The sun was bright, the air frigid and crisp, the mood somber, and the memories were soft spoken at random.  Such was the scene at the Andreae home preparing for the funeral and the sadness of saying goodbye to a husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

The mood lightened a bit when Angie, Ben, and Josh arrived.  Amazing how a little baby can draw your attention from retrospective thought to the here and now.  But when a baby is hungry, everyone knows it. 🙂

You could see the difference in Jay’s look when Angie started feeding Josh.  She was so interested in all things Josh.  Ben is such an attentive Father and is so caring and supporting of his family.

As we waited for the time to come that we were to leave for the church Jay spent some meaningful time with her great-grandchild.  Then it was finally that time to load up and drive to St. Andrews for the service.

There was a large gathering of people.  Jay was surprised at the number of people.  I was not.  John was a caring, nurturing man and many of the members of the church were there because John invited them to visit St. Andrews and they became a member partly because of John.

That became even more apparent after the service as people came up to Jay and talked about how John had visited with them about life insurance but spent most of his time telling them about St. Andrews. (In reality wasn’t that more about life insurance then life insurance.)

John’s love of St. Andrews was second only to his love of his family.  He was a past president in 1956 and later he co-chaired a committee to build a Columbarium at St. Andrews, which would be his final resting place.   How very fitting that he and his co-chair are the first to be placed in the Columbarium.

So as one life ends another is just getting started.  The cycle of life continues but is a complete mystery and filled with never ending questions of why.  But I know for me I will never forget John.  As the minister said we are all broken in someway and far from perfect.  However John was a pretty good model to emulate.