A night at the funeral home

I had a good friend that went on to heaven this week. He was older than myself and would be considered one of the 'great' generation. He was one of the friendliest and most gentle men I've had the pleasure to know. I wished I had spent more time with him, but we lost touch after leaving the church he attended and I had no opportunity to see him much after that.

Lloyd was the kind of guy who when they talked to you seemed genuinely interested in you as a person and not just wanting to talk about themselves. Those people are hard to find in life. Most of us want to talk about ourselves and when you meet someone who is really interested in you, you want to spend time with them.

You could quickly tell what kind of person he was when you pulled into the parking lot. It was packed full and we had to wait for someone to pull out in order to park. And then the lobby was full of people and it took us 30 minutes to get to the waiting line. We met so many people we hadn't seen in years that it just took a while to get around to seeing the family.

I was also struck by the fact that we won't see most of these people again until someone else dies or someone gets married. It's sad, but true, that we're all just very busy and are clustered in our own worlds and can't find the time to visit like we'd like.

I can only hope that when I die I have made as much of an impact on people as Lloyd did. I know I won't care who attends the funeral but I hope that people will actually miss me when I'm gone.