.
.
.
.
Eulogy
By Robert G.
Balch
Time
is fleeting, that is the way of it.
And
a lifetime is the most precious gift of all.
We cannot hold on to the moments in our life that are most important to
us, no more than we can seize the exact instant we experience our first kiss,
score our first goal or witness the birth of our first child.
In the very instant that these momentary joys are experienced, they begin
to ebb from our memory. Forever
lost in a timeless sea of transitory feelings and emotions.
These singular gifts were never meant to be gathered or held. For it
seems, the greater the joy, the more ephemeral our ability to grasp them
forever.
We
are given this gift to experience. To taste and to touch. To see and to smell. To feel and to live.
But it comes with one supreme caveat: enjoy it now; revel in the moment, for
that moment will not last. If
our creator were to give us the ability to contain every instant in our lives
that gave us tremendous joy, so then would we be cursed to suffer
life’s pain, hatred and sorrow eternally. In God’s way, the grief that we face, will mercifully not
endure. Time washes our shores
of anguish with a cleansing tide of renewal.
A
man’s life bears witness to this very tenant.
Live carelessly, or frivolously and you will squander your time as surly
as the coming of the seasons. To not
take pause in the minutia that is our everyday existence, is to fritter away the
most precious of all passing gifts. Never
again will they be offered; never again can they be experienced. But a man who
lives with passion and purpose, humility and reverence will live eternally.
His life will affect others as surly as the sprouting of new green grass
in the spring.
This
was a man who had spent his entire life, his entire being; sowing those seeds of
our existence wherever he went. Planting,
nurturing, giving were not just words or hollow promises.
They were his way of living. They
were his everyday truth. At each and every job he labored, at every place he
journeyed, he touched people’s lives for the better. He opened their eyes to
another way of conducting ones’ self. With
commitment and forethought, with care and completion.
His legacy will not go unnoticed.
The
seeds that he so tirelessly nurtured have grown and bloomed a hundred fold since
their planting. Producing a bounty
like no other. This crop blossoms
still today; in you, in you and in everyone that he touched. To know him was to
know that he never took the easy way. The
way most traveled. He was the first
to arrive and the last to leave. In
this way he would have more time for the fellowship that was at
the core of his very existence.
George
Clinton Balch’s time was by all accounts far too short.
But each and every day he lived was spent doing the lord’s will.
Of all the things that he loved, all the interests that he enjoyed; of
every single thing he busied himself with or toiled at, none were more important
than that. He was honest and
humble, passionate and courageous until the end of his days.
He
was a great man. And I
know that he will live forever in the hearts and minds of those
who knew him but for an instant; the instant that was his time on earth.
Yes, time
is fleeting; but he can rest now - for he used his time
wisely, in the service of his fellow man.
3/30/2002