30 JANUARY 2024
A Parish Vigil Service and rosary were offered for Eric Tyson, who died at age 69 on January 8th, 2024. Fr Terrance Klein presided.
On the Road |
Eric Tyson |
Fr Terrance Klein |
St Joseph 30 January 2024 |
John 14: 1-6
I went to college in Columbus, Ohio. That’s nine hundred miles from Ellinwood, Kansas. Sometimes I would pick up a classmate along the way, but often enough I drove for hours by myself. I noticed that during the first few hours of the drive my mind would be focused upon whatever I had just left: Ellinwood in the summer or the seminary come the Spring. Likewise, my mind would focus upon my destination in the final hours of the journey: what I would do at home that summer, or what the coming year in school would be like.
But the long hours between departure and arrival weren’t attached to my departure point or my destination. Instead, I would think about things long past or dream of years long in the future. My mind would range freely over life, something like a bird looking down upon a broad landscape. Songs on the radio would stir up such different memories, emotions, and hopes.
I suspect that Eric experienced the same in his life as a trucker. Out on the open road you’re curiously amid the world yet one step removed from it. Your thoughts range so far and wide. Your regrets, your hopes, your musings upon what it’s all about.
Indeed, we might even speak of a grace in trucking, one that many of us, as we race from one obligation to another, would do well to envy. Time to drive away. Time to think. Time to decide what really matters.
Of course, Eric didn’t do that driving as a leisure activity. He put in those long hours for the sake of his loved ones at home, especially Bonnie and Nora. Still, he was out there on the road by himself, which means that he was with himself. And that’s when the Lord can come to us, reveal himself to us.
Tonight, we say goodbye to Eric, a man so many in this community came to love and cherish. He was insightful, which is a nice way of saying opinionated. He was humorous, a gift we have good reason to cherish. And he was loving and kind.
Now he’s off. We can’t describe the land to which he journeys. We’ve never been. But we know who waits there for him. His loved ones and his Lord. Travel on Eric. See you soon.
