"Graveside" Remarks for Harvey G. Honsinger

These are remarks I prepared to be delivered at the burial of my father, Harvey G. Honsinger, at the Mont Belvieu Methodist Cemetary at Mont Belvieu, Texas (also known as Barber's Hill).  Due to the threat of rain, the graveside ceremony was moved inside, to the Fisher Chapel of the Mont Belvieu United Methodist Church.  The text here is what I wrote for delivery at the graveside--obviously I changed what I actually said slightly to take the new venue into account.  


The chapel was a very fitting site--it is a beautiful white frame church with a beam ceiling and lovely stained glass windows, many bearing inscriptions showing they were donated by Harvey's ancestors and other relatives.  


Graveside Remarks for Harvey Honsinger

April 2, 2012

Good afternoon.  Thank you for coming.

For those of you who don’t know me, I am Harvey Paul Honsinger, everyone calls me Paul, and I am Harvey’s son.  

   

I feel certain that my father is pleased that you are here, each of you, because everyone here is special to him.  I know my father’s mind and his heart well enough to believe that he is especially happy to see the faces of his brother, Brian, of the folks he called “the Cousins,” that is the grandchildren of Q.K. and Clara Jane Barber who used to spend summers at the Bay together, along with Cousin Bruzzie—because from what I hear, you folks were in many ways more like brothers and sisters than cousins—plus his dear friend and hunting companion Bruce Jester, as well as all the other family, friends, and anyone here who grew up with him here or who knew him as a young man.  He loved you.  All of you.

I am confident, too, that Harvey is pleased that this place, of all the places on this Earth, is where he is being laid to rest, and that is not just because he left written instructions to that effect. For, even though he lived from 1958 until last Friday in Louisiana, he always considered himself a Texan. And, not just a Texan, but someone with a particular connection to this community, this town, this place.

Barber’s Hill was much more than just a place he was from.  He cherished growing up here, in this town, where everyone knew everyone else, where people looked out for one another, and where the town was, in many ways, simply an extension of the families of which it was made.   

He also valued very highly that he had deep roots here—that his ancestors had come here before the Texas Revolution and built their homes, and helped build this town, the schools, and the church that stood here, creating a community of families and fellowship and faith, where once there was nothing but a gentle hill surrounded by a sea of grass.

In fact, this spot is practically in the back yard of the very home in which he grew up.  It stood right over there, just yards away.  “Spittin’ distance,” you might say.  This place is so close that a pecan that fell from that tree right there—the same one in Harvey’s yard that he and his brother used to climb, the same one that made the nuts from which his mother, Vera, baked cookies and cakes could—almost—roll over here and come to rest against his headstone.

And the church that stood on this spot was important, too him, too.  Not just because his forebears donated the land and helped build the chapel with their own hands, but also because generation after generation worshipped here, received the Good News of our Lord here, were baptized here, were married here, and found their final rest here.

And, finally, I know it is of deep meaning to him that he will find his eternal rest here, surrounded by his parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, other family members and friends, many of him he has missed so keenly these past few years.

  

Indeed, this spot, this very spot, is what we might call a “spot of his childhood.”   At the memorial service held for him at Lake Charles, Louisiana, yesterday, we sang, according to one of Harvey’s final wishes, the old hymn—“The Church in the Wildwood.”  This was, I think, a very meaningful choice, and a choice made with this final resting place in mind, because here are the last words of the last verse, right out of the old Cokesbury Hymnal:

“When day fades away into night,

I would fain from this spot of my childhood

Wing my way to the mansions of light.”

The unchained soul of Harvey Honsinger has found his way, from this spot of his childhood, to the mansions of light.  We commit to the soil of Texas the body of this proud Son of Texas.  And, we ask that God accept Harvey’s loving spirit to wait with Him—to wait until Harvey can be joined there by all of those who knew and loved him and we are, all of us, joyfully reunited--reunited in the mansions of light.