As many of you already are aware, my father passed away in late May after a short battle with lung cancer. For his memorial service, my brother, my sister and I each composed a few paragraphs to capture a few memories of our father. I am sharing my thoughts with you, both as a bit of pastoral “personal privilege” and as an opportunity to model ways that we each can faithfully express how we feel about those we love.
There is a two-fold lesson here. First, we need to seek out ways to share our thoughts with those we love while they are with us. A short note or a few lines added to a greeting card can do so much to keep us connected in bonds of love. Second, our faith in the risen Christ reassures us that even interrupted conversations in this life will have an opportunity to be completed in God’s heavenly realm. Trusting in Christ’s victory over death allows us to see life in its fullest continuum–something that moves from the dawn of creation through the wonder of our earthly life, through the transitional reality of death itself, and on toward a completion shaped by God’s love and promised restoration. That is why we do not grieve as those who have no hope (I Thess. 4:13). Thanks be to God!
F. Richard Bush (Dec. 12, 1927–May 29, 2010) It takes more than words to describe my dad. You need the scent of menthol shaving cream; the feel of rough, hardworking hands; the sound of a tractor coughing and starting up; the sight of a truck kicking up a cloud of dust coming down a gravel road after a long day of work. You need the feel of a wingback chair as Dad launched into a story about Indians, about a current Habitat for Humanity work project, about his time in the Navy, or about any recent trip taken with my mom.
On these occasions, though, people encourage me to describe my dad in words, as one way to respond to their words of condolence: “I’m sorry; we’ll sure miss your father.” Yes, I’ll miss him too. I’ll miss his presence in our family–his role as Suzi’s chauffeur, gardener, handyman, and devoted, loving husband; his role as our father who always wanted to pay the bill when eating out and insisted on driving his car wherever we were going; and his role as the grandfather fretting over the little ones, just sure that whatever they were doing was going to lead to a broken bone or trip to the emergency room.
But there are things I won’t miss for the simple reason that they are still here with me. I won’t miss his example of hard work, of helping a neighbor or friend before they ask, of keeping a promise, of boasting about his family to anyone who’ll listen, or of avoiding the spotlight so that he might clap all the louder for others’ accomplishments. I won’t miss those things because he made sure that Rick, Amy and I learned them from him and that we are to be guided by those same values.
To whatever extend we can live up to his example, we too will have left a legacy that will be hard to put into words–one that will cause others to say “I’ll miss him” when we’re gone. For that, we have my dad to thank.