Weddings and Funerals

This week is particularly historic for our family. The seven days from June 23rd through June 29th each have special significance. It is appropriate that Patsy and I are in Birmingham this weekend for the wedding, later today, of a first-cousin-once-removed, because much of this special family history is connected to Birmingham.



On June 23rd, 1937, my parents, McKinley Gilliland and Martha Jordan, became engaged. Two years later, on June 24th, they were married at Ruhama Baptist Church in the East Lake section of Birmingham.


On June 25th, 1964 my father died here in Birmingham after having been flown back from Nigeria with a brain tumor. He died in the hospital across the street from Ruhama Baptist Church.


June 26th is the birthday of my first cousin, the mother of today's bride. My cousin lives in Birmingham.


On June 27th of ’64, my father was buried in Forrest Cemetery in Gadsden, Alabama, between two beautiful cedar trees on a hill overlooking a steel plant.


Two years ago on June 28th, I had the delight of performing the wedding ceremony for my son, Matthew, and his beautiful bride, Meghan. That happy event, at least, was in North Carolina.


This next Tuesday, June 29th, would have been my Mother’s 93rd birthday, but she died six months ago, just two days after Christmas. A month later, we comemorated her life in another Birmingham church, then we buried her ashes next to my father between those two cedars in Forrest Cemetery. The steel plant, like so much of America’s heavy industry, closed years ago after it became cheaper to build in Gadsden with Japanese steel than with Gadsden steel.

Yesterday, coming from Atlanta on the anniversary of my father’s death, we “took the long way” and drove by way of Forrest Cemetery. The cemetery is owned by the City of Gadsden and is beautifully kept. Even so, those cedars make it hard for grass to grow around the Gilliland family footstones, and the eroding dirt collects on some of them. We cleaned my parents’ footstones as best we could.

Someone had recently placed fresh flowers in front of the Gilliland headstone.


The last time we were in Forrest Cemetery, to bury Mother’s ashes, the weather was cold and blustery, with the wind whipping bits of freezing rain at us. Yesterday was hot and muggy, and we were dodging thunderstorms instead of ice.

I am glad we're in Birmingham for a wedding this time. Weddings are more fun than funerals.

Enjoying the Whitewater

A friend Photoshopped this picture to commemorate an event in my personal history.

Four years ago right now, I had cancer – a melanoma, right in the middle of my back. Surgery was scheduled for the next day (June 19^th), so I had not found out yet whether or not the surgeon would be able to “get it all.” If he did not, my prognosis would probably not be good.

A week or so earlier – after I already knew from the biopsy that I had cancer – Patsy, Matthew and I had gone for a vacation in the North Carolina mountains. During that time, Matt and I took a day to go whitewater rafting. It was one of those “perfect” days, as we paid good money to ride through rough water.

Near the end of our ride, our raft took a drop-off wrong and dumped over, and I was pinned to the river bottom by a couple of other bodies on top of me. I remember it with wonderful clarity – almost as though it happened in slow motion. And I remember how amazingly relaxed I was as I simply lay there without struggling while the other guys scrambled to get to the surface.

I was wearing the helmet and life jacket I had been issued, and I had total confidence that as soon as the others moved, I would pop to the surface. I knew there was a big air bubble under the overturned raft. No fear – complete assurance that I was safe – so relaxed that I actually had to tell myself that it was time to go up for air. I stuck my head out of the water about the time our guide was coming under the raft to look for me. Then, as we had been instructed earlier, I just let the current carry me down to where the guides had a safety line in the water – I grabbed it, they pulled me to shore, and that was that.

It really was a marvelous experience – that amazing feeling of perfect peace, even though I was intellectually aware of the potential for danger. That few moments underwater left me with a “high” I can scarcely describe.

On the June 19^th, as they wheeled me down the hallway to surgery, I felt that same kind of totally peaceful high – the kind that comes from knowing I am safe, no matter what happens. The doctor might get the cancer, or he might not – it didn’t matter, because I new that I belonged to God through my covenant in the Blood of Jesus Christ. Even as I had trusted that life jacket to hold me up, I knew absolutely that come what might, the Lord would take care of me and everything and everyone related to me.

That year, 2006, June 18^th was a Sunday, and I preached on “It’s the Whitewater That Makes the Trip Interesting.”

I have had my share of “whitewater” in life, just like everyone else. But as I trusted that life jacket while I was on the bottom of the river, so now, even as the Scripture says, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him….” [2 Tim. 1:12]

I wouldn’t take anything for that experience on the river – and I wouldn’t want to have missed the experience of God’s absolute faithfulness while I was dealing with the cancer.

Now, I am allowed to live every day with the continuing assurance of that faithfulness.

Oh yes – the surgeon apparently did “get it all.”

A Time For Drip Castles

We are at the beach. We’ve been here since Monday evening. That was Memorial Day, and most of the people who mobbed the area last weekend left as we were coming in, so things have been pretty quiet and uncrowded. It has been a nice get-away for us.

For some years, if Patsy and I were ever able to get away at all, it was usually only for a couple of days. This time, we have had most of a week. It has been nice not to have anything at all we had to do.


We haven’t tried to go sightseeing. We went to a grocery store when we had to and stopped into a couple of other shops. Mainly, we have just “hung out” together. That has been good for us. It has been a long time since we simply relaxed together.

Matt and Meghan came Tuesday night and stayed until Thursday morning. Their visit was a special treat. Since my melanoma, I don’t lie out in the sun, but Matt and Meghan went to the beach with Patsy, and Patsy was able to pass on to Meghan her special techniques for making a sand castle by the “drip” method. I joined them on the beach late, after the sun was well on its way toward hiding.

Peaceful. Fun. Nowhere we had to be, nothing we had to do. At liberty to relax. Maybe go to bed early. Sleep late. I didn’t even bother to get out my fishing tackle – too much trouble. Vegitate. Walk on the beach if we felt like it – or not.

Funny thing, though – after we had several days to “chill,” we began to realize how exhausted we really were!

We spend our lives running from urgency to urgency. Sometimes, the urgencies are even important. We go and go, and drink a little more coffee and go again. We put it down to being “Type-A” personalities, and we go some more.

Maybe one of us gets to go to bed early or to sleep late sometime, but mostly, we just stay on-the-go. Sometimes, I’m not sure where we’re going, but we keep moving….


But not this week. This week, we chilled. Even when there seemed to be an emergency back home, we just left it to others to clean up the mess, and we chilled. Not that we didn’t care, but … we just accepted that we were, at least for the moment, expendable. The world could turn without us. So we let it.

The chill time is ending too quickly. Tomorrow, we must go back to that other world that demands we help it turn.

It’s too soon. The deep weariness has not been fully displaced yet. But we have obligations, so we must pack up and go.

These five days away has been a huge blessing. I suspect we will try to do this again – soon. Maybe – is it possible? – we will even stretch things out closer to two weeks?

Life really should allow time for drip castles.