The Passing of John Edwards

I went to a Catholic funeral today. I didn't know John Edwards. His sister, Mary is my neighbor. In addition, his parents visit Mary every summer from their home in Naples, Florida. Over the last two years, I have gotten to know Rita and Carl quite well. Mary's brother Mark has visited enough that I thought it was inevitable that sooner or later we would meet the last member of the clan, John. Unfortunately, a bout of throat cancer, the radiation and chemo treatments left John vulnerable to Pneumonia, which sealed his fate. He passed on last Thursday in relative peace with his family near by.

They always say that the quality of your life will be judged by the size of your funeral. If this is true, John Edwards lead a very successful life. Eulogies always exaggerate the positive and eliminate the negative, but even taking that in to consideration, John either fooled a lot of people or was the real thing, because a couple hundred people showed up an a dreary December weekday to console his family.

John was a religious man. I say that because it was mentioned by everyone we talked to that knew him, and the fact that five priests that knew him were on the alter to celebrate his funeral mass. But he must have been one of those fun religious guys as opposed to the stuffy broom up the butt types, because the guy had a passion for the Beatles, that became his talisman.

All in all, when we lose some one close to us we think selfishly of how are lives a reduced in quality because this person is no longer in it. I know that is the way I felt when my Dad died. We also get a scare when we realize that our own mortality is no stronger than the person we have lost. If they can die, so can we.
It's at these times that even the faintest light of religion is fanned to flame, because we all want to believe that there is something beyond this and we will meet the departed in some kind of hereafter.

I felt for the people that stood up to speak well of John Edwards. Some of them had problems with their emotions interfering with their well thought out words of praise, shared memories and condolence for his family. Maybe John is in a better place, but for his own sense of his friends and the love they feel for him, I hope he was in the church today