Mike didn't make it back from Maine for Mark's funeral, so we went in his stead which is what the family of a travelling man learns to do with no fuss. We don't have "funeral" clothes; thankfully rarely having need for them, but we got ourselves together. I didn't know what to expect, not fully sure of where his loyalties lay. Afterall, the years before he settled in with his Dad to repair and tow trucks, he was a driver running hard and fast, taking on the same badge as Mike.
Arriving, I was surprised at the size and architecture of such a simple man's church but wasn't surprised so many were there that we had to park in the grass. Turns out running behind finally worked out for me because we were directed to the balcony, getting a bird's eye view of the most sobering scene I've been blessed to witness in so long.
The first speaker said that he had prayed for Mark's healing and .....God had done that.....freed him from the cancer. He reminded us that absence in the body is presence with the Lord. The next preacher had known Mark since he was a young man and reassured that regardless of his edgy disposition, he had drawn near to his Saviour in the last months and then quoted to the family that they haven't lost something if they know where to find it. The last man said about suffering: "But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold." Job 23:10. Mark had said to him that in his sickness, he must still be here for a purpose, even for just one person. I, for ONE, was touched by what played out.
I had already admired from our high post the sight of the sun moving through the large perched windows across the cascades of bright spring color flowers behind the handsomely suited Fireman guardsmen. At the end of the service, in the coffin covered with the brilliant colors of our flag, the light was cast on his face just before we rose to sing "Shout to the Lord" in what I will never be convinced was anything less than divine. Only our last three rows could see out the glass to the mountain tops as we sang, "the mountains bow down," and in my elation, I glanced down again and cried when I saw his daughters each with a hand slightly lifted in praise for the One who took their Daddy away to be His own.
As we were leaving, I got a chance to reach into the processional car of his wife, hold her hand, and say, "The sun..." and she replaced her weeping with a smile and said, "Yes, it's like it was reflecting from him."
I got him right in my "Realization" story; a picture of his great, big laughing smile was on the front of the bulletin (for lack of the better word). I don't think, for me, this funeral will have ever comparison. I went away unafraid of death for the first time but knowing I'd better get to living harder because none of us are guaranteed more than his 51 years.
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