Herein lies the video and text of Rev. Wayne Hilliker's eloquent and celebratory Personal Recollection and Affirmation. The video starts with the Chalmer's Choir singing A Gaelic Blessing. "...In 1961, while a student here at Queen’s University, I attended an inauguration recital, here at Chalmers, for what was then our newly installed Casavant Pipe organ. (The pipes are hidden now behind that acoustic screen.) Giving the recital was none other than the world famous organist E. Power Biggs. When he died some years later, a friend said this about Power Biggs at his funeral: ‘Everyone must leave something behind when they die’, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made, or a garden planted. It doesn’t matter what you do’ he said, ‘so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between a person who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching’ he said. ‘The lawnmaker might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.’ Joan Margaret McGrath was, in the broadest sense of the word, a gardener with a special touch. Over the past few weeks I have had the privilege of listening to family members share their recollections of Joan and the impact she had on them. In a sense, they were sharing with me how she touched them in ways that gifted them with something of herself. When I read the extensive personal reflections by some in her family, the adjectives they used were quite revealing to me. In fact, they seemed to jump out at me. I want to read a list of them. They aren’t said in any kind of priority. But I’m sure your own personal experiences with Joan will connect with some of these words. Here they are: Deep, philosophical, celestial, soaring… Writer, accomplished poet, dream catcher… Delightful, grammatician, lover of words and language… Whimsical, vibrant, charismatic… Marching to her own drummer… Legendary, playful, flirtatious… Embracer of life, inspiring… A master of time… Proud Scot, Scottish dancer… Multi-media artist, holder of strong opinions, thoughts and beliefs, artistic… Creative, imaginative, adventurer, joyful… Vibrant, vital, eternally optimistic… Community builder, sparkling personality… Well-prepared, enthusiastic, exciting, unrestrained in her artistic experimentation… Happy, full of life, well-lived… Outstanding athlete, encourager… World traveller with innate curiosity… Painter, Open to mystery… Groovy, regal, intelligent, talented, caring… Eccentric… Warm, bubbly… Wonderfully wacky… (don’t you love that!) Sculptor, tireless, passionate, energetic… Able, administrator… Herself a sparkling river… Loving mother and grandmother, devoted wife… And finally, the adjective that, for me, best describes Joan, FLAMBOYANT! I suspect that a lot of people only knew and really defined Joan in terms of being a prime mover of and organizer of Creativity and Fanfayr. It is my hope these descriptive words that I have shared, will serve to broaden our appreciation of Joan. For behind each one of them there lies unspoken ways in which her touch made a difference to others and to her world. Quite an irony isn’t it, when we find ourselves knowing a person far better after they have died than when they were alive. And yet, at the same time, what still stands out for me in the end, is the realization that, in spite of all our attempts to describe anyone who is now gone from our sight, we never fully know that person. We never grasp completely, what makes another individual tick: …What causes a person to take this road and not to go down another? …Why is it that one person is able to remain upbeat and happy throughout his or her life but another individual remains trapped in a state of sadness? …Why is it that some individuals can move through sickness or loss with courage while others fall by the wayside? …Why is it that some retain a passion for the possible while others never seem to see any light at the end of their tunnel? In other words, always there remains, a cloud of unknowing, of light and shadow, surrounding every individual. Some might say that is the part that only God knows. One thing is clear--the human personae is filled with mystery. But there is another mystery worth pondering and that is the mystery of faith itself. How is it possible that some of us are willing to gather together when a loved one has died, …and still sing when we do not feel like singing, …or still pray when we do not feel like praying, …or still celebrate when we do not feel like celebrating? Where is the source of our energy and the ground of our determination to do so? I would hazard a guess that many of us are here today not only to be supportively present for Gerald and his family. And we do want to be that way. But in addition, I think many of us come to a service such as this, because deep, deep down we believe….or half believe,…or wish we could believe--that there is something more to Joan’s life and our own life, than a fleeting surface meaning that is terminated by death. Deep down we want to believe that there is a Creator who created us and that this God is a forgiving God. We want to believe that there is more mercy in God than sin in us. We want to believe in the God who never abandons us, not even when our life on this planet, comes to an end. Now, I admit that it takes some daring to make that kind of leap of trust. Thus, right here and right now, we are being invited to define this present moment not by our feelings, but by our trust. For it is only a radical trust which allows us to stare death straight in the face and not be frightened. Those who study the scriptures tell us that the most common phrase in the bible, that which is said more often than any other phrase or sentence is—‘do not fear, do not be afraid, don’t be frightened, take no thought for the morrow, don’t be anxious. Novelist Frederick Buechner expresses it this way: ‘I know no more now than I ever did about the far side of death as the letting go of all. But I’m beginning to know that I do not need to know. And that I do not need to be afraid of not knowing. God knows. That’s all that matters.’ Shortly before the Space Shuttle ‘Challenger’ exploded, all the crew were aware of what was about to happen. It has been reported that in the unofficial communication from Houston Control with the crew of the ‘Challenger’, the last words spoken on the spacecraft were those of one of the astronauts who said, ‘Give me your hand’. The biblical hope grows out of a trust in the mystery of a divine promise that God will never let us go, not even when we die. As the ancient psalmist declared—‘even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me fast’. Joan McGrath knew her time in this world was coming to an end. But she believed and trusted that it wasn’t the ultimate end. She said so in her poem ‘The River’. ‘I am a River. My symbol is a river, always changing yet always the same. Sometimes deep and mysterious, slow flowing and profound. At other times sparkling, swift flowing, chuckling and chortling over stones in the brilliant sunlight. Carefree and happy. Inevitably moving to the engulfing sea To the end which is not the end – simply a change of dimension and format. A different kind of Being which continues the essence of existence till the end of Time…’ Joan’s conviction of ‘inevitably moving to the engulfing sea’ resonates with another image penned by the American author, professor, and Presbyterian minister, Henry van Dyke. I’m standing upon the sea shore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is the object of strength and beauty, and I stand and watch her until at length she is only a ribbon of white cloud just where the sea and sky meet with each other. Then someone at my side say, ‘There, she’s gone.’ Gone where? Gone from my sight that’s all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as when she left my side, and just as able to bear her cargo of living freight to her place of destiny. Her diminished size is in me, not in her, and just at the moment when someone at my side says ‘There, she’s gone.’, there are voices ready to take up the glad shout ‘There, there she comes.”’ Today, let us dare to whisper another name, Joan Margaret McGrath, for whom death cannot conquer. Thanks be to God. Amen and amen."