When I read the newspaper, I read
straight through, national news, local news, sports, obituaries. Oh, wait—obituaries. Yep! I
read some of them, but even if I do not read the obituary I always look at the
ages of those who have died. This has a
morbid fascination for me. How many of
them were my age? How many younger? How many older? This past Sunday there were only four my age
or younger. One of those four died in a
car accident, one died in a fire. Out of
those thirty-one obituaries twenty-seven of them represented people older than
I, many of them in their nineties.
The next
thing I look for is if they just say “passed away” or if they say “went to be
with Jesus” or “went to their heavenly home” or something similar. I know that these expressions do not cover
all Christ followers or even that all of those mentioned are Christ followers,
but it does suggest that a relationship with the Lord was important.
Three years
ago in the Cincinnati paper I found an obituary that caught me. It was the obituary of a twenty-week old
baby. His obituary read in part, “ Owen had varied interests and many hobbies.
He was an avid explorer, and his greatest adventure was searching for
the Gruffalo, a fictitious yet very dangerous British fairy tale character. Among his other interests were going to
pumpkin patches, farms, record stores and even bars, where he was never
carded. He loved music and would spend
hours dancing with his parents to the lullaby versions of Creedence Clearwater
Revival songs and, depending on his mood, the Beatles. He generally liked music of any sort if it
had a good beat. His other favorite
hobby was melting hearts. He did that
only with his smile. He enjoyed long
walks in the woods. He was always
fascinated with the trees and clouds above.
The higher he looked, the happier he was. . . .Everyone who met him
wanted to spend more time with him.” I
suspect his life would have been more of the same, if he had lived. His parents sound like cool people. They made his short life an adventure.
About the
same time I found an obituary for a man who died at age ninety.
I won’t go into his family, training, jobs, not even the
long list of places he served. But these
were the best lines: “From his teenage
years onward, G. C. bent his mind most acutely on studying the Word of
God. His study of the Word led him to
have a lifelong abiding faith in the promises of Jesus Christ. He had a humble heart and was a godly and
gentle man of integrity. G. C. shared
the gospel openly and joyously with everyone who came into his life.” I like that better than, “He/she was of the
Baptist faith.”
I’ve
thought about what I would want my obituary to say. I’m not sure it needs to have a litany of
places I’ve lived or jobs that I’ve had or any of those facts about me. I would
like my obituary to say that I loved God, my family, people, but most of all I
would want to be to be described as that baby, “the higher he looked, the
happier he was.” I want to be happiest
when I am looking up and I want my life to reflect that. I can look around me and be discouraged or
overwhelmed, or I can look heavenward and know that this world is not my
home. I am just passing through. I am looking up.
~~Faith Himes Lamb
