Signs of a Life Well-Lived

We spent today at the funeral of my husband’s great-uncle, Harold. Normally, I am not a fan of funerals especially of distant relations. I just feel like an intruder and a spectator to someone else’s grief, but not today.

Today I watched the signs of a life lived in love and service of family and humanity. A man who was loved not only by his widow, 5 children, 30 grandchildren, and 18 great-grandchildren (with a great-great due soon). He was mourned also by his 15+ “adopted” children, those who somehow or another found their way to his household and were never turned away. They were fed and bedded down and given love and support, not just for a brief period, but for the rest of his life.

He was a good old country farm boy who lived in the house his parents built with their own two hands. When it became clear to everyone that he was dying, he insisted on dying at home in the same room where he was born 80 years ago. He was laid to rest in a coffin made for him by his own sons from a tree they cut on his property. For the last week they stripped the bark and lovingly planed each piece until it shone with the lovely richness that only cedar has. They marked each corner with his brand and then lined it with a quilt made for him by his sister.

Over 300 people crowded into a tiny country church and spilled out into the Fellowship Hall just to take a moment to tell him good-bye. They all laughed together as they sang “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” on the day before Easter because it always made him smile as he recalled the boy he was who thought it was his own special hymn, “Hark! Harold’s Angels Sing.” They all cried together as Taps sounded out across the windy Oklahoma prairie as he was laid in the ground surrounded by generations of his family, exactly as he would wish it.

He is an example to us all of a quiet and seemingly unimpressive life that in truth changed the lives of everyone he met. His is a life lived in faith and charity, exactly the way our Creator asked him to live it. May we all follow the example of Uncle Harold, and when we hear the call of God, rise up to meet it.