Tuesday was my birthday, and I started my day with a funeral. Last Wednesday was my Aunt’s funeral. Three days ago, which was one week and one day after my Aunt’s death, my grieving cousin announced her mother-in-law died. Life and death.
The funeral I attended was for a 73 year old man named Ronnie. When he was a teenager, he met this girl, Pat. They fell in love and got married. Not long after, his brother married the sister of his sister-in-law. Two brothers married two sisters. The couples have lived on the same plot of land so long, the road is named after them. A story is told that, early on in their marriage, Pat had something important to discuss but Ronnie was “too busy” to listen. So Pat pointed a gun out the kitchen window and pulled the trigger. Ronnie came running, ready to listen.
Ronnie was a gentle giant. He was a big, weather-hardened man who spent most of his professional career inspecting bridges. He took his job seriously. Anything he did, he took seriously. Especially when it came to helping others. If he didn’t know how to do something, he’d figure it out and get it done—which is how he earned the name “Sparky”, after doing some electrical work. His hands were solid muscle and he was never in a hurry to get anywhere.
I met Ronnie and Pat maybe 10 years ago. They’ve been married so long, you always spoke of “Pat and Ronnie” or “Ronnie and Pat.” He was running the sound booth at church. He and his brother grew up reading the Bible, and when recordings came out, they listened to the Bible. Then they heard a Bible teacher on the radio that touched him so deeply, he called the church in California and told them they had too many pastors over there and they needed to plant a church in South Carolina. One came, but not from California. Long story short, he was the founding member of Calvary Chapel in South Carolina.
So my birthday was a time to reflect on the bookends: birth and death. We come, we eat, we leave. What’s important is with whom we share our food.
Someone once reminded me, and I’ll never forget, is that life is all about how you love.
Ronnie did that.
