Faith, Hope and Love...she taught us all of those things

In January our family lost this beautiful woman.  We still have a gaping hole in our hearts and our family. And we aren't anywhere near close to being through the grief of it.  My Uncle Tim and cousins, Jaime and Jen, especially have a such an empty space in their hearts.

Last week we gathered to celebrate her.  

Here's what I shared on behalf of the Spann family.

While I stand up here by myself, I am actually up here to share what the Spanns collectively have shared, written, reflected upon and reminisced about Mar.

Uncle Tim, if there’s one thing you’ve been insistent about, it’s that today is a happy day.  

With that in mind, I’m channeling my deepest Spann roots to make sure I deliver.

I’m going to start by telling all of you about my last BM…..hey!  It wouldn’t be a Spann story without a good BM!  

Can’t you hear her Marilee now…..Hol-LY!

Ok, so back to my BM.

When I was about six years old, I was helping our grandma wash dishes, while Poppy was sitting at the table reading the newspaper.  I remember Grandma and Poppy talking about various things which didn’t seem too important to my six year old ears.  But then, I heard something that seemed VERY important.  

Grandma said to Poppy, “Well Tim’s on his way over.  He said he has something to tell us.”  I perked up.  

Then the next thing she said I will always remember.  

“Hursh, I sure hope he’s coming to tell us he and Marilee are getting married.”  

Well, I sure hoped so too!  I remember being SO excited.  I immediately began calculating what that meant for my sisters, Jaime and me.  While grandma and poppy were probably relieved to finally have someone to help tame Tim.  

For us, it meant we got Jennifer!  

And that’s the story of my last BM….before Mar.    

From that point forward, Mar has been a Spann.  And if she were here she could tell us a lot of stories of what she learned from being a Spann.  Some of which would definitely not be appropriate in a church setting.  

As I tried to organize my own thoughts and the thoughts other members of our family, I was struggling to put it all together in a way that made sense.  

Everything seemed scattered and fragmented…which, of course, is exactly how I have found grief to show up in our lives.  Thoughts and actions become scattered and fragmented and slippery.

But I’ve come to believe that is really God’s way of protecting us from the enormity of our own reality.  

Brought together the clarity and utter truth we find ourselves in might be more than we can bear.  And so, for a time, this stumbling and numbness is a little bit of God’s own protective hand.  

I kept reading and re-reading what everyone had sent me and trying to re-organize my thoughts.  It seemed the more I tried to force some semblance, the less organized and more messy things became.  

Finally, out an act of desperation and near panic that I wouldn’t have anything put together in time, I decided to take Mar’s approach to eating to figure this thing out.

Mar had it down to a science.  Anticipate the meal.  Assess the plate.  Don’t rush it.  Carefully put together each forkful. Construct the perfect bite.  Slowly load the fork.  And then.   One.  Bite.  At.  A.   time.  Each forkful a new little project.  Savor every bite.  And no matter what, don’t give in to the pace of others.  

Can’t you all picture her eating a meal?  Slowly, carefully.  Enjoying every single bite.  

Now, outside of always wanting to have her Dewey decimal organizational skills, I’ve always known there was a lesson to be learned in how Mar ate.  And it proved true to apply it to what I was going to say today.  

When I finally sat down to put things together and assess my plate just as I began to put together my first thoughts, my first forkful, it came to me.  

It was so obvious.  

There is no other way to remember Mar that makes sense then to think about Faith, Hope, and Love.

Faith

Mar was the model of living by the motto of “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”  

Though I would argue she mastered the art of substituting “Bless her heart” as an adequate substitute.   

Throughout Mar’s entire life she lived her faith….much like she ate her meal.  She didn’t let others influence or rush her and she BELIEVED each bite was going to be delicious.  

Oswald Chamber’s tells us that we are to be the broken bread and poured out wine of Christ for others, until they are strong enough to go to the source directly.  

Julie shared:  I appreciated how she always remembered every significant event in my life.  Not only did she remember, she made the effort to acknowledge it.  Not just our birthdays, but also our anniversary; sometimes it was a card, sometimes a text, sometimes a phone call….sometimes all three.  Mar had a gift of reaching out to others to make them feel special when they needed it most.

For all of us at one time or another, Mar has been the broken bread and poured out wine our hungry, thirsty hearts needed at just the right time.  

And we most certainly witnessed Mar embody her faithfulness the last seven years.  She and Uncle Tim walked a journey none of us can fathom.  Yet it seemed her smile never faded and her concern for others never waned.  

