Lives Well Lived

Last week I told you about the tragic deaths of Chad, Andrea, and Merry Freeman, and I wrote what I prayed was a message of hope to their children – a message that they could carry with them through this incredible season of sorrow.

But a strange thing occurred to me this past Wednesday night – the night of the viewing^[1]. 

While standing in line to speak to what I could only imagine were 4 devastated young women, I watched a slide show from the lives of Chad, Andrea, and Merry. And while most folks around me wept as the pictures forced them to confront the shocking loss of 3 vibrant, beautiful people in the prime of their lives, I found myself smiling.

I know this sounds horrible. And I don’t mean to downplay the mind-boggling level of pain their children and family were no doubt experiencing greeting the onslaught of well-wishers as I stood patiently waiting my turn, but I couldn’t help it. 

As the rolodex of pictures continued to stream across the TV monitors, I felt joy… not because they had died, but because they lived. 

I mean really lived.

Every picture showed Chad, Andrea, and Merry smiling and embracing their friends and family. 

The pictures from Chad and Andrea’s prom, the pictures of them on the day their children were born, the pictures of family vacations, the pictures of Merry with her grandchildren…

I was struck by the overwhelming sense of joy emanating from all of them. It seemed to pour out of those TV screens like a cool mountain stream in the middle of a July heat wave. I couldn’t help but feel thankful.

These people got it.

Mark Twain once said, “Let us endeavor so to live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”

It was abundantly clear to me that the Freeman’s had lived their lives soaking in the love and joy of family, and they had spent their lives trying to give it back to them.

Standing in that funeral home, I understood. I understood why this hurt so much. I understood why this feeling of loss was so profound for so many.

Sure. Any time someone dies unexpectedly and at a young age, it is tragic, but people weren’t just there to pay their respects because someone young had tragically died.

No, people were standing in line in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic because they had personally lost something. Chad and Andrea and Merry had affected their lives, and they knew that they had lost something and someone special.

Jesus said, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” 

The Freeman’s lived their lives filled with a love and joy that was grounded in their faith but emanated to everyone within their sphere.

To know them was to love them.

I smiled in that funeral home because I saw lives well lived, and I see an eternity in which Merry, Chad and Andrea are living again and in which we all have an opportunity to join them. 

That is something worth smiling about.

^[1] In the American South, the “viewing” or “settin’ up” is generally held the night before the funeral. It is an opportunity for friends to pay their respects to the family and say goodbye.