything. He had fallen some weeks back and wasn’t a hundred percent but he wasn’t in ill health that anyone could tell, so it was a shock when he passed so suddenly.
I believe the suddenness of it was a blessing in that now instead of, a hard memory of visits to the hospital with him and a bunch of machines and tubes hooked up or a long protracted illness where you watch a loved one slowly erode away, I’m left with the memory of him at home waiting for me to call and set up our next grouse hunt.
We didn’t go a lot. We had reconnected the last couple of years and he was still able to go and I liked spending time with him because he was still a hoot and I like laughing that hard.
The family made it official and I was asked to conduct the service.
I was honored.
My cousin called and said he would like to get the family together to go over the service and I was glad, I just couldn’t get a straight bead on which way I wanted to go.
My uncle had so many layers to his life and almost making it to his 77th birthday had plenty of time to meet, greet and befriend lots of people and create and be apart of a very large family.
As we talked I could see no one really had a straight bead on which way we should go, so I just kept making notes and writing down stories and funny anecdotes about how he talked or the movies he watched or the jokes he told, some good funny ones, some not so funny and some bad ones.
Not bad dirty, just bad, you know like most dad jokes, but the way he even told those would make you laugh because he would tell it so funny. I guess that’s what made him so funny. It wasn’t what he said so much… but the way he would say it.
I was in the same boat as the family was and could not settle on a specific path to put the service on.
Do I talk about him as a dad of over fifty years?
Do I talk about him as a husband of over fifty years?
Do I talk about him as a loving grandfather, an uncle, a brother or as a son being apart of 9 siblings, one of which passed away as an infant?
Or do I lean on the spiritual aspect and the questions we all have at times like these with ‘Why?’ right at the top of the list?
I told my cousin right away that I wanted to be very careful with the service as I could stand up and talk about my uncle for a good hour easy but I had a different responsibility that day.
First to my uncle he earned having a correct service.
My aunt and cousins, they didn’t need to hear me going on and on about my uncle and the narrow focus that would bring.
And most importantly I had a responsibility to my Lord and Savior Jesus, as his ambassador for the day, I felt and know it’s my honor and duty to bring the gathering before Him so that He can bring us before the Father.
So I did what I do…
made lots of notes, over a dozen pages worth and started pondering.
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