The Day After the Day Before

I'm emotionally spent. During the night I would wake up and think, "I have to e-mail Uncle Bob about that" then suddenly realize, that option is forever closed. It was thoughts about the funeral which he himself planned. It was entirely beautiful and took so much out of one and at the same time, in a different way, filled one up.
The highlight for me was when three of his six precious sons spoke in rememberance of and honor to their dad. It was something I'll not forget. More than one said something along the lines of not realizing the scope of their father's influence until the wake. The eldest son said after talking with people he realized that his father not only loved him as a son but loved everyone. Yes, he did. Paul went on to explain that his dad couldn't help himself but love. His father knew and practiced that each person, regardless of their race or station in life or education or lack thereof reflected the image of God and therefore he was compelled to love them. That couldn't have been truer. Would that God bestow me with the same quality. I think of the judgement in me, the quick way I make evaluations of another. Forgive me, Lord and let Uncle Bob's character, the character of Christ, fall on me. The service was a celebration, but not only of Uncle Bob's life as so many funerals are today, though it was that, too. It was a celebration of Christ's love and salvation for we humans tainted with sin but destined for eternal life through the blood of Christ. True to his direction, the flowers on the casket were only three roses. One rose black to signify Uncle Bob's sin, the next red to signify the blood of Christ and the last white, to signify the way God sees us through Christ Jesus; without spot, pure as the driven snow.

Funerals have a way of bringing family members together. This was also the dynamic that was going on as cousins shared life with cousins and aunts and uncles shared life with neices and nephews rarely seen. Uncle Bob's eldest son's wife Nancy is good with Microsoft word. I brought along my first hard copy of "the book" and asked her some questions. She helped me tremendously. Her father has written two books that were published by the same publisher that Uncle Bob asked me to use. He brought along a copy of his latest and allowed me to see with my own eyes what our ultimate goal is. He shared much with me about the formatting and also noticed that I misspelled the very first word of the book. The word was "Forward" when it should have been "Forword". Of course it should be. I know that but sometimes one can look over an error a hundred times and miss it entirely. I was comforted that Nanc laughed and said, "I didn't notice that.". We tried to convince this very educated and spiritual man to edit the book. He wasn't too eager but Nancy thinks if we get it in the best form we know how, he would be happy to look it over. Nancy invited Ken and me to come a weekend when we can knock this project out and have the thing sent to the publisher. She is busy and so are we the next couple of months so we decided we will meet in March. I can't wait. I was so delighted with what she helped me see and also corrected for me. Gotta love that kind of help. I now feel as if I have a partner in crime. I know the content like the back of my hand and she knows all the Word functions so we are in business. Praise be to God. I wish so we had been able to accomplish this while he was still alive but as his wife comforted me about that disappointment she said, "he knew it was in the works and that all the material was together".