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Christmas Musings

greg@magnoliafuneralhome.net (Greg Woodruff 2 ) — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 15:44:44 GMT

Christmas was my wife’s Nanaw’s holiday. She didn’t consider it done properly without presents. The price of the presents was irrelevant - stocking stuffers were fine, but if you didn’t pick out or make something for your family, you weren’t doing Christmas properly and were getting out of it without investing time into each other. This was unbearable. When she was too weak to go shopping she paged through catalogs and sent her grandchildren out to stores to fetch presents for her. To consider Christmas stressful and commercial was to miss the point and do it incorrectly. Christmas was a gathering, a thankfulness, a joy. And if you didn’t see it that way she would pout until you pretended to.

Life was not kind to her. Her mother was one of seven children - six girls and a boy who died young. Nanaw’s grandfather died before all of his girls were grown. The world wasn’t gentle to single women with children and work was hard to find. They worked in cotton fields, leaving the house while it was still dark to work all day, the smaller girls dragging bags of cotton bigger than they were.

It was with this earthy determination that Nanny raised Nanaw. In the cotton fields, in empty houses, in churches miles from their home, and in the silence of their own hearts. A buoyant, happy girl with more boyfriends than we know the names of, Nanaw never suffered from lack of heart. She left her mother and father to go to typing school, got homesick, and came back. Her people were more important than a future she wasn’t sure she believed in. She met her husband while he was still in the army and they wrote letters until he was home for good.

When the youngest of their three children was still a toddler, Nanaw got home from church to find her own father dead in the kitchen, a victim of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after years of depression. When her children were grown and married, she returned home from work to find her husband on the floor, dying from an aneurysm. She packed a bag and took it to the hospital for when he came home. But he never did. She opened doors and death awaited. Her mother grew weaker and weaker and began to suffer from Alzheimer's - sometimes living in another world entirely, forgetting where she was, what year it was, and what reasons she had for still living. She finally slipped away altogether, Nanaw sitting beside her.

When Nanaw herself began to slip into the memory loss that slowly smothered her own mother, she began calling us. Every day. Many times a day. Usually to tell us she didn’t have our phone number and wasn’t sure how to get in touch with us. She worried about her people. She worried that no one would answer, and that the next door that opened would reveal tragedy.

But there were no more tragedies for her.

Only for us.

And now we open doors to find the rooms empty.

We took a box of snapshots up to her room at the nursing home and asked her who they all were. Images of people we didn’t know, couldn’t recognize, didn’t remember, who lived for us only in her mind. We knew that once she was gone, they died with her. Some of them were family - aunts and uncles and cousins, long dead or moved away. Then my wife would show her one of a young man standing next to an old truck and she would say “Oh I didn’t know him. He delivered milk. I just thought he was cute.” Or a picture of a boy we didn’t know and had never seen before and she would say “Oh he was my boyfriend.”

Who were these strangers that lived in her head? That she carried in her heart until the day she died? They lived, for us, only in her. And now they are gone forever.

I fear that someday she, too, will be gone forever, shrinking with each generation until there is nothing left of Nanaw but a name and a picture of a lady with ostentatious, gaudy jewelry.

Christmas reminds me of this. Of the shrinking. Our beloved dead growing smaller and smaller.

But it is not true. They grow larger. Their influence becomes more important. Their actions, their beliefs, their stories, become part of us, informing our lives and our decisions. She lives on in my unwitting daughters, who reach for shiny jewelry and exult in stacking their arms with bright, cheap bracelets without consideration of public opinion.

Christmas is a door we open with trepidation every year, because for those of us who have lost someone, it opens to tragedy. A fresh death every time we remember. Some years, especially the first after a death, sorrow squirms close, leaning in nearer than the hope that sustains us. We are overwhelmed with mourning. Their absence touches everything. Sometimes there are large pieces of them left over - maybe they already bought gifts, or prepared food, or sent cards. It makes their absence less real and more painful at once.

Life is a relentless assault of grief against our hope. Days that were strongholds of love become overtaken by the enemy, become losing battles in a war against despair.

And that’s ok. Some battles you lose. But they are not the end. There is hope. There is always hope. Because any world that creates a holiday out of the hope for peace and joy is a world worth living in.

May we be truly thankful - now and always - for love strong enough to be felt as grief. Remember that you are never alone and never forgotten.

