Humanist Minister's Eulogy from Tim's funeral - 28th May 2004

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Let no one fear death, for it is as natural as life. And no one ever experiences death...you have to be alive...only life itself can be experienced. But, with the end does comes the heightening; the dignity and pathos of every human life; the appraisal that we will make and the memories we surely have, happy and sad, in the minds of friends and relatives who've been left to live out their own time.

This is a sad day, but there is a touch of comfort in it too for us. For, though a funeral is a leave-taking, it should be more than that. You know it should be a celebration of the life and personality that has been...all living things are subject to death and we humans, being a part of nature, we are no exception.

No one who has felt the organic pattern of mortality in nature can but accept his or hew own life philosophically exercising its scope with great gladness, and making personal choices of self-commitment day by day, until the hour comes to leave. And those who have learned how to live life fully, to the full, have learned also how to die and how to lose.

Your very grief is, however, a token of your love - and if your love and concern for Tim is strong enough to grieve, it can also use that strength to grasp the joy of memory. Love as we well know, why, it is the greatest of human treasures - and of all our memories, the memories of the ones that we have loved and who are now gone from us, they are the ones that we cherish the most, for they have the sweetest poignancy.

The comfort of having a son, a brother, a nephew, a cousin, a friend, a colleague...any other relationship may be lost, but the comfort and knowledge of having had that relationship with Tim himself...now that is never lost.