EULOGY FOR
ANNETTE DEAN
1/15/11 at 1:11P.M.
By: Tom Dowling
Let me begin by expressing the sincere gratitude of the family for the outpouring of love, care and many acts of kindness in the recent days. Your very presence here today further attests to that care and concern, and for that the family is truly grateful.
I am Tom Dowling, Martha’s brother. My players called me coach or TD but for Annette and others in the room I answered to a much higher calling. They call me UNCLE. Over 30 years ago Annette crawled on my lap and pulled on my shoulders as have the others. I was the consummate walking jungle Gym and that is what is about to make this so difficult. So you will excuse the pauses and necessary attempts at composure as we continue today.
We gather here today to celebrate the life of Annette Dean, devoted wife, daughter, sister, niece, daughter-in law, sister-in law, cousin and dear friend to all who knew and loved her. Annette had a special gift of making you her friend and she did it as if you were the only one. She loved her family and her friends and knew she was loved in return. She was a treasure and was treasured by family and friends alike.
We are reminded of Paul’s words to his dear friend in the faith, Philemon, when we think of Annette as Paul wrote in “Phil. 1:7”, “For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.
God, in His infinite wisdom, brings blessings into our lives. All too often we fail to recognize their full impact, for who can measure the value of sunshine, or the beauty of a sunrise, or even the magnificence of a sunset in the mountains, or the smile of one who loves you.
Annette was such a blessing.
Each day of our lives we treasure these blessings as if they will always be there. Christian businessman R.G.LeTourneau said I shovel and God shovels back – but He uses a much larger shovel. R.G. LeTourneau never met Annette, because if he had he would have known that God must use heavy equipment to pour out blessings on all of Annette’s family and friends because of how she gave of herself to each of us.
She did it in so many subtle ways:
Her infectious smile could light up a room, brighten the darkest day, make all sadness depart and all hurt go away. And she did it in such a way that we forgot how much she was hurting.
Her personality made her the kind of person we wanted to be around. She was always upbeat, always happy. I never knew her to be angry or sad or down or unhappy. Even with all she endured for 14 years she never let it affect her positive outlook on life or her own personal happiness or the happiness of those around her.
During the 14 year battle with kidney disease: that robbed her of much of her energy yet she continued her education graduating with honors from Eastern Kentucky University with a degree in Agriculture and Business Administration. While there she was a pioneer in the Universities new Biodiesel program.
So how do you measure the value of someone who “just makes you happy?” who removes your sadness and lifts your spirits and brightens your day? Those traits are Immeasurable!
So to Family, Anthony, Martha and Bob, Christy and the rest of the family and to all the friends we realize what a special blessing Annette has been. For now as we recall what we knew all along she was all about us and our happiness. She was truly God’s gift ……….
His blessing upon our lives.
Pain…..yes she knew pain but she never complained. She never allowed it to destroy her joy. Her mother says she endured those 14 years of hardship without a complaint, never lost faith and was an example of grace by the way she lived her life. Anthony said she did have one complaint and that was the inconvenience she cased others. She never considered herself handicapped and would not tolerate a handicapped hang tag
She had a natural way with animals - and never lost that childlike joy and excitement of the sight of a new puppy, or a horse or a buffalo or a pair of calves or even some pigs. All had names and she knew them all!
She was so easy to please:
What did Anthony get you for your birthday Annette? “Some pigs!” She was thrilled to death! She named those pigs Pork and Beans. Later she got two more and because she liked football named them Wilson and Spalding. Anthony said when you get your wife pigs for her birthday and she likes them, “that’s a good woman.”
7th Birthday gift from her parents – Black Sandy, a sow; is the picture beginning to form of a love of animals. It must have started there.
Or the joy she took in a phone call to her father when she asked, “How are you doing daddy?” to which he responded, “oh fine and dandy.” Annette said why daddy you have just named my new calves for me, Fine and Dandy!”
They had a beautiful golden palomino horse named “Dolly” that was a case; had to be sedated to go into the barn. One day Anthony came home to find “Dolly” out in the field. The closer he got he saw a rope on the halter, closer still at the end of the rope he saw Annette lying in the grass holding the rope while “Dolly” grazed.
And the joy she and Anthony had with a group of their special friends, they spent time, at each others homes or at a shared cabin in Gatlinburg. Even when Annette’s activities were limited they just enjoyed each others company just hanging out together. Why, they even all had matching pajamas of which they were so proud. They talked about getting dressed up in their pajamas and going to Wal-Mart.
Annette was such a multi talented multifaceted person. As a teenager in Paris her Professors from Western Kentucky University took her with them shopping because of her command of the language( oh didn’t I mention that 2 times before her 16th birthday she was selected to go to Europe by the National Center for Gifted and Talented Studies at WKU ). She enjoyed hanging out with her friends, hiking; caving - it seems that if there was anything to do Annette wanted to do it. But on top of it all Anthony assures that she was very much a lady.
I think the way I want to remember Annette is in the story of a recent Dialysis session when she encountered an elderly gentleman who had been without his BP medication and no way to get it. Annette had Anthony, admittedly none too happy about it, take him out of their way to get the man’s medicine and take it to his home; All of this when she was having a bad day. Then for the man’s next session, when the man’s transportation was not running because of a holiday, Annette went 50 miles out of her way to pick the man up and take him for his treatment and back home again. She truly thought more of others than of herself: “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself “(Phil.2:3)
Summing up all we might say about Annette her accomplishments and how she touched our lives I think it was all said centuries earlier. (13th Century)
Saint Francis could not have had a better model for his prayer:
Prayer of Saint Francis
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen
LEGACY: As Paul passed his legacy on to Timothy in II Timothy 4:7-8 he said, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord the Righteous Judge, will give me on that Day and not to me only but to all who have loved His appearing.”
Someone needs to pick up the mantel and carry on the work among the group; the family and friends or all we have talked about today will simply become “the story of Annette’s life.” And it will stop right here. Maybe not today but in time and no one wants to see that happen.
Annette was a wonderful person, a loving caring person in the truest sense of the word. We all can attest to these qualities in one we knew and loved. Her passing leaves a large void in all our lives and today we search for comfort and understanding.
YET: As hard as it may seem, this is a time for joy and not sorrow.
Jesus knew there would be times like this and He has prepared us for it if we only take the time to find it.
After Jesus told His disciples that He was about to leave and where He was going they could not follow at that time. There was sadness, and even some confusion and many questions.
Peter asked, “Lord where are you going?” Why can’t I follow you now?”
In response Jesus spoke these comforting words, I think, not just to the disciples but to us also, for times just like this. Today we feel a great sense of loss. We have difficulty understanding this void that has been left in our lives. It is at this very point that Jesus speaks the profound comforting and powerful words of hope to all who know Him as Savior that we can see our loved ones again.
John 14:1-4 “Let not your hearts be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in me. In My Fathers house are many mansions, if it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.
Annette is presently experiencing the full reality of all Jesus has done for her. She now occupies that place Jesus went to prepare. How do I know that, because the Bible tells us in 2 Cor. 5:8 that “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” She is happy beyond measure because there in the very presence of Jesus, where sorrow does not exist, and pain is not present and kidneys are not needed. She is reunited with her sister Sherry and her older brother Bob. Pain and sorrow are experiences of those of us who remain behind and they are softened by the Savior Himself knowing that one day we can experience the very same thing.
So to the family I say, your (our) sadness and grief exist because you had a wonderful, loving and caring wife and daughter; sister, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law and niece, aunt, cousins and a whole room full of close friends. But listen to His words not mine and let the “God of all Comfort rule in your heart now and for ever more.” AMEN