Bereavement

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 15:20:55 GMT

The olive tree is sometimes called immortal. It’s not, of course - we call it immortal because it lives so much longer than we do and seems to spring back from terrible hardship and adversity without negative effects.

We call it immortal for another reason, though perhaps unconsciously - the famous story of Elijah and the Unnamed Widow, who survived starvation through the miraculously unemptied jug of olive oil. Continually replenished, the jug was refilled as it was used - always enough for one more meal. And yet even that eventually dried up - we have no reason to believe that buried in the dirt in what used to be Zarephath is a jug with some oil in it that will never be emptied. But we have every reason to believe that there are still groves of olive trees to provide the oil.

I own a pen that is made from an olive tree that grew in Bethlehem, the birthplace of the only thing to touch Earth that is truly immortal. The only source that will never dry up, and the only tree tall enough to gather the world under its branches for shelter. When I use it I’m reminded of immortal hope, eternal faithfulness, and a love that never dies.

Isaiah 40:8 - The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God endures forever.

Romans 8:37-39 - In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We all say goodbye differently

Thu, 30 Nov 2023 22:22:29 GMT

We all say goodbye differently.

On June 28, 2005, Michael Murphy, a US Navy SEAL, was killed in action in Afghanistan. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions, which were recorded in the book and movie Lone Survivor. Mike was an enthusiastic participant in CrossFit before his death, and on August 18, 2005, one of his favorite workouts was renamed in his honor. From that day on, “Murph” has been done in his memory - often on Memorial Day or on the anniversary of his death and twice in the worldwide Games competitions.

There was a gentleman in our community who was known for handing out strips of Juicy Fruit gum that he had torn in half. You never encountered the man without leaving half a stick of gum richer. Before his funeral, we tore sticks of gum in half, put them in a bowl, and set the bowl by his casket.

We all say goodbye differently.

I’ve seen congregations chant responses during a funeral mass.

I’ve seen a SWAT team take a knee before a casket and shout the Lord’s prayer.

I’ve seen 21 gun salutes and moments of silence.

I’ve heard a church full of people sing “I’ll Fly Away”.

I’ve seen families throw themselves over caskets.

I’ve heard Mothers and Fathers wail.

I’ve seen a community ride together to a crematory to usher their dead to the fire.

I’ve seen family and friends sit up all night with their dead.

I’ve seen graves filled by hand by truck light.

I’ve watched balloons become a speck in the sky after their graveside release.

I’ve seen a brother rip hair out of his head to drop onto the dirt.

A CrossFit workout done on the anniversary of a man’s death, given his name.

Pins slammed into wooden caskets.

Handmade quilts draping the pews of a church.

A final round of applause.

A bowl of Juicy Fruit gum sticks, torn in half, at the head of a casket.

Jewelry laid on the dead.

Liquor slid into the casket unbeknown to the mourners.

An arrangement of flowers shaped like a pack of cigarettes.

Bagpipes, taps, Psalms, Freebird.

We all say goodbye differently.

But we all say goodbye.

Easter 2023

greg@magnoliafuneralhome.net (Greg Woodruff 2 ) — Fri, 07 Apr 2023 17:06:19 GMT

We come to Easter now in memory of a miracle.

But the women who went to the tomb weren’t expecting a miracle. According to Luke, they went to anoint the body with spices - they were expecting sorrow. They didn’t go to the tomb in faith. They went to the tomb overwhelmed with grief.

Sometimes we are told that miracles happen when we go looking for them, and that may be true. But thankfully, God’s miracles aren’t limited by our unbelief. They show up in the darkness, when we don’t have the faith left to ask for them. Mary Magdalene wasn’t praying to see the risen Christ. God brings light to the darkness whether we ask for it or not. You cannot stop the joy any more than you can stop the sun from rising. Even the darkest corners of your home will warm in the sun - the deepest part of your basement will be affected by the day. Burrow under blankets and turn on the air - the earth will warm around you and the sun will rise on the evil and the good - the rain fall on the just and the unjust.

It’s all well and good to expect a miracle - to pray for something and believe it will come to pass, and to hear platitudes from well-meaning Christians when our prayers seem unanswered.

