Funeral, Eulogy, and Memorial Talks
FUNERAL ADDRESS FOR HAROLD C. BROWN
[Talk given by John E. Enslen at First Baptist Church Royston, Georgia, on May 22, 1995.]
On behalf of the family, especially on behalf of Helen and Dianne, I want to thank each of you for being here today. I know that Harold would be very pleased to see so many relatives and friends. All of you were an important part of his life. We appreciate the thoughtful kindness and support which you have shown to Harold and Helen throughout Harold’s extended illness. We are particularly grateful for the special concern and interest which Danny Barton and the church family here have consistently expressed to the family, by word and deed. This church is blessed with a wonderful leader. Danny actually lives next door, but you are all good neighbors in so many ways. We have felt your sincere desire to share the burden, and we have been strengthened by your prayers, your acts of service and your expressions of sympathy. Thanks for the delicious food. Thanks for the beautiful flowers. Thanks for everything.
Mr. Brown faced certain death with courage, and he died peacefully in his home on Saturday afternoon, May 20, 1995, about 3:00 p.m. He died with dignity and honor surrounded by those whom he loved. He was cared for throughout his ordeal by the loving hands of his faithful wife, Helen, who, with the help of others, met his every need and helped to make the unbearable as bearable as possible.
I have known Mr. Brown since I began dating his beautiful daughter at Clemson University in the fall of 1967. He has been for me an ideal father-in-law. When I think of Mr. Brown, and that’s the way I have always addressed him, I see a man who was successful in a variety of different duties and responsibilities.
I see him as an exemplary faithful husband, first to Eleanor who suffered from serious health problems following a vehicular accident in 1950 at age 25 until her death 24 years later in 1974. He was dedicated to her welfare, and gave all of the years of his youthful manhood to her “in sickness” without any complaint, much less abandonment of any kind. That single fact standing alone is a powerful statement of his sterling character and integrity.
I see him as a faithful husband to Helen with whom he has shared 20 wonderful years filled with adventure and excitement. Helen has added to Harold’s life a special measure of joy. She has been his best friend, as well as a loyal companion. Each accepted the other’s pre-existing family as his or her own, and the word “step” was rarely ever used among them. It is quite an understatement to say that Harold and Helen have been good to, and good for, one another.
I see Mr. Brown as a father, first to his daughter Dianne, the apple of his eye, the possessor of the key to his heartstrings, his little cow-girl, his twirling/marching majorette, his spirited cheerleader, his graceful beauty queen, the mother of his six grandchildren, the grandmother of his great-grandchild. Mr. Brown’s supportive and loving manner in the rearing of Dianne caused her to develop a concept regarding the standards of fatherhood which, imposed upon me, have found me short of the mark on many an occasion. It must be impossible for Dianne to say anything negative about her father, for she has never to my knowledge ever done so.
I see Mr. Brown in a father’s role, also, to a scrawny, cute, little five-year-old white-headed boy named Dee. Harold’s quiet, fatherly influence has undoubtedly had an immeasurable positive impact on Dee, although we all readily acknowledge that Helen has been primarily in charge of Dee (at least until Tracy took over). Helen certainly deserves the major credit for his upbringing. But, I can’t help but believe that Dee and Sandra and Phyllis and their spouses and children have also benefited from some soft-spoken fatherly advice in response to their question from time to time: “What do you think, Harold?”
Husband, father, son to Ruby, brother to Inne, uncle to Rena, grandfather to many, friend to many more—these are his most important roles in mortality. But I see Mr. Brown in other ways:
• As a young boy, walking barefoot in the warm, fresh plowed soil in Hart County.
• As a handsome, debonair high school student in a red convertible full of friends.
• As a combat soldier in WW II, fighting in Europe, placing his life on the line in defense of principles which he has always held dear.
• Milking cows, catching chickens, slopping hogs, making PCA loans, waiting on co-op customers, and as a cattle farmer, watching over the most beautiful heard of horned Herefords that has ever graced a hilly green, Northeast Georgia pasture. I see him enjoying the labor of it all, hauling hay in his old Dodge pickup, and mending fences in the sun with his illustrious, unforgettable sidekick, Harold Thornton. No wonder Mr. Brown loved a good T.V. western, especially if it had a cattle drive in it.
• I see an avid football fan, supporting the college from which he graduated, the University of Georgia Bulldogs, supporting Dee in his many sporting activities as a youth, and later as an Air Force Falcon and national sports hero. Harold and Helen really enjoyed those crispy fall Saturday afternoons together somewhere in the Rocky Mountains of the WAC Conference.
• I see him as the first one to start washing dishes following a family meal.
• I see him bringing Dianne and me a steer for our freezer when we were struggling to get through law school.
I am sure that each of you has your own special set of memories that I hope you will silently add to this eulogy. Of course, we all know he was not perfect, but we do not have to resort to exaggeration in the least degree in order to come up with a large supply of mighty nice things to say about him. He was a gentleman in the truest sense of the word. He was considerate. He was generous. He found his happiness in seeing others happy. He was industrious. He was helpful. He possessed humility. He had a special way with plants and animals and grandchildren. He had many other noble and wonderful attributes. We will all miss him. He leaves a big void.
Dianne and I and other family members have been at peace in regard to Mr. Brown’s passing. Those feelings of peace and sweet sorrow are sacred to us. That peace has come through the whisperings of the Spirit, through the love of Christ, through the Savior’s teachings. I want to share with you the hope that is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I want to mention a subject to which Danny Barton made reference in his opening prayer—the resurrection. My faith is simple and basic on this subject.
