dear hannah,
you won't remember gerry hearin, but you'll hear about him from mommy and daddy
(hannah and me, part twenty-one)


everything about the death of gerry hearin screams tragedy. he and his wife, hoping to catch an alabama basketball game together, arrive too late. because game traffic on paul bryant has thinned out, traffic is moving at it's usual pace. gerry and june attempt to cross the street. june makes it. gerry doesn't. as a result of the terrible accident, gerry is no longer with us and june is without a husband, a daughter is without a father, grandkids are without their grandfather, and a church is without it's heart too soon. make no mistake, the heart of huffman united methodist church was gerry hearin. and on saturday night, that heart was ripped from our collective chest. everything about the death of gerry hearin screams tragedy, and everything about the accident makes you want to be mad and find someone to blame. so, why am i not mad today? why am i not looking for revenge? justice? because, folks, gerry wouldn't have it. gerry knew tragedy. he knew hard times. he had lived through more than his share of both. and he always swung back at the tragedy and hard times with a positive outlook that could only be described in two ways. superhuman. or gerry. there are many reasons that i will miss gerry. here are a few.

* he was a champion of me. selfishly i start here, because when i think of gerry, i think of this story first. the staff of huffman united methodist church during the charles lee era would attest (maybe not publicly) that charles lee was notoriously, how do you say, unpredictable when it came to his attitude upon arriving at staff meetings. i always thought that there were three sides of charles lee. his public face. the big, huggable, aw-shucks pastor of the people. the "i am only here to help you" persona that was as genuine as my hair is long. when he showed up in this mode, we knew it'd be a short and sweet meeting. he was having a good day or had other places he wanted to be, so we moved along quite swiftly. there was also disinterested charles lee. the charles lee that, had you been an outsider, you would have been amazed that this guy was the pastor of this church. would hardly say a word. would wear a look on his face that said "i would rather be having my nose-hairs pulled than be here." would hardly ever make eye contact with the staff members making their reports. this persona, too, would also indicate a short meeting. and then, there was charles lee, the dick. this was the charles lee that we, as a staff, were happy to wish good luck and good riddance to when he left huffman. he was mean. he was condescending. the church was a "failure" and it was the staff's fault. this charles lee knew best. shared his (sometimes completely idiotic) ideas and expected us to be (yes) men and women about it and knod approvingly. most of the time, charles lee, the dick, arriving would mean that it was going to be a long day at the office. intense. grating. redundant. these sessions would make us want to find tweezers for our own nose hair and start plucking. it would be less painful than these meetings. well, one day, toward the (unbeknownst to the staff at the time) end of his tenure, i stood up to charles lee, the dick. it was the first time this had happened in our meetings. i don't know if it had happened before. not surprisingly, i drew my analogy from sports and told charles that if he were to be the "coach" of our staff, he could not berate his "staff" when things were bad and not praise them when things were good. i told him that we were more than happy to be his supporters during the good times, but i didn't want to be his punching-bag on days when he was feeling heat. "the coach" gets to receive the trophies when we win, but he also has to accept his part of the blame when something doesn't work (among other things)...the table was silent. here i am, the youngest, by far, member of the staff, and i just stuck my neck out like never before. i was such an idiot. shortly after my speech, the meeting was dismissed. i knew i was in for it. i prayed that the dick wouldn't fire me and i walked, head down, toward my office. who was the first member of the staff to stop me before i walked up the stairs? gerry. he told me he was proud of me. he told me that i had only put into metaphor what everyone else was thinking. and he told me to not be afraid of the repercussions of my outburst. he and the staff would have my back. in just those few moments, i knew that i would be ok. sure, the conversation i had in charles lee's office was uncomfortable, but i always had gerry's words in the back of my head. if gerry was for me, who could be against me? over the lifespan of my time on staff at huffman, gerry was always one of my biggest fans and supporters and on more than one occasion gave me encouraging words when i made risky decisions that meant taking heat or more heat from parents. i have been honored to do many things in my life. to serve on staff with gerry hearin ranks very high on that list.

* he was a champion of my marriage. i could count on less than one hand (not including sarah's family, her friends, my friends, and my mom) the number of people that have come up to me, personally, and told me that they thought i was making a good and wonderful decision marrying sarah. gerry was one. he and june asked us every chance they got how we were doing. and every time they asked, we felt like they really wanted to know. i've mentioned before how i feel like making the person you are talking to feel like the most important person in the world (let alone the room) is a gift. if you were matching this gift to a face, it would be gerry's face.

* he was a champion of huffman united methodist church. back in the 80's, huffman was clearbranch. or north park. or (insert name of any church that every other church wants to be). we were the standard bearer. we were "the children's place". the place that every young family looking for a church home wanted to be. why? because of gerry, naturally. and other reasons i am sure. i know, from my personal experience, he had a damn fine children's director in the person of beloved pat whetstone. a great associate pastor. a great choir director. a great youth director. but the same goes for gerry as it did with charles lee. most of the credit goes to the man at the top. the man casting the vision. that man was gerry. great men have come and gone from huffman since gerry left, but none have been able to match his success. for better and (nowadays) for worse, we have not been able to escape his huge shadow. after his retirement, gerry could have done many things, but gerry came back to huffman. and served part-time on staff. and believed in the potential of huffman. and wanted huffman to be the best that it could be. he made huffman his home again. sadly, but very fittingly, he will be memorialized at huffman tomorrow afternoon.

* from the pulpit, he was a god. a legend. again, when it comes to my history at huffman, the standard-bearer. i wish i was old enough in the eighties to fully understand what a precious gift hearing gerry preach sunday after sunday truly was. after his retirement and coming back to huffman, his sermons became an event (at least in my mind). it was like seeing pedro pitch in person. or mike vick escaping the pocket. michael jordan in a playoff game. you stopped what you were doing and gave the man your undivided attention. i cannot stress how good he was at delivering a sermon. he didn't have to have a schtick. it wasn't a stand-up routine wrapped up with a calm voice and a nuget-y endpoint. he didn't have to be your grandfather (although you wished he was). he didn't have be play the "cute" card. he didn't have to play a role. he just spoke the message he felt God wanted him to deliver and that was good enough. why? because he was super-smart. super-intellectual. but he oozed life experience. and caring. and concern. and love. and because he was able to wrap all of those things together in a seamless package, you were hearing something you had never heard before. when he was "on his game" (and like the above athletes, he was more often than not) you left church feeling like you had just had a conversation with the Man himself. period.

* he was what a christian should be. those things that he oozed from pulpit? life experience, care, concern and love? it was easy for him. because that's who he was. all of those things. he loved his God. he loved Jesus. he understood his calling was to reciprocate God's favors to him back to the people he touched every day. did he have his flaws? i am sure he did. he was human. one thing that amazes me, though, is that i never felt like i saw one. i guess that's what you get when you run into a man that doesn't have to put a "nice face" on around people he doesn't like or get along with. you got the feeling that he just loved everybody.

i definitely got the feeling that he loved me, and i hate that i will never be able to tell him that. to personally tell him thank you for that day after staff. for giving me someone to look up to and strive to be like. for everything about him that will be remembered tonight, tomorrow, and for years to come.

hannah, you won't remember gerry. but your daddy loved him very much.

we'll miss you, gerry.