I'd like to thank you again
very much for coming to this service today.
As I said at the beginning of the service, we are here primarily to
celebrate who Phyllis was and to thank God for her life. We all know, of course, that in many ways
the last seven or eight years have been a difficult time for Phyllis and for
those who loved her, as she has had to live with mental illness. But when someone has suffered with mental
illness in the last stages of their life, it is very important that the image
of that person for which we give thanks should be a complete picture of who she
has been, a truthful reflection of her life.
So what is the full picture
of this woman? As I was talking to Alan,
it seemed to me that Phyllis's life was above all one that was lived to the
full. She lived with integrity, working
hard as a tailoress, making clothes for film stars and suits for her son. She lived with pride, always being smartly
dressed and well presented. She lived
with joy, joining in at dances and, after Harold retired scarcely ever being at
home as they were out so much. She
lived with friendship enjoying a community at Bowood Road where everybody knew
everybody else, joining in with the Moose Society and also being very happy at
Westlecot House in her final years. She
lived with simplicity - she and Harold bought their first home in 1939 for
£536, and Alan told me how his parents would make sacrifices to ensure he was
brought up well even though things could be financially tight. And most of all, perhaps she lived with
love, being married to Harold for 48 years - a marriage in which they were
devoted to each other.
Life does bring its problems,
but Phyllis lived it to the full, was always happy and jolly, and could cope
with anything that came her way. Once,
after a JCB roller crashed into the back of their house, knocking down a wall
or two, all Phyllis said was "It'll be allright. We'll sort it out."
There is definitely a lot to celebrate in this life, and there is a lot
to hope for in the future. Because
while it's true that in this life we don't understand everything that happens -
why people get ill, why bad things happen, why we have to die, God promises us
that one day what is complete will come.
We will understand fully, and we will be fully understood. At the moment we see things hazily, through
a darkened glass, but one day God promises us that we will see him face to
face. In the last years of her life in
some ways Phyllis may have seemed to see things dimly, or to know things in
part, but now she sees with absolute clarity.
The love of God has understood her where we have not been able to, the
strength of God carries her where we cannot.
She sees God face to face, and she understands that God has always known
and understood the true Phyllis even when illness may have seemed to rob her of
the full life that we have been describing.
The best way we can honour
her today is by trusting that the God who created her has healed her in her
death and to think and live like people who, like her, want to live life to the
full, to be fully grown. We know that
we cannot take our health and our lives for granted, and so this is a time for
us to face with courage the questions of why we are here in the first
place. "I know I've got to
die," says Woody Allen, "I just don't want to be there when it
happens!" But to not face up to
the reality of what death means to us who are living is to remain stuck in
childish ways.
Phyllis lived life to the
full, and accepted the harsher realities of living. For her now, there is no more fighting, the struggle is
over. We only ever knew Phyllis in
part, but to be finally face to face with God, to be fully known and understood
at last, is to live in a way that is more real than anything we know now. The things that remain of us after death,
things like faith, hope, and love, are the things that really matter. And we can have this hope for Phyllis, and
for ourselves, because Jesus fought and won the battle over death and
suffering, making possible a new world and existence in our future in which
there is no more pain, suffering, or tears.
Let Phyllis's life give us the courage to fight and to live in the
knowledge that we ourselves are fully known and loved, and that one day we will
see fully, just as she sees now.