Diane Nuckles Funeral Sermon

Diane was born in Helena, Montana. And, as that was the setting and context for all her earliest and most formative years, it’s interesting to me that I didn’t remember that she’d hailed from Montana until I was preparing this sermon. I’m sure she told me at some point, but my memory for details is pretty shaky. What I do hold on to are the themes and overarching impressions of a person’s story. And what stands out so clearly and prominently in my impression of Diane and her younger days was her moving to Seattle to attend the University of Washington.

Education was everything to Diane – that whole world of learning and discovering, of processing data and making sense of things and (much to my envy), being able to remember what she’d learned! Diane had a fabulous mind – a brilliant mind. (Fitting, that her birth stone was the diamond.) Her mind was, in many ways, her rock and her anchor. It was the way she knew herself to belong to this world – this world of endless of fascination.

In fact, she was actually member of Mensa, which must have satisfied her ego – if not her social life. “I don’t recommend joining it,” she advised her daughter Lessa. “The meetings are boring – just a lot of people bragging about how smart they are.”

To her credit, her brilliance was better applied to any number of games she enjoyed playing. Rounds of Trivial Pursuit tended to end rather quickly. She knew all the answers. The same with Jeopardy. She delighted in playing the New York Times crossword everyday – always filling in the answers by pen. And Bridge was a constant. Marian Sandstrom concluded, “She was definitely our best player.” And lucky Marian, she was regularly Diane’s partner.

And coupled with Diane’s brilliance came a kind of determined practicality. She was not one to be carried away by passions and strong emotions. Everything was to be approached with clear thinking and rationality. Even death. When she received news that her cancer had returned and was spreading, she made her choice: no intervention. She was ready. She would face it head on. And so began her final lesson: It was time to learn how to die.

It’s noteworthy that, for this final class (which, in many ways, must be a very private, internal process), she did grasp hold of one “Suggestion for further reading.” It came from Kae, our deacon, who gave her the book, Proof of Heaven. It’s an autobiographical book written by a neurosurgeon, sharing his own near-death experience. Just a few days before she died, having recently completed the book, Diane spoke of how helpful it had been – this last instruction from an “expert” – before (as fate would have it) she would became an expert herself.

I’m grateful, on Diane’s behalf, knowing how much her mind and intellect meant to her, that she was able to retain it, right up into the end. On Friday, she was still sitting in her living room, speaking clearly and intelligibly, with opinions and instructions, just like always. By Monday, she was in bed, on oxygen, awake but unresponsive, her eyes unfocused. Early Tuesday morning, she was gone.

And I trust that in those final hours, she was being called to that which we shall all be called, that final spiritual and embodied task: to lay down one’s life. As Christians, throughout our lives of faith, “taking up our cross and laying our life down” is always our ethical mandate – to give ourselves and our resources away in service of another. But (if we’re honest) this kind of altruism and sacrifice remains an option we don’t fully buy into. We always hold back. Which is reasonable, if not laudable. But in the end, there comes a point when the option is no longer our own, but God’s – when God shall say, “Come, my beloved, it’s time to let go.” And so we must.

All those things we’ve held on to: things that have given us meaning and identity; things that have brought hope and excitement. And the broken things, too: our resentments and bitterness; our regrets and failures. Even our heresies and misplaced convictions. Everything. When the summons comes, the cost is total. Everything that has meant life to us must be laid down. Their season is passed, their usefulness done. And just one thing remains: to give ourselves over – completely – to God, to whom we belonged all along.

Then shall we see God, and we shall be in God, and God shall be in us. “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now we know in part; then we shall know fully, even as we are fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12). This is the end that awaits us all, the end that has become Diane’s new beginning.

But we’ve gotten ahead of ourselves. There’s still much to say and to remember of Diane on this side of the grave, the Diane we knew and beheld and loved, especially when it comes to education.

She graduated from the University of Washington in the mid 50s, then moved to Virginia where she began a Masters at the University of Virginia. That’s where she met Doug. I’m guessing their marriage and the starting of their family is what got in the way of finishing that masters. But many years later, she ending up receiving her Master of Arts in Teaching at The Citadel. Diane was one of the first female graduate students, graduating in 1973.