Nowhere does the Bible say the disciples prayed for Jesus’ resurrection after the crucifixion. The remaining eleven don’t even seem to have been involved in his burial. A previously-unmentioned Joseph went and asks for the body and places it in a tomb. The disciples scattered - afraid, confused, and disappointed.

Even when the women came preaching the resurrection, the eleven didn’t believe it. Even faced with the empty tomb they remained confused and afraid. Even when Mary saw him she didn’t recognize him.

But he still rose. He met them on the sea. He found Mary in the garden.

Someday, your darkness will be the memory of a miracle. Your sorrow will be transformed into victory, and you will celebrate the darkest hours of your life, just like we celebrate Good Friday.

Let the darkness swallow you if it must. Let the doubt fill you.

The sun will rise. The miracles will come.

It’s only Friday. Sometimes we just have to wait for Sunday.

Water

Thu, 01 Aug 2019 19:32:45 GMT

Nothing really changes.

Two thousand years ago, in the days following Christ’s crucifixion, a confused Simon Peter dealt with the darkness engulfing his life in the best way he knew how. He went fishing.

He returned to the place where he met Jesus to begin with, and where he saw Him best. It was on the shore, mending his nets, where Peter first spoke to Christ; it was on the water where Christ proved he could meet Peter in a way he understood – catching fish. It was on the water that Peter witnessed power in the way most personal to him – on the sea, in a storm. He watched the sea still at Christ’s voice, stepped on waters he had fished for years, felt himself go under only to be saved by Jesus’ hand. And when He died, that’s where Peter returned – to waters he had seen stilled, where a storm had been silenced, hoping to silence the storm in himself. Once again returning to the sea as he was going under, hoping to be rescued.

And once again, Jesus met him. With breakfast.

It’s been two thousand years, but I still find that the best cure for a troubled soul is the water and a snack.

I float on Bear Creek instead of the Sea of Galilee and eat pizza with my wife instead of fish with Jesus, but I think the essence remains the same. I return to the water because it is there that I feel God, there that I see peace overtake chaos, and there that I feel my heart unknot its sorrows and loose them into the current.

So tonight, or perhaps tomorrow night, if you try to call me I may not answer. There’s not good service on the water. I think that’s part of a divine plan.

Others

Thu, 13 Dec 2018 20:25:06 GMT

Why does the sun go on shining?
Why does the sea rush to shore?
Don’t they know it’s the end of the world?
– Sylvia Dee, Arthur Kent

Most of you reading this are aware of the Southern custom regarding funeral processions: when a funeral procession comes by, if at all possible, oncoming traffic pulls to the side of the road as a gesture of respect. I’ve seen this done when it would be safer for all involved to forgo the practice for the moment, but on the whole it’s a beautiful acknowledgment of grief. It signifies our collective sorrow at a death, the community of humanity, and the need for others’ support. It speaks to our awareness of others, and our acknowledgment of their situation.

Romans 12:15 “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.”

25 Years

Fri, 11 May 2018 19:11:42 GMT

This weekend Magnolia Funeral Home commemorates twenty-five years serving Corinth and the surrounding areas.

This kind of business has no luxury of hope – when your loved ones come to us earthly hope is past. Our work holds no promise of healing – when we are with you true healing has already come. All of us live in the valley, in the shadow, but it’s been our privilege for the last twenty-five years to help light the path through it for you.

Mother Teresa once said, “It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is not how much we give, but how much love is put in the giving.”

For the last twenty-five years we have had the privilege to do, give and mostly love while taking the lost, confusing days surrounding death and giving them the importance of a ritual, the distinction of a ceremony. We have wrapped the stumbling of grief into the clarity of moments, giving the living a touchstone. The ritual of remembrance, in whatever form the family chooses, stands against the silence of death. We have put song in the emptiness and have filled silence with eulogy.

Our work has had no vacations, no holidays. We have stumbled into a suit at 2 in the morning to take your loved one away with dignity. We have left t-ball games and birthday parties to pick up pictures and deliver flowers. We have sometimes suggested things you would not have thought of, discouraged options we knew you wouldn’t find value in, and have waited at the office after dark for the custom merchandise you ordered to make sure it’s perfect for the next day.

