Joene A. Handen - Online Memorial Website

Passed away on October 1, 2006.

MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR JOENE HANDEN November 4, 2006 WELCOME Good Morning. I would like to welcome you to the First Congregational Church of Long Beach, a 118-year-old inclusive and liberal congregation of the United Church of Christ. OPENING WORDS We come together today to celebrate the love of a God not only of beginnings but of endings as well. We affirm that the spirit of that God’s love is present with us. We come this day to celebrate the life of Joene Handen, remembering what she meant to each of us gathered here. We come today sustained by the comfort of these metaphorical phrases from the Hebrew Bible: The eternal God is our dwelling place and underneath are the everlasting arms. It is God who goes before us; God will be with us. God will not fail or forsake us; we need not fear nor be dismayed. We also find comfort in the poetry of the Psalms: God is my shepherd, I shall not want. God makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters; God restores my soul, and leads me in right paths for the sake of God’s name. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff – they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; and my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of our God forever. PRAYER OF AWARENESS Eternal Presence, we are aware of your love which will not let us go, and for that we are grateful. We are aware that the spirit of your love accompanies us even into the valley of the shadow of death, and for that we are grateful. We are aware that in mysterious ways, you strengthen and support us, and for that we are grateful. Our sense of your mercy and compassionate love is therefore our hope and comfort this day. Amen. MEDITATION From the Wisdom Literature of the Hebrew Bible comes these familiar words: For everything there is a season, a time for every matter under heaven -- a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to dance, and a time to mourn. We have reached the time for Jo Handen’s life to end. Hers was a meaningful journey through life. In some ways death was a welcome form of liberation for her. The cancer that spread throughout her body and into her bones was painful and took away the quality of her life. So death brought peace. But, it also came too soon. It was too soon to Jo herself. Right after the cancer diagnosis, she said to me: “It isn’t fair. I’m only 71. I have a long list of things I still want to do.” And the end was too soon for those who loved her; those who wanted more time with her. That’s why there are tears this day; we grieve because we will miss her. Doris Sanford once wrote, “Grief is not a problem to be cured. It is a statement that you loved somebody.” The tears today speak of that kind of love. Florence Ferrier said, “When my father died, my brother took time to do some explaining to Steve, who was five. But when Steve was left briefly with my mother, we learned he had his own viewpoint on the matter. Glaring at the big chair where Grampa read and dozed those last years, Steve spoke his mind. ‘I don’t care if Grampa was old and sick and everybody has to die. And I don’t care how great heaven is. I just don’t like it when he’s not here anymore!’” Ferrier said, “My mother took Steve into her lap, saying simply, ‘I miss him, too.’ They cried together, comforting each other.” It’s okay to feel sad today, it’s okay if the tears come – they become signs of genuine love. Over my many years of ministry, I have come to see several dimensions of fear tied to death. Let me mention three. First, I think most of us fear the possibility of dying alone. Jewish philosopher Martin Buber said we find God in our relationships with one another – that God is not found IN people as much as God is found BETWEEN people. When people are attuned to one another, God fills the space between us so that we are connected. We fear that on the verge of death, we might be alone and bereft of those critical connections. But Jo wasn’t alone as she coped with the cancer and her pending death. Her family was with her – her sons Joel and Robert and their wives. Her sister Bernice and her husband. And the grandchildren – Jason and Katie who were so important to Jo. One of Eve’s special memories will always be of those times when Jo would be rocking Katie and both would fall asleep. And Eve was there – all the time. There was always a special bond between Eve and her mother – a closeness rare between mother and daughter. They enjoyed being together. Eve took a leave-of-absence from teaching to be with her mother in those final months. Jo in some ways orchestrated her own goodbyes, arranging to see family and friends. She had a number of really close friends, especially Marilyn and Diane. So surrounded by family and friends, and cared for with great love by hospice, Jo was able to die at home – not alone at all. A second fear is the fear of dying without having made a difference in life. Rabbi Harold Kushner said: “It is not dying that people are afraid of. It is something more unsettling and tragic. We are afraid of never having lived, of coming to the end of our days with the sense that we were never really alive, that we never figured out what life was for.” We all want to be remembered; to have made a difference to someone. Jo, a great movie fan, would appreciate a comment by Oscar winning actress Reese Witherspoon who