My First Eulogy - Curtis Bernard Emerson

Death. The sting of it all. The heaviness of it all. The reality of it all. On Saturday, July 21st, I did my first eulogy. As a pastor, I will do many of these. But this was my first and I am not a pastor. To add to the pressure, Curtis was my cousin. It was difficult, to say the least, as to what I should say, what should I not say, what ounce of comforting words could I provide to my family while at the same time, comforting myself. As I went to prepare, I remember one of my friends saying that you cannot preach the dead into heaven or hell. That is not our task for we really don't know, where the deceased has ended. How true it is when we experience loss in our lives that at the funeral, we have the deceased walking on water. How will you be remembered when the time comes? Will you have done all that you could for others while on earth? Did you help feed the homeless, clothe the naked, did you buy a breakfast sandwich or pass out a blanket to someone on a cold night? As for Curtis, everyone spoke highly of him and remembered him in the same way..."he was like a brother". My brothers and my sisters, not because folk will say good stuff upon your departure from this earth, but because "if you have done it for the least of these, you have done it for me." Jesus just requires us to "Just Do it". Thank God I preached my cousin's eulogy. I just had to "do it".