Eulogy for My Aunt Betty

[I shared this eulogy at the funeral of my Aunt Betty today. Betty was actually my great-aunt. But, at 84, she was just nine years older than my mother and was the widow of my Great-Uncle Carl, who was the younger brother of my grandmother. I was honored to be asked to share these thoughts with friends and family gathered together today. Gary, Susie, and Jack were Carl's and Betty's children, first cousins to my mother. But the latter two were actually closer to me in age.]

When Susie asked me to say a few words about my Aunt Betty, she told me that what she had in mind wasn’t a sermon. A sermon, of course, proclaims the Good News that all who believe in Jesus Christ will live with God forever. We all need to hear that Good News--that Gospel--today. It’s the only thing that can give us hope for the future and the power to live today. And I’m looking forward to the Pastor bringing that wonderful message to us this morning!

But Susie was right. A eulogy is appropriate today. Yet, I've got to admit that since talking with Susie, I’ve wondered what I should say. I’m accustomed to giving sermons; but I’ve never delivered a eulogy before. As I considered what I would say though, I thought about that word, eulogy. It’s a compound word, literally meaning good word. In eulogies, we say good words about loved ones or friends who have passed from this life. We recount life lessons we’ve learned from them. We tell of our happy memories of them.

To tell you the truth, most of my happy memories of my Aunt Betty also involve my Uncle Carl. From the moment that another member of the extended family, my uncle’s first cousin Mary Ranck, introduced Carl to Betty, when they were just teenagers, they were inseparable. And even after Uncle Carl died four years ago, the bond of their love remained unbreakable. During a memorable visit I had with Aunt Betty down in Cincinnati, she not only spoke of my uncle with obvious affection, but told me how much she looked forward to being with him again in heaven.

Anyone who observed the two of them together knew how much they loved one another. They didn’t send each other love poetry. Nor was their love such that they never disagreed or got on one another’s nerves. I remember, for example, when we helped Carl, Betty, Susie, and Jack move to the place in Springfield, we’d made several runs between here and there and everybody was tired. No one more so than Carl who, with everyone in the car asleep but him and me, began to whistle to keep himself awake. (I used to love to listen to Carl whistle and sing!) He’d been warbling awhile, when Betty said, “Carl, be quiet!” He realized she was right and rolled the window down to let the air wake him up. Later, I heard the two of them laugh about this incident.

The picture I got of their marriage, both when I was a boy and when I grew to be a man, was of a couple who were rowing in the same direction. And they did that their entire married life!

It wasn’t always easy, I’m sure. Their life wasn’t untouched by the kinds of adversity or even tragedy that drive some couples apart. They went through major turmoil when they were young. And when my cousin Gary died, far too young with far too much promise left in life, I was inspired by Carl’s and Betty’s resilience. Not just resilience. Even in their grief, they exhibited strength and hope that could only have been theirs because they knew that they...and Gary...belonged to a Savior Who promises, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

I guess I’d better watch out or this eulogy may turn into a sermon.

So, there’s one other thing I want to mention about my aunt. And that’s her laughter. For as long as I live, I’ll never forget her laugh. It was one of those deep and ready laughs that too many people give up when they hit a certain age, as though there were something immature about enjoying life. In spite of her battles with the pains and heartaches of life, Betty rarely seemed to have that problem.

My cousin Jack and I sort of grew up together, since we’re only four months apart in age. I often stayed for extended visits with him when the family lived first in Oakwood and then, in Carol Stream. I think that Betty took particular delight in Jack’s and my antics, whether we were pretending to be teen musical sensations...we called ourselves the Bedd Buggs, pretending to have a radio station, or presenting the evening TV news and weather at her dining room table. We incited loud laughter from Betty. But her laughter never seemed like derision, only delight. That’s the way it was with Betty: something tickled her and she let loose with that unique laugh of hers.

Uncle Carl, surely a hambone, a feature that seems to have been liberally spread throughout the family tree, never had a more receptive audience than my Aunt Betty. She not only laughed when he cracked his jokes, but often asked him to repeat them for the benefit of others.

It was, I suspect, her deep faith in Jesus Christ, that gave Aunt Betty such a delicious sense of humor, such an appreciation of the absurd, and such a capacity for rebounding from setbacks.

Once, when I was a boy and my aunt and I were alone in her kitchen, she told me about her faith and how she came to believe in Jesus. She told the story without fanfare or drama. Jesus Christ was the foundation on which she built her life and all her hope. And she told the story with both gratitude and matter-of-factness.

And it’s here that my eulogy almost inevitably must become a sermon. I find it impossible to speak my good words about Betty without also remembering the Good News of the Savior in Whom she believed!

Today, you see, I think, Aunt Betty would want all her family and friends to know that Jesus, Who rose from the dead, is good for His Word. He was waiting for her when she passed from this life and came into His presence. And she would tell you that those happy reunions for which she so longed have taken place and are still taking place and will keep taking place eternally. Not only is she with the Lord, she’s also with Carl and with Gary and all her other loved ones who died believing in Jesus.

A hopeless world may look at my aunt and think that cancer and death claimed another hapless victim. But she would tell a different story. She would say, with the apostle Paul, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

And then she would laugh. We can too.

This may have sounded like a sermon. That’s because in sermons, ordinary, imperfect people tell the Good News of Jesus to others. This has been a eulogy, but if it sounds like something more than that the reason is simple: Aunt Betty’s life was a sermon.