played the role of country singer June Carter in Walk the Line. She recalled that when she would ask June Carter how she was doing, she always said, “I’m just trying to matter.” “I know what she means,” Witherspoon said, “I’m also just trying to matter and mean something to somebody.” Well, Jo did matter; her life mattered; she meant something to many people. Jo’s family moved a lot when she was young. She started out in Nebraska and was in Spokane but a great deal of her youth was here in Long Beach where she attended Garfield, Franklin Middle School and Poly High. Then 50 years ago, she graduated from the Highland School of Nursing in the Bay Area and began a long, meaningful nursing career involved two separate stages – first as a hospital nurse and then many years as a school nurse, primarily in Riverside. What she did mattered. Her life was full of volunteerism – working with the League of Women Voters, ushering at the International Theater, helping at the polls during elections, volunteering at the Veteran’s Hospital. Her life mattered. Her life mattered to her children. She loved them dearly but was able to accept their decisions about the directions their lives would take; she loved them enough to let them go. Her life mattered. Her life also mattered in important ways that can’t be quantified. She was warm, positive, non-judgmental – just generally a joy to be around. She loved using her mind. She liked books and films, especially films that made her think. She did a crossword puzzle every day. She and her friend Harriet took classes together about poetry and Shakespeare at the Senior University. All of that made a difference in the lives of others. She brought her sharp mind to matters of religion and politics as well. An incredibly liberal person in many different ways, she was a real fan of Bill Clinton. Jo was an adventurer. She loved to travel to exotic locations; her trips were adventures to China, Machu Pichu, the Galapagos Islands and on the Amazon. She led bird-watching tours for the Sierra Club. Her life was full, it was significant. So she didn’t have to fear dying alone, and she certainly didn’t have to fear not having made a difference in the lives of those she knew and loved. What about the third form of fear: the fear that there may be nothing beyond death. Well, without a doubt we can affirm today that Jo will live on in our hearts and memories. That is a very significant form of immortality. Cicero, the Roman philosopher, said: The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living. Jo’s life is now placed in our memories. Professor Dumbledore once said to Harry Potter: “You think the dead we loved ever truly leave us. You think that we don’t recall them more clearly than ever in times of great trouble. Your father is alive in you, Harry, and shows himself most plainly when you have need of him.” Well so it is with Jo; she will live on in the lives of her friends and family and all those she helped during a lifetime of service. I think Jo, the democrat, would appreciate my quoting Democratic Senator Barak Obama, a church-going member of our United Church of Christ. An interviewer asked him if he believes in a heaven. He said he didn’t presume to know what happens in the afterlife, but, “When I tuck my daughters in at night and feel like I’ve been a good father to them, and I see in them that I’m transferring values that I got from my mother, and that they are kind and honest people, and they are curious people, that’s a little piece of heaven.” Senator Obama doesn’t presume to know what happens after death. I don’t either. But I do know that if our lives make a difference, as Jo’s did, we live on in the others whose lives we touched. And I would go a step beyond that to say that I think in some mysterious way, God’s love continues to hold us in a kind of divine embrace, but I have no words or images to convey what that means. I want to end with a quotation I used at the funeral for the husband of one of Jo’s good friends, Carole Broman. Carole’s husband Keith loved books, and so did Jo. Benjamin Franklin prepared his own epitaph, which read: “The body of Benjamin Franklin, printer, (like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out and stript of its lettering and gilding) lies here, food for worms. But the work shall not be lost. For it will appear once more in a new and more elegant edition, revised and corrected by the author.” Somehow, someway, I’d like to think that a revised, new, elegant edition of Jo Handen is in the hands of the God who loves her. Amen PRAYER May those who knew Jo best, and those who loved her most, be comforted this day by your Divine Compassion, O God. May all gathered here find solace in one another. May the grief that we feel give us a special kind of empathy this day, rooted in the knowledge that we are none of us all alone. May all who grieve today find comfort in the others who grieve with them and who seek to offer compassion. May all of us find comfort in that which never dies and in those things that seemingly never change and give us glimpses of that which is eternal. Spirit of comfort and mercy, grant that through this community of grievers, those gathered here may find love and assurance. Amen. BENEDICTION And now – May our memories remain tender in our hearts. May our sharing with one another this day bring comfort to our grief. And may our hope be sustained as we celebrate God’s love and peace. Amen.