My buddy's father died last Thursday. He had suffered a sudden brain aneurysm and by the time he was flown to the hospital, it was too late. We had just seen each other not too long ago at church for a baptism, and at a play that my kids and my buddy's kids were in. He was happily married for 54 years to his wife and best friend, and they had six children together. He was an active parishoner at St. Robert Bellarmine parish for 42 years, serving on the parish council and Pre-Cana team, organizing their parish March For Life bus trip to Washington D.C. with his wife, and as a lector, extraordinary minister, and a weekday altar server.
Strange as it sounds, apart from my mother-in-law's passing five years ago (also from a brain aneurysm, ironically), death is a bit of a foreign thing for me. All my grandparents died either before I was born or when I was too young to remember much. I had a few friends of friends who died suddenly in high school who I heard about through the grapevine. So I haven't experienced the sting of death as acutely as many have. I'm sure my time will come; no one of us can escape it.
By circumstance, my buddy had forgotten his wallet back home two states over during all of this (and some other concurrent events they were also dealing with simultaneously), and I offered to shuttle it up to him at his parent's house this evening. You never really know when it comes to death how people will respond or what state of being they are in. It's kind of our default mode to put on our mourning face in solidarity when you walk into a room of family members who have experienced sudden loss and are in the midst of getting affairs in order and planning the funeral. But I had a feeling, knowing the faith of my buddy, his parents, and his siblings, that it might be a different affair. Exiting the turnpike and about fifteen minutes out he texted me a different address to meet him at--he and his brothers and sisters had gone out for a bit to play pickleball.
When I arrived at the courts, my buddy came over to meet me with his usual smile and we embraced. I joked with him about not wanting to get pulled over carrying the wallet of an Islamic terrorist (making reference to his ten inch long Osama Bin Laden beard that we're always razzing him about). He laughed and offered me a paddle. It was a humid summer's evening, and the five of us were the only ones out sweating on the courts. We won a match and lost a match, falling to his sister's wicked backspin.
As we walked back down the path to our respective cars, I made mention to my buddy, "Your dad lived a good life, and we have the assurance of faith in Christ. I don't know how people live without faith, honestly." "Isn't that the truth," he replied, adding when I asked about his mom that she was doing well and happy the whole family was together.
The naturalness of the evening--knowing that the end is not really the end for those with faith--was a testament in and of itself to the promises of our Savior. I did not have to hide my smiles, and while we offered Masses for my friend's father a few days ago to be welcomed into happy repose, my friend and his family were not subject to the existential crisis that those without faith often are. Ask any priest who has ever presided over a funeral for a family without faith and they will tell you the same. It's never easy of course, but as Christians we aren't left holding the pieces necessarily, trying to make sense of everything apart from God's will and promises.
St. Robert Bellarmine (another irony, perhaps?) wrote with profound simplicity in The Art of Dying Well,
"Those who live well will die well."
My buddy's father lived by faith, and lived well. By whatever mystery of God's will he was called back, that assurance will be a monument to his family in perpetuity, and an example to those who look to see the evidence of faith in the world--that Christians need not fear death when they have lived well and placed their trust in the tender mercy of the Divine Savior. Deo Gratias.
In your charity, please pray for the repose of the soul of Leonard Cline, (June 14, 1943-July 1, 2021).
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