The role of education and all things associated with it remained a guiding theme throughout her life. As a newlywed, she taught at St. Catherine’s School in Richmond, Virginia. By chance, it borders the University of Richmond where my own daughter, Kathryn, is a student. As soon as Diane learned Kathryn would be attending there, she felt an immediate bond, a pride, and she never failed to ask every Sunday, “How is Kathryn doing in Richmond?” It delighted her that this Kathryn was near her old stomping grounds of Saint Catherine’s.

In later years, she was an Administrative Coordinator at the Medical University of South Carolina, which helped her support her daughters, Diane and Dessa, as they began their own collegiate careers, to which – of course – Diane was fully committed, proofing papers and helping however she could. When Dessa brought Jay home, Diane became his private tutor, coaching him through all his grammatical deficiencies in four semesters of English.

And with her love of education, came all its associated loyalties. Throughout her life, Diane always maintained a profound connection with her sorority, Kappa Delta, whose white roses are behind the altar today. It was part of her identity – a belonging she was pleased to share with two other members of St. John’s: June Lane and Gretchen Jordal.

And then there’s school sports. She wasn’t all brains and no fun. Let the record show, Diane loved sports. I mean, loved sports. It was an unflagging passion. From her earliest years, supporting the Helena Highschool Basketball team, to being an all-round Huskies fan, to the Seattle Mariners and Seahawks and golf and tennis and God knows what else, she was passionate about them all. Connie, one of her YMCA buddies, found her soulmate in Diane as the only other woman-friend she’d ever had who was able to talk about sports so much and so knowledgeably!

Speaking of the Y: For years Diane was dedicated to the Water Aerobics Mer-peeps group. Three times a week she was there, doing her exercises with people half her age, not only inspiring them with her strength and stamina, but with her kindness. She always had a positive word. Always an inquiry, “How are you? How are your children? How was your weekend?”

There was such a spirit of loyalty about Diane: to her friends in the pool and locker room, to her neighbors, to her church, and especially to her family. She was so proud of her husband and daughters and wanted to see them succeed. She always spoke well of them, and affirmingly. She was so pleased when Nancy moved here five years ago from Birmingham – five years where they were able to grow in their friendship and all the things they could enjoy together.

Diane was a member of St. John’s long before I came here. My earliest memories of her were of her in the choir, processing down the aisle with them every Sunday for communion. Episcopal Church choirs had long been a part of her life, and then for her daughters. It pleases me today that some of our choir are able to be here to sing an anthem for her funeral, even though no one in this generation of the choir had ever sung with her.

For so it is in this life. One generation gives ways to the next.

Several years ago, Diane was doing some cleaning out of things, and came across her christening gown – that small, white garment she wore as a baby when her parents brought her to the church to be baptized. With no more babies in her family line to pass it on to, she brought it to me and asked if the church had any need of it. I was very glad to receive it and we gave it to the children’s ministry. In their classroom, they have a “Baptism Work,” – a little station set up for them to learn about the sacrament of baptism. And there it hangs to this day, on constant display.

For these children at St. John’s, this next generation of the church, are also Diane’s family. They are the inheritors of her faith. Our acolyte today is Sarah White, a youth of the church who Diane loved, who Diane was so proud to see heading off to college in the fall. Sarah happened to be at the church yesterday. “I miss Diane so much,” she said.

As this service ends today, Sarah – carrying the cross – will lead us all into the Memorial Garden. Lessa and Nancy will carry their mother’s ashes, as well as those of their father, Doug, to be interred together in our garden. As we make our way out, we will pass by the baptismal font. You’ll see Diane’s baptismal gown there before it.

When Diane was baptized ninety years ago, she was made one with Christ: baptized into his death and baptized into his resurrection. In dying, Christ died with us all. In rising from the dead, he began his ultimate work of raising us all, with him “so there will be one flock and one shepherd” (John 10:16). It is a hope already assured for it is a work already begun.

Once assembled in the garden, we’ll hear the bell tolled eight times: seven times for the seven days of creation, and then the eighth – that eighth day for which we await when God continues the work already begun of raising us to new life in the new heaven and the new earth.

May you rest in peace, Diane, and rise in glory.