My mom, Claudia, shared, “At times, Mar could have been nominated for sainthood.

John Howell writes, “It is out of our pain that we become healers.  Our brokenness shows us that the cracks in ourselves can become like windows, to let light in and to let light out.”

In Marilee’s pain, she became a healer to all of us through her own journey and faithfulness.  

Hope 

She named her cat Hope.  That pretty much sums up Mar’s approach to life.

Mar was always hopeful for a positive outcome, no matter what the situation.  She always looked for the silver lining.  

We are often reminded to listen for the “still, small voice of God.”  For many of us, especially if you’re a Spann, that is hard to do.  But that didn’t seem to be the case for Mar.  

This is how Bonnie reflected on Mar:  

One of Mar's many sweet qualities was she was a good listener. I would rail on for a while about something, she would patiently listen. She would then, in her soft voice say, "Bonnie, the Bible tells us...and then she would recite a bible verse that covered my rant. It always amazed me and humbled me. I never felt she was judging me, just sharing her love of the Lord and His word. 

So, here’s the thing….you can’t hear the still, small voice of God if you don’t listen.  And Mar taught us all to listen.  

Even when God was silent, Mar listened.  And even when God was silent to all of us who prayed and pleaded and begged and cried for a different outcome, in many, many ways we heard God’s still small voice through Mar.  

Regardless of the circumstance, Mar taught us to hope in things above, through her listening and her approach to living.

Love

Mar exuded love.  In her beautiful, big eyes.  In her radiant smile.  And certainly in those perfectly, big Marilee hugs.  

Robin shared:  Mar loved her family, she loved being with them.” 

She modeled for us how to be intentional in supporting family members and all of our various endeavors for both the Spanns and the Millers.  If there was an award for best cheerleading aunt.  Mar would win.  Even when she couldn’t attend she’d follow up and cheer on from afar.   Dance recitals, hockey games, wrestling matches, art competitions, basketball, football, countless birthday parties, the list goes on and on.  

Mar loved chocolate.  And Mar loved sweets in general.  And personally, I think being remembered as someone who ate dessert first is the way to go!

And certainly, Mar loved Tim.

This is from Jaime:  You and dad loved each other through good times and bad, whether you were living paycheck to paycheck or a little more comfortably, healthy or sick (did you all know that Tim is a diabetic?)…you were an amazing example to Spencer and I and how to make it through the ebbs and flows of life. As long as we stick together, we can make it through anything. 

Thank you for being dad’s huckleberry!

I can still hear her say “Isn’t he cute?”

As we have gotten closer to today to come together and celebrate Mar’s life, I have found myself especially reflective during the Easter season.  Two weeks ago, as my church family gathered to celebrate Maundy Thursday, the traditional gathering the evening before Good Friday to acknowledge the story of Jesus’ last week, this is how our pastor opened the service.

There’s something oddly compelling and true about living thru Jesus’ death, because we, too, know our share of death, don’t we?.....with our own share of disease & failure & death, Jesus’ death acknowledges what we know all-too-well.  It is indeed an awful week.

Strangely, though, improbably perhaps, this is also a good week, indeed, we can even say, a very good week.  Sometimes people ask what could possibly be good about this week, and about Good Friday.

It’s good because it shows that Jesus knew what it was like to suffer and despair and die a very real death.  

It’s good because no matter what we’re going through, God is there.  

It’s good because even this ghastly chapter is finally redeemed by grace.

So let this story wash over you.  Take in the awfulness and the pain.  And know that even in the midst of the worst life can do to us, “there is yet more light and truth to break forth from God’s holy word” (John Robinson).

We are still asking what’s good about Mar being gone from us.  

It’s good because Mar showed us, no matter what we’re going through, God is there.  

It’s good because even Mar’s last chapter was redeemed by grace.  

We will continue to take in the awfulness and pain of Mar not being among us, yet we know there is more light and truth to break forth and for that we are grateful.

Now to really do this Spann representation justice it’s important that we close with a quote from one of our family bibles…Lonesome Dove.  

Mar certainly taught us all so many lessons in her last years as she worked at living a new normal and over and over again beating the odds.

And even in her dying she continued to show us faith, hope, and love.  And now our job is to honor Mar by remembering how she lived.  

As Augustus McCrae said “It ain’t dying we’re talking about, it’s living.”  

And yet these three remain.  Faith, hope and love.  I’d say that was a life well lived.