Over the last twenty-five years three thousand, five hundred people, your loved ones, have been brought through our doors. Some of them were old – their lives spent happily, ended surrounded by loving family. Others were young – lives cut short by tragedy. We have dressed babies the size of our hands in doll clothes, bought suits for men who had none, painted fingernails that no one would ever see – because people mattered, your family mattered. Bodies have been given to us quiet, still, shells. We have dressed them in pieces of their life, we have told them their time was well spent, we have painted their faces and washed their hair. Because they aren’t shells – not to you. The body that doesn’t hold your mother any more was her home for as long as you knew her, and we can no more discard her body without honor and ceremony than we could burn her belongings.

For twenty-five years, we have grown older in your service.

For twenty-five years we have had to sometimes sacrifice our families for yours. Our lives become second in importance to your loss.

For twenty-five years, we have faced death every day.

For twenty-five years, we have served every member of this community who came to us with the dignity and respect we would afford our own family.

For twenty-five years, you have trusted us to send your mothers, your fathers, your children – home. You have laid your greatest treasures in our hands, and we have carried them to their final rest. We have prayed, we have comforted, we have suffered, we have cried, we have toiled, and sometimes even, we have died.

But mostly we have been blessed.

Magnolia Funeral Home would like to thank Corinth and the surrounding areas for twenty-five years of trust. We hope that the next twenty-five years teach us how better to serve you.

An Ode To Time

Mon, 02 Oct 2017 19:49:02 GMT

I walked in a home to carry the dead away. The owner’s dish from breakfast sat in his sink, unwashed. He ran out of time to take care of it. His books sat on his shelves. His clock ticked on, running. But his time came.

The walls are lined with pictures – many of them old. Happy times – or times that pretended to be happy. Children. Parents. And neighbors waiting outside whisper to me “the kids won’t be here. They’re estranged.” So I look at the wall of pictures of people he doesn’t speak to. Whatever the grudge, the time for mending has passed. His pictures on the wall are just more things. Things he placed in his home so carefully – centering them on the wall and running a dust rag over the tops often enough to keep cobwebs away. They are still clear and clean. He has so many. But the things that matter, the things that aren’t things. They aren’t here.

So many houses, still and empty, where the only witness to death was silence. Homes where people surrounded themselves with junk that piled up between the walls until a path had to be carved through the rooms. Homes where the walls are bare and the furnishings stark. Surrounded by much, little, valuables, trash – we go. Hours, days, years. It all becomes the same.

And our things – our things. I’ve heard people proclaim “well they aren’t getting anything when I die, I don’t want them to have a thing.” As if it matters. As if our treasures mean anything to anyone but ourselves.

Our greatest treasures are things we dust. Or don’t dust, depending on our attention to housekeeping. And our ultimate reward to our family for their love is to be the recipient of more things to dust.

We spend our time dusting our things. Things our families don’t want. Things that don’t matter. Things that, in the end, they can’t keep themselves.

Only time. You can only leave time – time you spent with them. Time you invested in their lives, in their futures, in their joy.

I was born yesterday morning. Last night I was still young. Today I scramble backwards. And tonight I will die.

That is how it feels.

But perhaps not – perhaps days and years stretch ahead of me. Time is so fleeting – who is to know when mine is even half gone. And someday it’s all history – but everyone is focused on the past or the future or the hereafter and isn’t involved in now.

How To Hold

Mon, 18 Sep 2017 18:58:58 GMT

Memory after surgery is spotty – I remember bits and pieces of the evening after waking up from having my chest cracked open and new passageways added to my heart. But I remember my older kids coming to see me that evening. They had been there through the whole surgery, but I don’t remember that. I remember before – being in the room and all of us pretending we weren’t concerned, that we weren’t worried, that this was routine. But it wasn’t. Routine doesn’t get your spouse, your kids, your brothers, your father all up before 6 in the morning to come to the hospital to see you for thirty minutes before you’re wheeled back into an operating room. Routine doesn’t keep everyone sitting in a waiting room outside the SICU halls, doing the mundane things life is made of with the idea in the back of their minds that their mundane lives might never be the same after today.

What You Take

greg@magnoliafuneralhome.net (Greg Woodruff 2 ) — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 19:09:39 GMT

We often hear the expression “you can’t take it with you”. While this is technically true, you can fix it so that nobody else gets it either. I’ve buried thousands of dollars worth of jewelry before. I never know if it’s by the wishes of the deceased or as a comfort to the family – whatever the reason it is forever consigned to the grave.

