Tommy Alouf's Eulogy
During the funeral mass for Tom, the presiding Monsignor Lehman gave a homily that referred to the final flight west. He actually added a friends version of flying east into the sun (or Son).
Thanks to Gary Towers for acquiring the text and forwarding this.
This wasn’t supposed to happen - not yet anyway. Tommy looked so good ten days ago. His spirits were up (they were always up). His fight, his will were strong. And he had plans….Tommy always had plans. So many plans. Grand plans. A new project or two or three in mind. Another way to make it big. And there was always another vehicle to make fly.
As his mother Gail said yesterday: sick people don’t make plans. But Tommy did. Even when he was physically whipped by the chemo, Tommy was scheming; he was thinking about tomorrow and the next day and the days after that. And as he talked about his plans, his eyes would start to dance about, his speech would get faster and louder, and his smile would get even huger and brighter. It was not hard to get caught up in his plans with him.
Plans and hopes…these are what we hear about in the scriptures today. Hopes and plans are what we celebrate around this table this morning. Much larger and much better plans than Tommy’s were. God’s plans.
St. Paul tells us these plans of God for us include our being raised from the dead. Death had..death has.. no lasting power over Jesus. Neither does it have lasting power in the lives of those Jesus claims as his own. And just as nothing could take the life from Christ, we who look to Christ also live…even as we sleep in death.
St Paul also teaches us about the crown of victory awaiting those who stay in the race and remain faithful in the struggle. Think not only of what you’re going through today, he wrote to Timothy and to us….think too of the something better that awaits us. For The victor with the capital T and V waits to make all things right for us.
And then in the gospel, there’s the table and the wedding feast. And the master waiting on the guests. It’s a wonderful image of our God tending to us. Taking care of us. feeding us. fulfilling our every hope. This table then is a foretaste of the one to come. Its a share in the feast to come. In other words, here we taste heaven.
And here today - in our shock over this unexpected loss, in our great sadness- does this sound like non-sense? I should hope not.
For in times of tradegy, loss, and sadness, what would Tommy do? His bigger than life big self would be at our side, he’d flash that big white grin made brighter under that huge dark mustash, he’d crack a joke, and he’d get us thinking about tomorrow and about things bigger, better, brighter.
Friends, permit me please to share one more thought before I close. In one of the on line condolences, a friend of Tommy’s wrote this “we all have to fly west on that final flight”. Although it’s commonly said that “we ride into the sunset”, or we travel into the night, today, let’s think differently. Lets think about riding into the east – into the sun – not s-u-n- but S-o-n. Into the bright and blinding light that scatters all darkness, into the love that heals and makes us whole… into the heart of God that is our eternal home!
Tommy, enjoy your flight. And don’t forget to tip your wing.