First thing I’m going to read is an excerpt from the Bible that Grandpa took to his heart, as he mentioned to my Dad. Throughout his life, he lived by this verse: Genesis 1:27-31
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.”
And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good.
In all of his actions lived the pursuit to subdue the earth and its materials. Although it was not always an outspoken objective, it was ever-present as a criterion for his success. For him it was not about doing a completing a task, but ensuring the task was left well-done and accomplished in the right manner. Hard work and good work, you could say. This practice lives on through his children, which in turn is taught to their own children.
Grandpa had ways of being a positive power in the world around him, for example he was always willing to help people, assisting so many in whatever ways him and Grandma could. He had this infectious happiness, you couldn’t help but smile and feel good about what’s going on with him around. He taught me so much about being warm, caring, hard-working, and a good man in every sense. I am eternally grateful for him to have taught those things to me, all without an actual lesson or lecture. Everything he instilled in me was through example and gentle nudging through small interactions and anecdotes. Each story and interaction built upon the last one, compiling to a seemingly never-ending wealth of experiences he would recall upon order to provide advice or wise tidbit.
He was one of the most influential men in making me into a man throughout my childhood. When I received the call around sunrise on Wednesday, I felt a significant sadness in his passing. Later that evening when my Dad and I embraced each other, it was in that moment when the feeling of sorrow was greatest. As all of us Cook guys do, we reacted by reminiscing through hilarious memories and valuable conversations held though out our past with him.
Mourning is a part of the process of us dealing with the death of a loved one. Everyone handles this process in their own ways. Mourning does not need to be filled with sadness, it's best to mourn by rejoicing in who they were and those pieces of them that live on through us. Let us rejoice in the life of Lewis Cook. Let’s cry as we need to wash away the sorrow and the pain. Let’s then speak about him so he is buried with a cloak of our love and warmth from our hearts and join me as we smile to express the impact that he had on our journeys in this world.
No comments:
Post a Comment