Taking valuables to the tomb isn’t a new idea – Egyptian pharaohs were famously buried with anything they could possibly need to live comfortably in the afterlife under the assumption that it would travel with them into the realm of the dead. Their bodies were mummified and their organs preserved for the same reason – it was expected that they would need them after death.

Some of you are probably thinking that burying valuables doesn’t make any sense to you, that you’d want your family to be able to get some use out of the things you leave behind – in the same way that you work to build a business or a home or a bank account for your children.

But no matter how you are buried you still take valuables to the grave.

What if I told you that a few years ago a research scientist developed what he believed to be a cure for heart failure. That early testing proved extraordinarily promising. That the only complete formula for the cure was kept in his possession at all times. That he died suddenly – tragically – and ordered that the formula for the medicine be buried with him and that it hasn’t been used since.

Outrageous right?

And yet it happens every day. The dead take their organs to the grave, robbing the living of another chance at life. The tragedy of one lost life becomes the tragedy of two.

Tragedy, however, isn’t necessary to make a difference. You don’t have to die to save a life. Those who are medically able can donate blood many, many times throughout their lives. Some of you may have the means to give to lifesaving groups like St. Jude and Doctors Without Borders. But however we live, we all know that someday we will die. And when we die there are even more opportunities to save and enrich lives – through the donation of your organs, tissues, skin, eyes, bones – do not make the mistake of thinking you are ineligible because of medical conditions or age. That may not be the case.

No matter what your decision is about organ donation, talk to your family about it. If you choose to be an organ donor, make sure they know that’s what you want. Let the conversation make a place for a discussion about the end of your life and what your wishes are. Your family may not feel that they will be able to grieve if they commemorate your death the way you initially think you want it handled – this is an important conversation where everyone should be able to voice their concerns. I have seen families crushed because they either didn’t know how their loved one wanted to be remembered or felt that their loved one wouldn’t like the way the family felt drawn to grieve. Maybe you would like to have a small ceremony but your family thinks that a larger celebration would better enable them to move forward – or the other way around. Maybe you would like to donate your organs but your family would find that very traumatic – or maybe it’s something you hadn’t really considered but that your family would find a rewarding way to ensure that you are not forgotten. Either way it is a discussion that needs to be had. Make realistic decisions and make sure everyone is on the same page.

Organ donation is a commitment from many people – from the individual who gives, with their dying breath, for another’s life. From the deceased’s family – to know that they send their loved one to the grave in pieces. From me, as a funeral director – to ensure that the body is prepared in a way that will provide the grieving family with closure, despite the trauma of removal. From the organization responsible for the donation process – to make sure that all individuals involved are respected.

Let the discussion about organ donation be a broader one about survival, about grief, about dying, and about valuing life.

Death should not be a silent, looming certainty at the end of all of our journeys. Let it be an inspiration – the impetus for our greatest achievements. It does not have to be the end.

Think of the people you love most in the world: your wife, your son, your grandchild, your mother. Now imagine that their life could be saved by organ donation – for some of you that requires no imagination, it is an ever-present reality. If you could save their life after your own death, I’m sure none of us would hesitate to do so. But because we are removed from the lives of many who need our help, it is easy to ignore the need – to make no decision at all, and to allow 22 people a day to die waiting for a transplant. If either of my daughters, or my son, needed a kidney, I would be at the doctor within an hour of their diagnosis to find out if I were a match. I would consider it no sacrifice to have a kidney harvested from my body and transplanted into my child’s if it would save their life. But what if it were something I couldn’t give them – a heart? They would sit on a list with greater than 117,000 others, waiting. What would I give up for the list to shrink so that they would be more likely to receive the help they needed?

You are the cure.

In the past twenty-five years I have buried several donors. Often the families of the donors can meet to grieve and rejoice with the families of the recipients – to understand how seemingly senseless, terrible death can lead to new life.

More often I have buried people on the list. People waiting. People who died hoping for a miracle – for more donors. And none came. I bury people who could have donated organs in the morning and people who needed the organs in the afternoon.

The majority of us are in favor of organ donation and speak highly of the people who do it – we honor their sacrifice and admire their commitment to life. But how many of us are actually registered. How many of us have told our families to donate whatever they can at the moment of our death.