Each of us is composed of two separate and distinctly different parts. One of those parts is our physical body. That’s the part of us that we can touch. It’s the flesh-and-bones part of us. It’s our tabernacle of clay which is composed of the same elements that we find in the dust of the earth. It’s the part of us that, over time, becomes old and wrinkled and weak and worn out and subject to disease. Our physical body is a temporary possession which has been given us for our time here on planet earth.
There is another part of us. It is not a mere temporary possession. It is the eternal part of us. Each of us is a spirit person. Our spirit person in housed within our physical bodies, thus making our physical bodies the temples of our spirits. As Paul declared, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (I Corinthians 3:16) It is the spirit part of us that gives our physical bodies life and movement and animation. It is the spirit part of us that possesses intelligence—the ability to learn, think, reason, and make choices.
Like our physical bodies, our spirits are also in the form of a person. Like our physical bodies, each spirit person has his or her own special and unique personality. A spirit person’s identity is eternal. We have always been and will always be the same person that we are now. But unlike our physical body which comes from elements of the earth, our spirits come directly from God who is the father of our spirits. Our reference to one another as “brothers and sisters” and to God as “Our Heavenly Father” is literal. We are all children of the same Father in Heaven. Man is of divine origin. In referring to God, the author of the Book of Acts stated, “For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, for we are also his offspring”. (Acts 17:28)
Understanding the nature of our being helps us to understand death. Death is the separation of our spirit person from our physical bodies. Death occurs when the body gives up the ghost or gives up the spirit person that lives within it. Understanding the nature of our being helps us to understand death. Death is the separation of our spirit person from our physical bodies. Death occurs when the body gives up the ghost or gives up the spirit person that lives within it. Artificially produced heartbeats or brainwaves do not sustain life unless the spirit remains in the body. Only God has control over the timeliness of the spirit’s departure. Ecclesiastes we read, “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.” (Ecclesiastes 12:7)
Mortal life exists as we know it when the body is quickened by the spirit. Heavenly Father is the God of both the quick or living and the dead, for he is still the God and Father of his spirit children whether we be in the body or out of the body. (See II Corinthians 12:3)
Death is inescapable. Our response to death, like our response to life, varies with our knowledge and faith. When we come to understand God’s plan of happiness for each of us, then we know that death is as indispensable to our eternal development as mortal life itself. Death is actually one of Heavenly Father’s many merciful provisions for his children. Death will be seen as kind and right when we view it from the perspective of eternity. It is life and death that provides the means for obtaining a resurrected body. A spirit person cannot have a perfect, immortal, resurrected body of incorruptible flesh and bones without first taking on an imperfect, mortal, unresurrected body of corruptible flesh and bones and blood.
Hopefully, we are taking advantage of this time on earth to improve our faith, to improve our character and our ability to control our appetites, desires, and passions so that they are exercised within the bounds that the Lord has set. One of the great challenges of mortality is to continually remind ourselves that we are not permanent human beings who occasionally have eternal-like spiritual experiences, but rather we are eternal spiritual beings who are having a temporary human experience.
What is the resurrection? It is the uniting of our spirit person with a perfect physical body, a physical body that doesn’t get sick or hurt or ache or get old or deteriorate or die again.
We could never, worlds without end, from eternity to eternity, be able to resurrect ourselves. The power is not within us to do such. Without Jesus, there would be no resurrection, and our spirits would remain without a body, one of the purposes of our earth life would fail, and we could never be like Jesus who has a glorified, immortal, resurrected body.
But because of the love and kindness and mercy of God, we will all be resurrected. None of us will be able to prevent being resurrected any more than we can prevent our own death. Neither death nor the resurrection is a product of our choice in this life. Both the “just and unjust” will be resurrected (Acts 24:15), and in that very same order. (I Thes. 4:16; Rev. 20:6) “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.” (I Corinthians 15:21-23)
The resurrection is free. It is a gift. It is not earned. It comes purely by the grace of God.
As the son of God, Christ had power over death, and because of him, death has no sting. (See 1 Corinthians 15:55) Jesus explained, “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again. This commandment I have received of my Father.” (John 10:17-18) In the end, the only thing that really dies is death itself.
There is only one type of resurrection. It is the type of resurrection that Jesus Christ has provided. As the great perfect example in all other aspects of his life, so it is with the resurrection. The scriptures record the nature of his resurrected body as he appeared to his apostles: “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” (Luke 24:39)
To further demonstrate the nature of his tangible resurrected body, he said to them: “Have ye here any meat? And they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And he took it, and did eat before them.” (Luke 24:41-43)
I humbly testify that Christ has not died again, but that he lives, and that our resurrection shall be in the likeness of his resurrection. (Romans 6:5) (See 1 John 3:2) As Job declared, “And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” (Job 19:26) As recorded in Matthew, shortly after the Savior’s resurrection, others were resurrected who were seen throughout the city of Jerusalem: “And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.” (Matthew 27:52-53)
I am thankful for the resurrection and the atonement which our Savior has so lovingly provided for Mr. Brown and for you and for me. I stand all amazed. I firmly believe that Mr. Brown, as he awaits the time of the resurrection, is enjoying peace and rest from all his labors. He is enjoying the association of his ancestral kin and loved ones and friends that predeceased him. I confess that when I heard he had passed, within my heart I silently shouted three “hoorays,” although personally, I would like to have a healthy Mr. Brown with us still. In the light of eternity, it will be but a short time before we will join him there.
I pray that each of you will find these words to be a fitting tribute to him and the honorable earth-life he led. And I pray that an increased measure of peace may come to our ears as we ponder God’s gift of the resurrection. These things I say in the name of Him who is the Resurrection and the Life, even our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Amen.