Eulogy
eulogy /ˈju·lə·dʒi/
a speech or piece of writing containing praise for someone who has recently died: “He delivered the eulogy at his father’s funeral.” To eulogize someone is to speak well of an individual and reflect on how much you respect and admire them, especially as a memorial after their death.
For the second time in 6 months, I am pouring over the words of a beloved parent’s eulogy. In both losses, my husband has been asked to read it while I serve as behind-the-scene editor. It’s a surreal honor to summarize a loved one’s life with the best shaped words you can find.
Most eulogies are an outline, a highlight, of the plot points of accomplishment and meaning in someone’s life. Education. Professional highlights. Hobbies.
It follows that I am taking a long hard look at my own legacy. What have I accomplished in my life? What mattered? What have I dispensed? What will I leave?
Since funeral event planning has become my new part time thing, our dinner conversation recently turned towards my children’s humorous description of opening my funeral with the Via Dolorosa playing as my coffin is wheeled down the east side aisles of their childhood church as they take their seats on their drool-stained mauve colored pews to the right. The outrageous scene made everyone laugh and then as the laughter died down, they said “No, but really. That’s what we’re doing.”
The plot points of my life have resided firmly in those three lanes. My kitchen, my family, and my church. My ministry has always been as a support beam. A support beam in the structure of the lives around me.
Everything I’ve invested in has a relationship attached to it, so my true eulogy will be the flesh and blood people sitting in those mauve pews. My children and grandchildren are where my true legacy will most reside, just as I am the living legacy of my grandparents.
The best and strongest Witness that built my life was not a sermon or a book, it was my simple, humble grandparents. Their lives were the greatest apologetic I ever read as they left their mark on me and in me.
I’m nowhere near the end of my life, Lord willing, but I know what matters to me. It’s settled in my core. I’m blessed with the best husband in the history of husbands. I’m blessed with longevity in flourishing friendships. I’m blessed with grown kids who don’t HAVE to be with each other and with us, yet they still choose to. I’m blessed with ridiculous amounts of laughter and lighthearted love. My family and my church mattered and it was there I spent my life.
In addition to my family, my new calling as a 50-something mama and grandma, is to build support beams of encouragement to women in all seasons of life who are waiting for breakthrough. Women who are suffering in silence as they wait. I serve humbly with open hands. One transforming conversation at a time. The enemy tries to tell me it’s insignificant. God assures me - it’s not. Just as all the seemingly insignificant investment behind me has yielded fully grown trees.
I’ll walk out the rest of my eulogy telling others that hope prevails and Jesus is worth loving. I’ll continually remind myself and others that when we hold onto anger, bitterness & unforgiveness, we do the devil’s work for him.
I’ll build the plot points that remind others of the goodness of God in a life that often hurts. We serve a good Father who allows hurt. But we also serve an Abba who uses hurt for good.
My eulogy will remind others that we are not defined by our circumstances. We are beloved sons and daughters. This is our true identity. One that doesn’t shift or fall apart under life’s strains, failures, imperfections, and setback.
A paragraph may be reserved for the moments I failed miserably and kept walking. Moments where I choked out whispers of life into those entrusted to me even when words failed me. Where I cultivated belonging on the road to belong. In all these moments I learned the immense value of gratitude.
Someone else will pen my eulogy. It will likely be someone who will sit quietly in a padded mauve pew and watch another read it aloud. It might mention of my love for all things Christmas. It might make note of a very loved cast iron comal sitting on my stove. It will most definitely be living and breathing in the lives of the humans who fell asleep during Sunday evening services and left drool stains bearing witness to the whole glorious thing.