Dear Folks,
When I was introduced to Hamilton Rowan fifteen years ago, he smiled and said, “I am so glad to meet the man who will bury me.” “Are you feeling alright,” I worried, not really sure how to respond to this impish stranger, and he burst into laughter. “Oh, I’m fine,” he said, “just fine. But there’s no harm in planning ahead.” Fair enough. I was the new priest in town and Ham was “no spring chicken,” as he told me, so his forthrightness made some sense.
Ham grew up in England and went to boarding school with A.A. Milne’s son Christopher Robin. “CR,” as Ham called him, was the object of bullying, because his fictional namesake was a character in his father’s Winnie the Pooh stories. So, Ham became CR’s champion and friend when they were just 10-years-old, and their relationship lasted through adulthood. I think Christopher Robin’s winsomeness balanced Ham’s leathery persona. Ham was a war hero, and a successful businessman, and a devoted dad, but he told me one day, “My highest goal was to be a good friend.”
As he weakened, I prepared Ham for his death, and we talked several times about the words that A.A. Milne placed on the lips of Ham’s childhood friend. “How lucky am I to have something that makes saying good-bye so hard,” for example. Or, “You can‘t stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.” And this: “If ever there is a tomorrow when we’re not together, there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think… and even if we are apart, I’ll always be with you.”
I lost a hero when Ham died. True to himself, his sense of dignity and courage palpable to the last, he fought the good fight with his cancer until it was clear to him and his doctors that the treatment was making him sicker than the disease itself. “It’s time to make some different choices,” he told me a few weeks before the end. And so his dying was as purposeful as Ham’s life had been: no fuss, no calling attention to himself, no regrets, no fear, and hardly any pain medication. Just a desire to see a very close friend, his brother and his children, to walk his quiet way toward death, and to pray about crossing over.
The good news for those who mourn is this love letter that I want to share with you from Frederick Buechner. “When you remember me, it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again (when we meet again), you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart. For as long as you remember me, I am never entirely lost.” Ham is still with me.
Ham’s feet are now planted firmly in heaven, and so I guess he sees us a bit upside down! But you know what? Ham’s wise and loving heart, his crusty exterior and mushy insides, have been in heaven all along. In fact, his heart and our hearts and God’s heart are one.
Love,
David