Even surrounded by death it’s not an easy decision to make; not making a choice is simpler. I am not faced with the despair of need every day. I am not on the list.

This morning I visited the official organ donation website. I had a conversation with my wife. And I registered as a donor. I pray to God my children will not need to be one of the eight lives saved by my death. But someone else’s will be.

I am not on the list of those who hope. I am on the list of the ones they hope for.

You have a choice to make about how you are buried. You can take one of two things to the grave with you: a lifesaving cure, or death itself.

Bury only death. Bury only one life.

For more information, and to sign up to be a donor, visit the official Organ Donation website here: https://www.organdonor.gov/index.html
Registering there will route you to your state’s organ donation website; it will take about five minutes.

Nathan

greg@magnoliafuneralhome.net (Greg Woodruff 2 ) — Wed, 21 Jun 2017 21:15:04 GMT

[His] absence is like the sky, spread over everything. ~ CS Lewis

The weeks after a sudden death are like stumbling through a familiar room in the dark. You think you remember where your couch is, and whether or not your toddler left blocks in the floor, but you take slow, halting steps towards the light switch, dragging your feet across the rug. Everything you encounter is nudged carefully with your sock feet in case it isn’t quite what you remember being in that spot before the lights went out.

That describes my work here at the funeral home without Nathan Dixon. The surroundings are familiar but somehow everything has changed and is uncertain. I find myself asking what Nathan would have done or said – how he would have handled things.

Nathan exemplified everything good about our profession – he was kind, he was considerate, he was gentle. His words were soothing and hopeful.

“Oh, don’t you look nice,” his soothing voice would rumble through the dressing room as we lowered a man into a casket. “Your family has done such a good job,” he would assure him, straightening the deceased’s tie. “I’ve never seen a sharper suit.” If you asked him if the dead could hear him, he would shrug and smile. But that was how Nathan was. If he wasn’t sure if you needed him or not, he erred on the side of encouragement. “Your family will be here to see you,” he’d remind them as we arranged the casket in the visitation room. “I know you can’t wait.”

Nathan devoted all of himself to each family – and treated each individual who came into our funeral home in the way he wanted us to treat his own. The gentle giant would guide each sorrowing family through their grief into a goodbye that would help them move towards the light, taking the brunt of the anger and frustration that rears its head in times like that without a second thought. He absorbed their grief, he comforted their hearts, and he tried to help bring out the joy of a life well lived.

I never heard Nathan say if he had a “life verse” from the Bible, but if I had to find one that his life seemed to be based on it would be from Proverbs 15: “A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger. A wholesome tongue is a tree of life…the lips of the wise disperse knowledge. A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance…he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast. He that is slow to anger appeaseth strife.”

Nathan was a peacemaker. Seemingly passive and unflappable, the man could stand firm in the wildest situations, nod understandingly, and slowly calm down the most disquieted soul. Everything he said was slow and certain – he never spoke without thinking.

Not exemplifying the discipline of calmness myself, there were many times I turned to Nathan to vent my frustrations about whatever incident I felt afforded a discontented mood.

“Now Dr. Gregory,” he would drawl “you know that’s just nothing to get excited about, we’ll deal with it as it happens.” For inexplicable reasons, he referred to me as doctor. I’m not sure why it started and can’t remember a time he didn’t say it, but anytime my phone rang and the screen lit up with his name, I knew the first words I heard would be “Dr. Gregory!” and that my reply, never said without a smile, was “Reverend”. The Reverend designation is easy to understand – Nathan was a born pastor. He typified an evangelist – always ready with good news, with encouragement, with a promise of hope.

Though I didn’t attend Nathan’s church, I heard most of his sermons the Monday after he preached them, when he would deliver them again in conversation to me. I can’t imagine that his delivery was more passionate in the walls of a church. His faith carried him through his life; not always easily or without trouble, but with a quiet confidence and a genuine love that filled his heart. I heard his exhortations, his gentle entreaties, and his admonitions. He loved the Word – he loved the Gospel – he loved his God.

His final sermon was preached from a pulpit the Sunday before his death, but the sermon of his life will not end until all of us who were touched by him are gone.

