I was privileged to be one of a small group of individuals in attendance at a memorial service in Houston yesterday. Actually, I awakened in the early morning hours thinking about how the day might unfold. I felt honored to be invited.
Of the small group of people that gathered, I was sort of the odd man out. I had only known the couple for a dozen or so years. Others in attendance had mostly shared a lifetime with them.
The friendship I shared with the couple was born out of tragedy. I previously had been friends with the husband's mother and step-father. I was also their pastor. I met the son and his wife when the husband's mother, and step-father were killed in a car accident.
A friendship was forged from that shared time together that remains to this day. Through it, my life has been enriched. There is something about sharing life with others in the midst of life's greatest difficulties that seemingly yields a forever friendship.
Unknown to me until recently, the wife regularly read by daily blog and often read it to him. Consequently, they knew far more about what was happening in my life than I did in theirs.
One of the things I thought about yesterday before my feet hit the floor are the people I've come to value as friends that I would have never known had it not been from the privilege of standing with them during some of life's darkest hours.
The Eulogy the husband shared yesterday concerning his wife of 52 years tugged at my heartstrings. The couple had been married in the Episcopal Church and wedding vows proved to be a life-long commitment.
The husband pledged to his wife: "To have and to hold from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God's holy ordinance."
It was that commitment made before God that proved to be a guiding light that served as the cornerstone for their marriage through "better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health." He never failed to love and to cherish. It is a bond that continues although she is now on the other side of eternity.
All My Best!
Don
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