Honoring a Life.

Don Eggleston is a dear friend and colleague.  He has spent the balance of his professional and personal life assisting health care systems, and individual people grapple with issues of meaning, purpose, and Holy Mystery.  You will never meet a human being with more integrity than Don Eggleston.  Period. 

A few months ago, I met him for coffee.  I learned that his best friend of fifty years was dying.  I didn’t know his friend, Paul, but I knew what he meant to Don.  These two reverent/irreverent men shared the same spiritual DNA.  When I learned of Paul’s recent death, I simultaneously learned that Don would be delivering the eulogy.  Don is a gifted speaker.  I knew that whatever he had to say would flow from painstaking reflection.  I asked him if he would be willing to share with SMC the experience of writing and delivering a eulogy for someone so dear.  In retrospect, I can see what a big “ask” that was.  What follows is a profound act of generosity on Don’s part to enter back into the center of his own grief to retrieve a reflection for the rest of us.  From the bottom of my heart, thank you Don. 

“Become who God intended you to be, and you will set the world on fire.”  (St. Catherine of Siena, 14 c.)

I recently delivered the eulogy for my friend Paul, who died on July 22^nd. This easily-remembered quote from St. Catherine of Siena  provided a nice introduction to the easily-remembered life of my friend Paul.  Paul was theology teacher at Christian Brothers College High School (St. Louis, MO) for 35 years.  In this capacity, he also placed his students in community service assignments intended to deepen their understanding of the gospel mandate to serve the “least” among us.

Paul was a remarkable husband, father, grandfather, son, brother, friend and mentor. He helped to establish exemplary volunteer programs that served young adults with special needs and men who were imprisoned.

As Paul’s friend, he taught me two enduring lessons:

• Allow yourself to be transformed by people who at first glance appear to have little to offer.
• Never trust a spirituality that omits laughter.

I have delivered the eulogies of five people: my mother and father, a friend from my mid-twenties who took her own life, a priest-friend who died after a twelve-year bout with cancer, and Paul.  Each eulogy was a privilege to offer; however, each eulogy also required a lot of reflection and recollection and prayer for enlightenment.  To me, the purpose of a eulogy is to remember, to celebrate, to console, to metabolize our grief, to express gratitude and to evoke hope.

The preparation of Paul’s eulogy was difficult, as one might expect.  I admired him.  I had countless important conversations with him over the course of our 50-plus year friendship.  I was able to observe him as a father, husband, teacher, volunteer and mentor to many young people.  Some of the most uproarious laughter in my life occurred in the presence of Paul, as did some of my most wrenching sorrows.

There were a few crying jags and some sleepless stretches in the week  that I had to prepare my remarks. 

Paul’s life was so rich.  In front of me were fifty years of memories, stories, sorrows, regrets, lessons learned, reasons for gratitude, and a wealth of emotions.  During the preparation, I imagined a kind of emotional colander, or strainer to help me sift through all of this to catch the key messages about Paul’s life.  I was anxious that I might cry too much, leave out a key point, or go way off course.  By allowing my thoughts and emotions, especially my grief and disbelief that Paul was really gone, to be sifted out by my “colander,” I became calmer, more grateful and more confident that I would honor Paul (and his wife/caregiver Jane) with my words. 

The framework that emerged was threefold: (1) What kind of qualities did Paul have that made people so grateful to have known him? (2) What did he teach us-in a classroom, in friendship, in his example of mercy toward others, in his illness and death? (3) How did the many facets of Paul’s personality—his reverence and irreverence, his distinct sense of humor, his vulnerability, his delight in daily experiences and his insistence upon finding the good in others—leave little doubt in those who knew him that God, the Holy One is within and among us?

I felt some of my grief fall through the holes in the colander, but it still clogs up unexpectedly with a memory, or a call from a common friend of ours.  Yesterday, it showed up when I felt a soft breeze on my face while walking our dog, Ray, early in the morning.  I’m grateful for it all: the sorrowful, glorious and joyful mysteries of my life with an incredible friend.

Questions to Consider in Preparing a Eulogy

If you are ever asked to deliver a eulogy, I would suggest getting your “emotional colander” out and asking yourself the following questions

• What are 2-3 things that I want to convey about this person’s life and why it held such immense meaning? 

• What was so profound about this person’s life that makes it so difficult to move forward?

• What about this person’s life suggests the nearness of God to us?

• What are examples from this person‘s life that represented their values and contributions?  How were you/others changed by your interactions with this person?

• What were the key experiences in this person’s life (i.e., military service, a difficult period in life, a vocational choice, a religious experience) that influenced them and embedded such rare qualities within them?

• Why did this person’s life matter?

To me, it would be very difficult to deliver a eulogy without speaking within the framework of faith, without speaking of how God became real in this person.  Each person whom I eulogized was flawed to some degree; their lives were touched by tragedy, false steps, and missed opportunities.  However, their lives also spoke of raw kindness, abiding acts of sacrifice, integrating setbacks and creating joy.

We need to remember them and mark our trail forward by their signpost.

From the Conclusion of My Eulogy for Paul:

“I KNOW that Paul lived in such a way that life for him beyond this life is much more than mere sentimentality or a lifelong accumulation of spiritual “points” for doing more good things than bad things in life.  That’s far too superficial to think that of Paul.  Actually, Paul understood his religion, his faith, in its purest form.  The word “religion” in its Latin root is “religio,” which means “to connect” and is the root word of ligament, the connective, sinewy tissue that enables movement and agility.  Along the way in his life, Paul experienced something so holy—in his family, in his studies, in his love for nature, in his thoughts and worries and in his loves—that it set off an energy and liveliness that made him SEE things differently and, therefore, ACT differently in a world that currently runs WAY too low on mercy, compassion, humility and CONNECTION.”

The delivery of a eulogy is an honor and a responsibility and it demands a lot of you.  It is also an opportunity to be a vehicle of redirection, deep gratitude, recommitment and remembrance.  Ask for God’s grace when preparing and anticipate being accompanied by the Holy One in this Holy Work.