June 2 – “Who’s gonna be there?”

The memorial service yesterday was probably best described as bittersweet.  It was great to see some people that we haven't seen or heard from since the early days of South Oaks Baptist Church.  That would be way back in the 80's.  The guy who was pastor back then actually preached a sermon at the funeral.  It made for one funny story they told.  Seems Peggy told her husband Richard that she wanted Bruce and Dan, her current pastor, to be the ones to lead the service.  But she added a condition.  She didn't want either one of them to preach.  Richard responded, "Are we talking about the same Bruce here?"  Richard was right.  Bruce would never let an opportunity pass to preach.  And he didn't.  The highlight of the whole thing for me was when a ten year old granddaughter read what she described as "my speech."  She said she was doing it because "Nana would be proud of me."  She had gone to each of the other grandkids and asked what they would remember about their grandmother.  Then she filled in what she thought the babies might say.  Like one baby would have said, "I liked head butting Nana."  Very cute.  One line from each grandkid.  That's now a priceless artifact.  There was not a dry eye in the house by the time she finished.  For me the greatest part of it all was when she folded up her paper, left the stage and crawled up in her granddad's lap.  That's what I would always remember about the day if I was Richard.   We saw Lisa, a girl who used to baby sit for our boys and who was a good friend of Robby who used to live with us.  That's a lot of "used to's," isn't it?  We are discovering more and more of those "used to's" lying around the older we get.  Russell and Merla were there.  He makes hammered dulcimers and can play them so well that even when you see it in person you can hardly believe it.  A hammered dulcimer looks like a little naked piano.  You hit the strings with tiny sticks.  Amazing.  We saw Debbie and her two children, who were much shorter when we saw them last.  We also saw many of the people we knew when we were at South Oaks who have been there through the years.  In other words we have seen them several times since the 80's.  These are the guys who opened their hearts and homes to us during and after Hurricane Ike: Cary and KayLynn, Blair and Patti, Rick and Rebecca, David and Mona, Jay and Gail.    Speaking of Jay, I talked to him for a long time.  He and I share an ongoing battle with rheumatoid arthritis.  He has been in the arena longer than I have, so I tried to get some idea of what to expect in the days ahead.  He is taking four or five different medications.  All but one are different from the ones I take.  We share in the relief offered by Celebrex.  All the rest are designed to retard the continued spread of the disease.  Sounds like his rheumatologist and mine had pretty much the same textbooks.  His main regret was that he didn't continue on a range of motion regimen.  He can't lift his arms very high above his head any more.  I took notes on that one.  Range of motion exercises.   We finally got a chance to talk to Richard.  When we were at South Oaks we felt a connection with Richard and Peggy because they were really the only ones there who were actually our age.  The others were younger than us.  He was doing OK.  He was ready to get out of his suit and sit back in his chair and take a nap.  He was talking about traveling and downsizing the house.  Sounded like the family was going through some pretty typical things.    The whole experience got me to thinking about some things as well.  Things like: what friends would we really be able to count on in a situation like this?  Do I have any friends who are my friends, as opposed to our friends, or Chris' friends?  What would I do if it was me?  And of course, the expected, I wonder if we should update our will?  Answer to that one was easy by the way … of course we should.  Our will still talks about who we want to raise our kids.  That job is pretty much done.  It is done, isn't it guys?  Maybe I should ask your wives.   Proverbs 11:2 says, "When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom."   Father, walk with Richard and his kids and grandkids over the next years of life.  Give them joy in memories.  Amen.