Funeral Homily for Reba Daniel

Funeral Homily for Reba Daniel July 8, 2019 There is one, single word that multiple people have used to describe Reba Daniel. That is “impeccable”. Reba always looked impeccable—never a hair out of place, makeup always done, and dressed to the nines. Reba was beautiful, and she took great care in her appearance and in how things were in her home. She liked everything to be orderly and in its place, and she had a gift for making things lovely. Reba was always kind and she was also always determined. Her son Randy shared with me that when he and his brothers were teenagers and things would not be up Reba’s expectations at home, then she would live with it as long as she could, and then she would come in and whip them into shape “like a drill-sergeant”. “It was amazing what we could get done!” Randy said. Another parishioner at St. Thomas shared with me how she would always see Reba and another beautiful, well-dressed lady out walking on the bluff with their wine in the evenings. When I asked Reba’s sister Wanda about this, she laughed and confessed that she and Reba would regularly go out walking together down the bluff. Reba would pour their beers into red solo cups and assure Wanda nobody would know they had their cocktails with them. Wanda said that they would walk and see lots of folks they knew, and they always knew they had their cocktails in their cups. Reba was a long, faithful member of this church. She loved St. Thomas; she raised her boys here. Together, she and Sax enjoyed being greeters. She would always bring food when we needed it. She was a member of the altar guild and worked at the thrift store, and she and Sax helped redecorate the nursery, and Reba was one of our first baby rockers in our nursery. She shared with me how she had regretted falling off from St. Thomas after Sax died, and she was grateful for the ways that the people of St. Thomas stayed connected with her, especially in her most recent illness. Reba suffered a great deal of loss in her life. But she never complained. She worked hard, and she determinedly did what she needed to do, whether it was taking care of her 3 sons and raising them after her first husband died or whether it was trying to see her cancer treatments through to the end. Reba was strong and determined. In her determination, she loved her family fiercely and unconditionally. Today we gather to give thanks for Reba. We commend her to God’s care and keeping, and even as we mourn her loss in this life, we remember the hope of the resurrection: that death is not the end but a change; that when our mortal body lies in death, there is prepared for us eternal a place in the heavens. We hold fast to the promise that Jesus’s resurrection from the dead gives us: that Jesus who loves us has gone before us into eternal life and prepares a place for us; and that through Jesus’s resurrection, God’s love has proven to be stronger than absolutely anything—stronger than sickness and cancer, stronger even than death. We give thanks that Reba is feasting now at God’s heavenly banquet, a table even more beautiful and abundant than the Yacht Club at the holidays (which she loved!), and we give thanks that we will one day feast again with her and with all whom we love who have gone before.