Uncle Tim’s Comments at Jamie’s Funeral – January, 1991

 “As I was sitting here, I was thinking -you know if we had a meeting like this- especially you guys that had Jamie in church, you know good and well that if there was a meeting like this he would be back with the kids helping to babysit your kids right now.  You know without a doubt that’s where he’d be.  And he would also be really reluctant to let them go as you left.

So,  I was asked to introduce two songs that will be played.  The first is I Hear Leesha and the second one will be Friends both by Michael W. Smith.  The song I Hear Leesha is a song that Saturday, not Saturday, Sunday morning, uh…of course we received word Saturday night… but that Heidi was singing, unbeknownst to us she thinks, uh she was singing this song.  And then when we were coming on our way up here, she of course brought the song along.  And we shared it with Carlton, Kathy, several others as an expression of just what was delivered here. 

That we know, we don’t guess we don’t hope, hope in an English term, but we know where Jamie’s at.  In fact, I loved what Brad  said yesterday.  He said, when I asked him how did Jamie look, he said, “Well that isn’t… that isn’t Jamie.”  Because he is, he said ‘though that may have been what he was housed in on this earth in the seventeen years that he spent here, but “That’s not him.”  And he said, “I never felt like that was him.  He is gone. ” He is as the song says he is in the very presence of our Savior.  That’s where he’s at.  And that is a great comfort even though we wrestle with the pain of his loss.

It’s amazing to me, -and Kathy told me that I could be myself.  {Laughs among congregation.}  It’s amazing to me the lives this guy touched. I’m just, uh the people in Tulsa where we live, the lives that he touched and the pain that the people that we know down there who wish that they could be here.  Jamie spent a lot of time with us down there.  It’s just amazing to me that the lives that he touched. 

In fact, I’m reminded of when Dawson Trotman (founder of the Navigators) died.  He was on a lake; he was in a boat on the lake.  The boat lurched for some reason and two girls, who couldn’t swim very well, fell out.  He got in the water and splashed around and got these two girls out.  And just as the guy went down to reach to get Dawson Trotman he sank down… he drowned…he died.  At his funeral, Billy Graham preached the service. 

And I thought the interesting thing is that, there were reporters there from Time and bunch of places, but there was a caption that read -that reflected his life- I thought what a tribute for all of us to have said of our lives.  The caption read: Always holding somebody up.  And I think that really reflects, and it reflected -past tense, now- what Jamie’s life was.  And even though there were times obviously that he didn’t really understand how much we wanted to hold him up.  But he really did have a tremendous desire to hold other people up.”