John Robert Lewis

I like funerals. I like the raw emotion and the simple gestures.  I like the well told stories and the shared, rueful, laughter.  I like the occasional token - an angel coin from a young mother's service, the green satin ribbons we took from Grandpaw's casket - as well as the memories.  I like the remembrance of a life well-lived, if cut short before we were ready to say goodbye.

Funerals are a story telling time - how he met his wife, what he wore as he crossed the Edmund Pettis bridge - and that, too makes me smile.  They're old stories, or stories to be told only after I'm gone, and they always shine a light on a particular piece of the human spirit.  Joy or kindness, erudition or compassion, the teller wants us to know that about the deceased, and will stand, choking back tears, until the story is told.

Pericles and Antony and Abraham Lincoln were joined by Sheila Lewis O'Brien this afternoon.  She spoke of her Uncle Robert with such love, such delight, such passion that the tears rolled down my smiling cheeks.  The Presidents and others spoke truths and exhorted us to remember that  Democracy is not a state. It is an act.

I spent the day enjoying Congressman Lewis's life story.  It healed the hole in my heart created by our current situation, at least just a little.  He had such faith, such determination, such focus.  His funeral reminded me of all that is possible, of all that is necessary, of all that we can be.

Rest in peace, John Robert Lewis.  May your memory be a blessing.