A Father Remembers

I was invited to attend the funeral service for a courageous young teenager who battled heart disease all her life until it tragically took her life.

I arrived at the church to find it overflowing with mourners. People of every age and ethnicity were there, grieving over the loss of a very special person who had obviously deeply touched them.

During the service, everyone who spoke had glowing words of praise as they each honored this extraordinary girl. Each person made an impression on me but one stood out to the point that it changed my perspective. I was deeply touched by the testimony offered by her father in his eulogy. It was for me a turning point.

He explained that in certain areas of the country, differing phrases are used to describe a person that has died. In some places he explained, one says “they passed” or they “passed away”. But where he came from one said “they passed on”.

The grieved father proceeded to explain what his precious daughter had “passed on” to him, enumerating all her extraordinary qualities and virtues. With a delicate choice of words, this father provided to the assembled mourners an exquisite description of how all the little things she did that were prompted by her admirable character had deeply touched and changed his soul. Everyone sat in an absorbing silence as they joined me in taking in his moving speech.

Listening intently to the gripping testimony, I absorbed the essence of that father’s eulogy. I began to look differently at all those who were a part of my life.

In the days that followed, I searched my list of departed relatives, friends, teachers, co-workers, church members and specifically those whose funerals I had conducted over the years. As I considered each one over time, I explored what they had passed on to me. The treasures discovered were myriad. The effect of my investigation looking through the prism of my new perspective caused me to appreciate more deliberately what was “passed on” to me by those I have had in my life up till today.

Such vision created a new appreciation for those who blessed my life each day. The good people in our life who so effectively made my life better.

In the midst of these deliberations I recalled what I wrote in greeting cards I made for friends in celebration of their special days. I included the following in their cards:

Good people will be remembered as a blessing. . . .  Proverbs 10:7
~
Celebrations are Memorial Days – the bookmarks of our lives,
When we pause to re-read the wonderful good parts,
And wonder what comes next!
These are perfect times to pause and remember
Those extraordinarily special souls in our lives . . .
The wonderful people we thank God for always . . .
The thoughtful, caring people who have profoundly touched our lives
As few can . . .

Returning to these words, I found that when I looked at life through the prism of what is “passed on” to me by others, I became a more grateful person, honoring God’s marvelous choice of people He brings into my life to make it so blessed.

Turning Points

Those few moments at the funeral, listening to a grieving father recounting the treasures passed on to him by his daughter, was a turning point for me. It gave me a new perspective.

Since that day, whenever I have the privilege to serve at a funeral or conduct a funeral service, I share this treasured perspective with those that mourn. Even when I serve at an abandoned baby’s funeral in the Garden of Innocence, I focus on what that unknown child “passes on” to me in those moments when I cradle them in their casket in my arms.

In another perspective, I now am more sensitive to what I “pass on” to those in my life. It is my hope that they are treasures just as valued as those I have received.

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