THE DAY MR. LOONEY DIED

        There are two things I read in my hometown newspaper—the obituaries and a feature called, “A Look Back” that reports on what was going on in my hometown 50 years ago, back when I was a boy. 

        I’ve often told the story of my first encounter with death.  Mr. Looney was a kind policeman who often worked the school crossing on Main and Milner Streets.  Back when I WAS A BOY, I would walk to school!  (Yes, it was rough back in the day!)  The Main and Milner crossing was one block from my house, two blocks from the school.  (Okay, give me a break!  It was only 3 blocks but I was just a kid!)

        Mr. Looney knew us all by name, or at least our family name.  I was “little Howell.”   He would joke around with all the kids, sometimes let us play with his handcuffs, and he would make sure we were safe and sound. 

        One morning I saw Mr. Looney on the way to school.  I’m sure he called me “little Howell” and had some encouraging words for me.  He wasn’t there when I walked home.  I stopped at my grandmother’s house and she told me that Mr. Looney had died.  It was a sudden heart attack, just after working the school crossing. 

        My memory doesn’t always serve me well because in my mind we got in her car right then and went to the funeral home.  More than likely it was the next afternoon when we went to the funeral home.  It was the old Peck Funeral Home up on the hill across the tracks from the Hartselle Depot. 

        We walked into the viewing room and I remember flowers everywhere.  And there, in the middle of the floral arrangements, was a casket with Mr. Looney, dressed in his police uniform with his hat resting to his side.  My grandmother walked up to the casket.  She beckoned me to come join her but I was reluctant.  I had never seen anyone in death before. 

        She started talking to me, telling me that this was just Mr. Looney’s body.  His spirit, she said, was already in heaven.  Mr. Looney was rejoicing in heaven.  He was up there with Jesus and all of his family and one day, we would be there too. 

        Then she said to me, “Do you want to touch him?”  

        Well, I didn’t, but Nana didn’t give me a choice.  She took my hand and placed it on Mr. Looney’s cold hands.   A chill went up my spine.  She was teaching me a life lesson about death.  “Death is a part of life,” she always said.

        That event had quiet an impact on me.  Obviously, I have not forgotten my first encounter with a dead man.  The other day in my hometown paper, I read that 50 years ago Police Chief Looney had a sudden heart attack and died.  His funeral was scheduled for First Baptist Church.    

        So it has been 50 years.  I would have been an eight year old boy in the second grade.  And I never remembered him being the Police Chief.  Of course, my hometown was so small there were probably just a handful of policemen.   But even so, it was the Chief who worked the school crossing and made friends with all the kids.   Fifty years later, Mr. Looney is still influencing me. 

        Now, here is the “rest of the story.”   I don’t know if that experience had anything to do with it—but I think it did—when in college I got a part-time job at a funeral home.  I certainly wasn’t scared of being around the dead.  My grandmother saw to that when I was in the second grade. 

        I have always felt that my experience in a funeral home gave me a better understanding of how to relate to families at a time of death, which I do right often as a minister. 

        And here’s another interested twist.  Having experience at a funeral home in college led me to find a job with Bright Funeral Home in Wake Forest when I was in seminary.  When I went to work at Bright, they were still running ambulance service, so I was certified as an EMT.  When I was called to my first church, they quickly found out that I was an EMT with ambulance experience so I was soon a volunteer with the rescue squad.  My youngest brother, Jon, came to see me and went on an ambulance call with me.  He must have liked it, because he later got a part-time job with an ambulance service.  Today, he is the CEO of HEMSI, the emergency medical services of Huntsville, Alabama.  

        Somehow there is a connection that goes back 50 years to the day that Mr. Looney died.   Death, after all, is a part of life.