Every day there are stories about people dying unexpectedly. Are we ever really ready for a loved one's death? Why don't we all give the gift to our survivors of preplanning AND pre-paying our funeral and cemetery arrangements?!
The Rev. Buddy Stallings of St. Bartholomew's Church in New York City recently wrote some exquisitely eloquent words about the sudden death at 7:30 A.M. of a church employee who was already at work at the church. The employee was 58. He was a father, brother, son, etc.:
Offering all we have
THE REV. F. M. "BUDDY" STALLINGS
JUNE 29, 2012
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 On Wednesday morning Rex Villa,our Lead Engineer, arrived at work before seven as he normally did to start a very early and conscientious day. By 7:30 several of us were standing heartbroken and fearing the worst by his side as a gurney transported him to the hospital. In hardly any time at all, the doctors announced what we already knew: Rex had died. He was 58 years old but only by a few days.
Rex was quiet but not as quiet as I thought. The colleagues who worked most closely with him have told great stories about his terrific sense of humor. I knew him most as one who had a ready smile, an immediate willingness to do all he could to help, and the ability to repair complicated systems that saved us lots of money.
As his wife, children and large extended family gathered around him in the ER at the hospital, I came very quickly to know much more about him. Beloved husband and father, son (his father is still alive; I just can't imagine what he must be feeling), brother -- his was a pivotal role in a big full life outside St. Bart's. One of his sisters today shared a conversation in which he and she had recently engaged. They were talking about how rough life can be, the drone of work and the regularity of doing it all over day-after-day. She recalled Rex's words like this, "I guess we weren't made to be rich, but what we have is the opportunity to work every day and provide for our family. And that is enough." In my book these are the words of a deeply wise man.
No matter how long I am in this business or in this life for that matter, I have learned again this week something that is a huge truth. There is not much to be said to people facing such loss from their lives -- lives that looked and were one way late Tuesday evening that morphed into something so foreign a few hours later as to be truly unimaginable. Rex's beautiful wife, Gina, and his three bright teenage kids are in un-chartered water. Nothing seems okay because it isn't. And nothing really will ever make this loss okay; but at some point, people who love them and have earned the right to say something like this will promise this family that someday it won't be so horrible as it is right now. And slowly they will come to find that that is true.
Until then, all of us who cared for Rex and now find our hearts breaking for his family will just stand quietly by them, offering all we have, which is our presence |
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