Funerals… and what’s really important 

This past weekend I attended two funerals, one in person on Saturday for three hours and one virtually on Sunday for five hours. Both of them made me ponder what are the really important things we should be focusing on in the years we have left. And, by the nature of this column, (All About SENIORS), many of us don’t have a lot of years left. So, let’s talk about it. 

Saturday’s funeral was for a former work colleague at Blue Bird, David Williams. Not just a co-worker but a co-worshipper as well since we attended the same church back in the 80’s when we lived in Fort Valley. 

Our relationship was such that he even took his vacation to drive 2000 miles roundtrip with his family to visit us in Canada after we transferred from Fort Valley. I reminisced about that visit with his wife and kids as I went through their receiving line Saturday. 

David was a hard-working technician in the Experimental department of Engineering. He loved his work and was good at it. But he loved his co-workers even more, and in fact, his family arranged that all of David’s pall bearers were former co-workers of his from the Experimental Dept.  

The choice of those pall bearers was not an “after thought”; it was very intentional! And the reason it was intentional was because, for David, his work was a ministry, not just a job. He was known for always wearing a smile no matter what. And that smile was a badge of confidence of his relationship with The Lord and his willingness to share that confident compassion and wisdom with his co-workers, or anyone else for that matter, who needed encouragement. David’s funeral service was absolutely a celebration of a life well lived with right priorities! 

The second funeral I attended virtually on Sunday was that of Charlie Kirk, the young political activist and founder of Turning Point USA, who was assassinated on September 10^th at the young age of 31 while speaking on the campus of Utah Valley University. 

This kind of a venue, speaking to college students and allowing them to pose hard questions to him, was one of his main callings, i.e. to reach out to college students with a message of hope from The Gospel of Christ and the blessings of freedom, especially the freedom of speech, that we have here in the USA. Sadly, his assassin didn’t share Charlie’s appreciation for the free speech we enjoy under the first amendment to our constitution, and he tried to take away Charlie’s right as well with a bullet that instantly took his life as well as his speech. 

But, of course, that bullet had the exact opposite effect. Instead of silencing Charlie, it multiplied his voice and message thousands of times over as was demonstrated by the 100,000 + that attended his memorial service live, and 100 million + that live streamed it, not only in the USA, but all over the globe! 

These attendees and viewers watching five hours of speakers all verifying Charlie’s message and priorities of Faith, Family and Freedom are witnesses to the fact that Charlie did indeed have his priorities right and he was actively working on them literally until his last breath! 

These two funerals gave me lots of time last weekend to ponder my priorities and what I’m doing to actively promote them. So here they are: Each Saturday I pray for a proper balance between temporal priorities vs. eternal priorities as I seek to be the best husband, father and grandfather I can be by consistently living out the same faith and gospel that David and Charlie did. I know I fall far short of that goal but that’s why I keep praying for guidance and help in trying to achieve it. 

What are your priorities as we live out these last years of our lives together? 

Thanks for reading All About Seniors…..see you next week!