death

Wednesday Witness: Corporal Works of Mercy – Bury the Dead

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These Wednesday Witness columns essentially track what the Lord is doing in my heart and life regarding the seven Corporal Works of Mercy:

  • to feed the hungry
  • to give drink to the thirsty
  • to clothe the naked
  • to shelter the homeless
  • to comfort the sick
  • to ransom the captive (to visit prisoners)
  • to bury the dead

If you look closely, one of these works is not like the others: While the first six Corporal Works concern the needs and comfort of living persons, the seventh focuses on our bodily remains. As a result, it has often seemed like the work I’m least likely to carry out in any practical sense, since I am not a minister, mortician, or cemetery attendant.

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A Year Apart: Reflecting on My Father’s Passing

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One year ago today, my father passed away.

I flew to Michigan early that morning with the experienced observation of a close family friend ringing in my head: It won’t be long. The flight was flawless and landed early. When the rental car clerk learned why I was in Michigan, he expedited everything, and I was on the road in minutes. Traffic moved. The pavement was dry. I drove the limit and made myself relax, reflecting that this was unfolding in God’s time, and I would arrive when I should.

I arrived just in time. My sister came out to greet me in the driveway and said she thought Dad may have just stopped breathing. I went in and held his hand, which was warmer to my touch than it had been in years. I spoke to him softly, telling him it was okay, telling him to go to the Lord and not to be afraid, telling him we were okay and would take care of each other. 

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Book Break: Sword of Honor

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Last month, I drove to Michigan and back on consecutive weekends. Roadtripping comes easily for me, especially with a good audiobook. During the winter, I saw an article on the Imaginative Conservative website about Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honor trilogy, and since I haven’t read anything by Waugh since Brideshead Revisited in 2011, it seemed like a solid choice.

In case you don’t know (I didn’t): Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh is a British man; an author, journalist, and book reviewer; a World War II veteran; and a twice-married convert to Catholicism. Sword of Honor comprises three separate novels published in chronological order: Men at Arms (1952), Officers and Gentlemen (1955), and Unconditional Surrender (1961).

The books trace the wartime story of Guy Crouchback, the only surviving son of a once well-to-do Catholic family in England, who is floundering after his beautiful but promiscuous wife leaves him for another man (and another, and another) in the early days of World War II. Despite being older than most recruits, he joins the Army to escape his loneliness and reassert himself as a man—God willing, to do something meaningful with his life.

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‘He Makes Me Lie Down in Green Pastures’

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Last weekend we laid my dad to rest. When it came to death, Dad was a practical man: He wasn’t religious himself, and he didn’t want us to spend a lot of money or effort on a funeral. Sorting through his preferences and our own beliefs wasn’t completely straightforward, but I believe Mom managed admirably.

In Dad’s final months, he had shared with her that Psalm 23 was a favorite passage that his Little Grandma used to read to him when he was little. We all prayed it over him, and for him, many times during the final weeks of his life. During the burial, the line that stuck out most to me was, “He makes me lie down in green pastures.”

I believe the Lord has shepherded Dad, and all of us, well these past months.

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Daryl Thorp, 1948-2024

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REMUS, MICHIGAN—Husband, father, machinist, and mule driver, Daryl Thorp passed away on January 28, 2024, in the log house north of Remus with his wife and children around him.

Daryl lived on his own terms. He was born in the Thumb of Michigan in 1948, the youngest of the four living children of Duane and Mary (Hawley) Thorp. He lost his mom in 1953 and spent much of his formative years with his Little Grandma. Though he was never religious, he was a deeply moral man who, even late in life, said that in everything he did, he was trying not to let Little Grandma down.

Life wasn’t easy, and by the time he was a teenager, he was already making his own way as best he could. He was bright and mechanically gifted from an early age, but he had little love for school and would rather be working with his hands or hunting and fishing. He joined the Army after high school and was blessed to be stationed in Alaska. He said the biggest thing he learned from the Army was that he didn’t want to stay in the Army, so he had better figure things out. He told a buddy he was going home to marry the neighbor girl, and he did—though at that point they had never even been on a date.

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