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Ask anyone. David's favorite time of the religious year has always been Easter. I've never known a man who was so inspired with the hopeful message of the resurrection story. He loved the connection to the personal resurrections that we experience in our lives: our own life challenges and tragedies, our eventual recovery from them, and the newly-inspired purpose in life that often comes with the hardships we endure. He believed everyone could rise from their circumstances, and his message and counsel to those he served was consistent with that ideal.
When I visited David on Good Friday, I found him bubbling with life, all smiles and laughs, with non-stop conversation about things going on in the house. What was striking was how positive he felt about his housemates at Gaffney House. Everything was said with such heartfelt inflection, that if often drew him to tears. Not from his own sadness, but from the goodness he was feeling about others.
David has the gift to see the goodness in others because he's in touch with his own goodness. He often spoke about how lucky he was in life--that even with its various complications--he enjoyed everything about it. He loved his family--was the 'teller of stories' and would captivate the room retelling often hysterically funny stories about family history. He was thankful for his ministry--the various roles he was able to play, and the people he was able to serve throughout his 43 years as a priest was very rewarding to him. He was grateful to have a partner in his life and the opportunity to share the hardships and triumphs of our personal journeys was a blessing to us both.
David is happy. He is still able to express that. It's up to us to enter that happiness with him, even when we don't understand his words. Watch his expressions. Listen to the tone and inflection in his words. Smile and laugh along with him. And just play along.
Steve Knipp, 2014
