The suddenness of it

 

A friend died yesterday. In the morning, before first service, he was at church drinking coffee. In the afternoon, he was gone.

I didn’t know Father Bruce Coggin well. Over the years we met occasionally because we had a few mutual friends. But recently he and I have had some good conversations in my cottage about the publishing world and what to do with all the things we’ve written. Father Bruce’s legacy includes an incredible amount of material, some published, some not—sermons, essays on history and the church, a memoir, travel pieces, accounts of growing up in a small Texas town and also of ten years spent teaching in Mexico, and a lot of miscellany. (You can find his published work by searching for Bruce Coggin on Amazon; the works include a book of selected writings by his grandmother, a remarkable woman way ahead of her time—Bruce saw himself in part as inheriting her writing ability and outlook on life. The book is A Soul Housed Up.)

Father Bruce was a gifted writer, with a clear style, an incisive wit, and an ability to see through the follies of mankind. He wanted to do something with all this work but wasn’t sure what. We talked about various possibilities, conversations that were as enlightening to me as they were to him. The last time we talked, he left with the enthusiasm of a man with a job ahead, one he was looking forward to. He was going to start with a web page, and a friend tells me he talked to her about it as recently as yesterday. I was looking forward to keeping up with his progress—and more conversation.

Sudden death is sometimes a blessing. The deceased is spared the pain, suffering, and indignity of a lingering illness. But it is devastating to those left behind. In this case, it seems especially tragic that a man is cut off when he had so much he was looking forward to accomplishing. Whether or not you want to believe that God had another, more important calling for him is up to you.

Not only do I mourn for this man, his family and friends, and the many former parishioners who are devoted to him, I am shaken by the suddenness of his death. I saw him less than a month ago; a friend tells me she had lunch with him a week ago; another friend talked with him about his web page Saturday; yesterday, he was at church drinking coffee, though apparently not feeling well. And then, suddenly he’s gone.

RIP Father Bruce. I hope you’re up there, finding God’s fingerprints in old and new places and writing furiously. And I hope someone down here publishes some more of your work.