Earlier today (8 Feb) we had the ceremony celebrating the life of my father, John Byrd. He passed away unexpectedly Monday 3 Feb falling asleep in Biloxi and awaking in heaven. As you might imagine it has thrown our family into a whirlwind of activity.
Having just returned to Germany on the first, I unpacked, then repacked, my suitcase as well as one for Ginger and Faith then we headed off for a flight experience from the depths of travel hell. An abandoned bag made for security woes, missed flight, paying the same as an additional ticket for a different flight later in the day, and never having time to stop between ports of call until arriving at the airport in Biloxi.
Somewhere along the way my brain began to formulate the eulogy given below. In typical fashion it was completed shortly before walking out the door to head for the church. After the service I was told that the two Episcopal ministers behind me hastily flipped through their Books of Common Prayer to find the spot which I quoted. That tickles me to no end. Almost as much as when Father Roberts, who provided the homily after me, opened with, “I thought John was gone, but he’s still here.”
This was much harder that I thought it would be, but it did end up being as cathartic to my soul as I hoped. So at the request of several cousins, aunts, and other relatives, here in its entirety are the words I spoke. I apologize in advance for the inside joke at the end but I promise the belly laughs when it happened matched the scene it referred to.
I consider this church to be the church of my childhood. I began life here, spent considerable time in the fluky church, and then found my home in Christ as a Southern Baptist. While I may currently be in a huge backslide I thank God literally that I am not a Methodist. They can backslide all the way to hell but as a Baptist we fall short.
My cousins and sister know that the church of our childhood consisted of sitting in the pews with Mama Byrd using slips of the bulletin to mark pages in the Hymnal and Book of Prayer to more easily find the spots during the service. Afterwords, we would file across the street to DeMiller Hall where we had canned biscuits and bought a chance on a cake. I don’t think we ever won one, but we came back every week.
To speak today in my childhood church is an honor, but today I speak because the Byrd who normally would be unable to resist such a platform is no longer able. And while he has spent time with my sister and I at Baptist services his services of choice were Episcopalian which tend to be less seat of the pants as the majority of my discussion will be. However, in his honor I will read from the Book of Common Prayer, albeit a mere note page 507.
The liturgy is characterized by joy, in the certainty that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, 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.”
This joy, however, does not make human grief unchristian. The very love we have for each other in Christ brings deep sorrow when we are parted by death. Jesus himself wept at the grave of his friend. So, while we rejoice that one we love has entered into the nearer presence of our Lord, we sorrow in sympathy with those who mourn.
My appearance today may not appear to be someone in mourning because I am not here to mourn a loss. I am here to celebrate the life of my father and second, after my wife, best friend.
I am a proud fifth generation Biloxi Byrd Boy and I want to tell you about the man we are here to celebrate today and the many roles he has played in his 76 years.
Before anything else he was a son. A son to Mama Byrd and Daddy Byrd, born the day before his brother’s birthday, meaning we know when not to knock on the door of the master bedroom at 604 Iroquois.
Once they brought him home he became a brother. He started as the youngest of four but ended up as the middle of seven.
Next he became a student, a scout, a friend, a nerd, an avid book lover, an astronomy aficionado, and a scientist. He made a telescope and took it to the national science fair and also made a trip to New York. His fourth furthest trip away from Biloxi.
Along the way and at the same time he was a grandson, cousin, and eventually an uncle. Family was always big. The way we eat we always only got bigger. As it grew the family went from at least one meal a day together as a family (where Dad was known to cut deals for extra peas), to a meal together once a week.
Doubling down on his student role, he became a university student. Not far from home, Hattiesburg. Close to heaven—or as the rest of the world knows it, Biloxi. Then diploma in hand he entered his next lifetime role, teacher.
He never dropped a role, only added them, but some defined him more than others and teacher was one of the biggest. He was always learning and always sharing what he learned with others. Whether it was in the classroom, at church, in the car driving, or working on a model B-17 with a bottle of Barq’s and a chunk of Desporte’s french Bread.
For a short while he stopped teaching for his day job and sold insurance but it was not long before he returned to teaching. Teaching, driving a school bus, cleaning the garbage and debris from the Santa Maria, and whatever else was needed to bring in money.
Then he returned to the formal role of student earning a Master’s of Education followed by a Graduate Certificate in Counseling. This allowed him to gain yet another role as Counselor. Even when he put up his “Do Not Disturb, Counseling” sign to take a nap he used his education to make others better.
He gained a role of grandfather and then father-in-law.
Then came the retirement role. Daddy Byrd and I both thought he would only stay retired for the three months of his normal summer break but we failed to realize the importance of his Grandfather Role. In his PawPaw role he was home to help with James but also to continue his other passions until he returned to the workforce as a teacher and later retired again.
Two roles I have left out of Dad’s chronology are of utmost importance to me. Somewhere around 1987 or 88 my father took on the role of idiot. I had never seen someone so clueless and free from the encumbrance of the thought process. Likewise a mere five or so years later he had transformed completely into the greatest genius in history to include Albert Einstein, Nikolai Tesla, and Stephen Hawking. Admittedly, the first of these roles may have only been in my adolescent, hormone addled mind, but the second role is the one that made him my best friend.
So here’s a piece of news that isn’t news to anyone in the family: Byrd Boys are drawn to Biloxi. The girls could get away but the boys stayed home. Dad took it a step further because not only did he not leave, he tried not to go too far from home either. The third farthest he’s ever been from Biloxi was when he came to see Ginger and I when we lived in Washington. The second farthest when he came to see us in Germany and we also went to the Czech Republic. That’s where I drug my Dad into the role of international traveller. Then finally last year I brought him to Vienna, the furthest he’s ever been from Biloxi.
Being as I have now been thrust prematurely into his role of family historian, archivist of anecdotes, and maintainer of useless information just before I close and in honor of Dad I will share the story of how the church of my childhood came to be such a place.
Sometime early in their family life Daddy Byrd asked Mama Byrd why they always went to the Church of the Redeemer. He said they should go to the Baptist church in which he was raised. Mama Byrd told him that was a wonderful idea and that next Sunday he should wake up, get the kids ready, and then take them to his church. There was never another discussion of where to go.
But that doesn’t explain it fully enough though. Mama Byrd went to Redeemer because John and Marguerite Welch attended. Neither history nor my Dad ever relayed where the Welches attended church in the Nebraskan town they founded prior to becoming permanent snowbirds, but once they alighted in Biloxi they were fixtures at Redeemer because everyone who was anyone in society of the Seafood Capital of the World went to Redeemer. This means quite literally that we are Episcopal at our core because of canned biscuits and cake raffles.
From the time I decided I would speak today the note I planned to close on was the scene in the anteroom of the old Church building on the beach at Daddy Byrd’s funeral. In a quiet moment of reflection before the door opened and the whole family walked out to face the crowd and ceremony that would follow, my Dad, in his best stage whisper, said “Mama and Daddy are looking down on us and he’s saying ‘Look what we started.’” We long wondered what the rest of the church thought when just before the solemn moment, raucous laughter erupted from where the family was sequestered.
No doubt when Dad arrived he was met at the gates by Mama Byrd and Daddy Byrd as well as his two brothers. After that he pestered Saint Pete with enough questions to make Peter re-think the decision that it was Dad’s time, but then he looked down last night on the eleven of us standing around getting one last look. Tara, Ginger, Mom, James, Chuck, Emma, Lizi, Faith, Tim, and Anthony laughing when someone said ‘ogadebogadee.’
With a smile on his face Dad is watching the menagerie he started.
Spoken at the Church of the Redeemer
7 Feb 2020