Editor's Note: Samuel Brandeis Raushenbush was a Huffington Post Blogger and my nephew. He died on Nov. 5 on his 20th Birthday. The Eulogy was delivered on Nov. 10 at Piedmont Community Church, in Piedmont, California. My prayer is that this eulogy might help anyone who has suffered the tragic loss of a loved one.
"Those waves look pretty good." And so it would start. Our family gathered each year in late December at Sam's grandpa and grandma's house on the pacific ocean. And each year Sam would begin a relentless campaign to cajole, invite and shame the rest of us into going into the freezing winter water to do a little body surfing.
We had no power to resist him. Led by Sam, we slowly entered the water, body part by delicate body part. His enthusiasm was infectious as we anticipated, missed and then occasionally rode that perfect wave -- whooping with triumph at the end. Always too soon for Sam we would decide that not being able to feel our feet signaled a time to go in as Sam pleaded: "Just one more wave!" We would then move directly to the hot tub for the intense thawing period, as our bodies turned red like lobsters, or Sam's hair.
Whether it was going into the freezing water, going to some concert a continent away, or being kind and compassionate to a friend in need, Sam's default answer was "yes." This yes drove many of the adults in his life crazy, including me. But ultimately it was the yes of Sam that made him who he was. It was the yes that made him live life fully, and it was the Yes of Sam that we celebrate in his memory.
And what of tragedy? This phrase kept going through my head in the minutes after I heard the news that Sam had died. In tragedy we clench our fists and ask the question: Why? And that is the unanswerable question. The book of Job in the Bible shows us that anyone who pretends to have the answer to that is a fool. Personally, I do not and cannot believe that it was God's will that Sam would die. I do not believe that tragic death is ever the will of God. As one of my mentors, William Sloan Coffin, preached upon the death of his own young son, "The first heart to break when my son died was God's heart. God offers us minimum protection, but maximum support."
It is the support of God and one another that is available to us now as we begin to recover in our grief.
Going forward, each one of us has a decision to make. We can have Sam's death make us more cynical, hopeless, alienated and fearful, and our lives will contract and diminish. This is the scenario where death wins not only the battle, but the war.
The other choice is to make Sam's life inspire us to be more compassionate, hilarious, non-judgmental and loving. If we do that, then Sam's life will ultimately be a triumph that remains with us all of our lives.
My belief is that Sam is now with his Higher Power, whom he called God. And as Sam is with God, his Spirit is with us right here, right now. In some traditions there are those who help God to inspire people to live well and become more enlightened. Now, I am pretty sure that Sam never aspired to be a saint... But if we keep our hearts open to the wisdom that Sam gathered in his short life, we can hear him inspiring us to transform our life for the better: to take care of one another, to make someone laugh, to dance like you just don't care, to keep coming back, to plunge into the water and ride that wave. We can hear him say to us: Yes, yes, yes!
The following litany of gratitude was inspired by a list of things for which Sam had noted he was grateful. My hope is that they might help all of us remember the blessings of this life:
For close friendships, we are grateful.
For travel, we are grateful.
For mental sharpness, we are grateful.
For children, we are grateful.
For quiet time to think, we are grateful.
For AA and the Fellowship, we are grateful.
For people who stuck with us even when we treated them badly, we are grateful.
For those who took care of us when we were young and who have always been there for us, we are grateful.
For families that love us, we are grateful.
For music, we are grateful.
For nature's beauty, we are grateful.
For life, we are grateful.
Amen.