A Eulogy

Lovella Marie (Buffington) Warren

There is no one, holy and righteous way to do this. If we were down in what's left of New Orleans, we would be marching in a parade and dancing in the streets. If we were somewhere in the Middle East, we would tear our clothes, throw dirt on our heads, and hire lots of women to scream and cry regardless how they felt, or even whether they knew the deceased.

Instead, we gather in a quiet room, rather plain, and rather plainly dressed at her son's request, so that Marie gets all the attention in this, her final glory. This tension between proper and casual existed from the start. Dennis tells me as a young boy, when his mother stood to sing a hymn in church one Sunday, he tugged at her skirt and told her to sit down and don't sing. She was proper and he was casual.

Yet she certainly knew life could not be all seriousness. During an ice storm here some years back, she cooked up a meal and invited my wife's parents, Royce and Velma Packard, to share it with her. They lived only a couple of blocks away. Did she know it was all ice everywhere outside? Sure. "Just slide on down here," she said, "it's all downhill anyway." And while they liked to have never got back home that evening, they all felt it was worth it, just the same. There's got to be a certain joy in living.

I watched her almost giggle giving stuff away once. She said, "You can't take it with you." As Dennis can relate, we are painfully aware of how much stuff someone can accumulate without trying. We gathered one day recently to help move her belongings, and it took four of us most of the day. But it wasn't just a bunch of stuff she left behind -- she also left a quote to be read today: "Many are the plans of a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails" (Proverbs 19:21). You take what God has granted you, use it as best you can with a clear conscience, and leave the rest in His hands. Then you stand before Him, as it were, naked. A lot of stuff with Marie's name on it is sitting in Dennis's garage. What survives death is only eternal things, things with God's name on them.

Inside this very lovely box is just a shell. You'll recognize the form, but she's not there. I hardly knew Marie; our paths seldom crossed. Most of you here knew her far better than I. I'm told she called on the Lord's Name often enough, but He alone knows what was in her heart. We know only what she allowed us to see. So we have our memories of her, such as they may be, which now includes this place, this time, and this last moment together with those memories. It's only fitting we should share this one last song she chose in celebration of what really matters most.

We sing "Family of God."