And now my office is empty. Nothing has changed in it but the absence of the man who towered over me in every way. His hulking frame would lower into my chair and a laugh would rumble out of his chest as he told me stories I can no longer remember and will never hear again. The words of life he spoke to me now live only in my heart. I can no longer turn and look up to Nathan to ask what to do, or to hear rumbling guidance to be calm, to be sure, to be steady. The governor on my engine has slipped and I feel myself spinning wildly, wearing out too fast. There is no hand the size of my head to pat my shoulder and reassure me, no broad shoulders to take the sadness with me, and no jovial laugh to lighten my spirit.

And now this week I do for my friend what I have done for a thousand others. I tuck him into his final resting place and become the last person on earth to see his face and commit him to eternity. I will straighten his tie and pat his shoulder and send him to God the best way I know how: the way Nathan did it.

“Good job, Reverend. ” I’ll tell him. “You look sharp.”

A Special Tribute To Mothers

greg@magnoliafuneralhome.net (Greg Woodruff 2 ) — Fri, 12 May 2017 17:30:58 GMT

Many years ago I heard this reading at a funeral of a precious mother and friend. I asked the preacher for a copy and have saved it in my files and used it many times during celebrations of other mother’s lives. I wanted to offer it here again today in honor of my mother as well as yours. Happy Mothers Day to all the women who have been a mother figure to someone.

A Little Parable For Mothers

By Temple Bailey

The young mother set her foot on the path of life. “Is the way long?” she asked. And her guide said, “Yes, and the way is hard. And you will be old before you reach the end of it. But the end will be better than the beginning.” But the young mother was happy and she would not believe that anything could be better than those years. So she played with her children and gathered flowers for them along the way and bathed them in the clear streams; and the sun shone on them and life was good, and the young mother cried, “Nothing will never be lovelier than this.”

Then night came, and storm, and the path was dark and the children shook with fear and cold, and the mother drew them close and covered them with her mantle and the children said, “Oh Mother, we are not afraid, for you are near, and no harm can come,” and the mother said, “This is better than the brightness of day, for I have taught my children courage.”

And the morning came, and there was a hill ahead and the children climbed and grew weary, and the mother was weary, but at all times she said to the children, “A little patience and we are there.” So the children climbed and when they reached the top, they said, “We could not have done it without you, Mother.” And the mother, when she lay down that night, looked up at the stars and said, “This is a better day than the last, for my children have learned fortitude in the face of hardness. Yesterday I gave them courage, today I have given then strength.”

And with the next day came strange clouds which darkened the earth, clouds of war and hate and evil–and the children groped and stumbled, and the mother said, “Look up. Lift your eyes to the light.” And the children looked and saw above the clouds an Everlasting Glory, and it guided them and brought them beyond the darkness. And that night the mother said, “This is the best day of all for I have shown my children God.”

And the days went on, and the weeks and the months and the years, and the mother grew old, and she was little and bent. And her children were tall and strong and walked with courage. And when the way was rough they lifted her, for she was as light as a feather; and at last they came to a hill, and beyond the hill they could see a shining road and golden gates flung wide. And the mother said, “I have reached the end of my journey. And now I know that the end is better than the beginning, for my children can walk alone and their children after them.” And the children said, “You will always walk with us, Mother, even when you have gone through the gates.”

And they stood and watched her as she went on alone, and the gates closed after her. And they said, “We cannot see her, but she is with us still. A mother like ours is more than a memory. She is a Living Presence.”

Hope Springs Eternal

greg@magnoliafuneralhome.net (Greg Woodruff 2 ) — Mon, 20 Mar 2017 17:13:07 GMT

Today, the vernal equinox, is the first day of Spring. It’s a day I always look forward to because it reminds me of new beginnings and the hope of resurrection and rebirth. Sorrow and loss will always be a part of the cycle of life but Spring reminds us afresh that another season will always come. Over the last 25 years I have been privileged to care for families who have suffered the loss of their loved ones. I have closed a thousand casket lids and become, in that instant, the last person on earth to see the face of someone’s greatest treasure. My faith has shaped my beliefs concerning what takes place next when I take them to the cemetery but that faith will never be fully realized until I experience death myself. In the meantime, this day compels me to believe once again that that which is “sown in corruption will be raised in incorruption” and that the loss we suffer here when our loved ones pass away will not be permanent. Hope will always spring eternal.