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The Rev. Frank
Logue
Marcus Dickman, Sr. I hope I get this sermon just right. There is, after all, a right way and a wrong way to do most anything and a eulogy is one of those things you only have one chance to get right. This matters both because I care for Marc Dickman a good bit and don’t want to blow this last sermon for him and also because he wasn’t a Lieutenant Colonel for nothing. You see Marc was particular about some things. He didn’t want his steak cooked just any way. A hot grill, exactly seven minutes on each side. Never flip it more than once. Never. For Marc Dickman that’s the right way to cook any steak and a cook should not vary from that routine. Or if it’s time for a five o’clock toddy—I did mention that this is an Episcopal eulogy didn’t I? Anyway, if it’s time for a five o’clock toddy, then you better get Marc’s Margarita just right, or his Scotch or whatever else he might be drinking. How did we get here? I’ve barely started by sermon and we’ve already had a steak and a cocktail. We’ll I never promised a generic funeral sermon. I just said I would try to get it right. Now if I head to far in this direction, you’ll think Marc was an impossible to please man, never satisfied with anything. That can’t be right, because he was very satisfied with his family and friends and y’all know that you aren’t perfect. Yet he loved his family very much. And if Marc was so demanding of perfection, do you really think he would have selected a priest with an earring for his eulogy? And yet he loved all of you and he tolerated me and my earring, so maybe he wasn’t a perfectionist after all. Perhaps more a person with a strong sense of what’s right. His son Marc puts it in a way that makes sense to me. He says that his Dad had a strong sense of what we might call conservatism that for his Dad meant that he placed a high value on honesty and principles and he worked to practice those values and to instill them in others. For his teenage children that meant a fairly strict way of being raised. Or as Marc put it, “If you’re under my roof, you’re under my rules.” The other Dadisms his daughter Sheri remembers are:
“Finish what you start.” Words of wisdom from a father who cares about his kids. Not that he was very demonstrative about the love he felt for them. Marc was never a huggy father, but his kids never doubted that he loved them. He might show them he cared by wiggling the wings on his plane as he passed over the house. He mostly showed his love through his actions and in raising his children to be honest and good to others. Marc taught them to obey the rules—like curfew—and to work hard. He also gave them the self-confidence to do whatever they dreamed. Marc’s love had plenty of room to take in more and when he married Martha, her children became his children. In time, Martha’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren were his as well. And Marc has more love to share than that as he not only considered Karen very much his daughter, but he also had the room in his heart to take her husband Scott on as a son. I was only able to see Marc with Kalyn and Logan, and Scott’s daughter Danielle, because they all go to church here, but I know how much he loves all his grandkids and great-grandkids. He was always so very proud of them all. For all of them, Marc wanted them to do and become whatever it was they dreamed. Connie remembers that he only said the word “can’t” in the context of “You can’t go out wearing that” never in terms of her Dad placing limits on what she might be capable of. Marc felt that you could get what you want if you work hard for it and that that hard work is worth it. Sure he warned his son Marc that band directors didn’t pull in a big salary, but he never tried to stop his son from going in to music, he supported him, and instilled in them his sense of honesty and hard work. Marc knew about hard work. He was very dedicated as an Army Air Corps and then Air Force officer. Marc flew in combat in two wars—World War II and Korea, making the transition from the big multi-engine B-29 bomber to single seat jets as times changed. He continued to fly in the service in peacetime, and worked to train future pilots. Marc had done some dangerous duty, including rescue behind enemy lines, but he was never the one to bring it up directly, never the one to brag about his war record. After the military, Marc’s never give up attitude and hard work were the perfect accompaniment to his entrepreneurial spirit and Marc created a number of businesses including a private flying service called ValdAir, laundromats, an import/export company, accounting business, a Mail and More, and others. Some worked out, others didn’t, but Marc kept moving forward through all of it, not discouraged by failures, but always looking ahead to the next venture. That never dwelling on failures attitude may explain why Marc kept at fishing all those years. As his son remembers “We never netted a lot of fish, but it didn’t stop us from fishing.” Fishing is just one example of the ways in which Marc was never all work, even if he was a hard worker. What I remember most of all was that twinkle he would get in his eyes and his great sense of humor. He had a real low-key sense of humor. He wasn’t a joke teller. Instead Marc just found the humor in life. He observed things and then pointed out the humor in it. He didn’t mind if he was the butt of a joke and neither did I, so it was easy enough for us to trade back and forth, observing the humor in life, even at our own expense. As a quiet man, not demonstrative about love for many years, you could miss what was on Marc’s mind if you weren’t watching closely. Certainly I never doubted that he loved his wife Martha. But if I hadn’t been at the hospital where he was hooked up to machines as Martha walked into the room, I would have never known that she could still effect his blood pressure after all these years. I shouldn’t have been surprised. You only had to see the way Marc’s eyes lit up and the big smile on his face every time he saw his beloved Martha. My wife and I have run into Marc and Martha in restaurants a number of times when he has met Martha at work and gone out for lunch. He always looked so delighted to be with her. That’s, of course, because he was always very much in love and happy to be with her and not ashamed to show it. Marc was always more demonstrative about his love for Martha, always giving her a kiss when they met or when they parted. He came to show his love for his kids and their kids more openly. So where was and is God in all of this? If Marc is a saint, where’s his testimony? That might take some doing for a man who started out in the Jewish faith, but don’t trouble yourself. Marc wasn’t given to talking about all that too much anyway. As Marc’s pastor, I was certainly around for some spiritual highs, like when he and Martha attended a Cursillo retreat. Later when I worked on a Cursillo team with him, I heard Marc having plenty to say about his life and his faith. But that was all context. Marc was more given to being quiet, not given to standing in the pulpit. Yet, his faith was there, a rock solid constant in his life the way Marc worked to be that rock solid constant for his family. That conservatism that worked itself out in honest and principles was all part of Marc’s faith. If you wanted to know what Marc thought about anything, the best guide was to look to his actions. If he was in town and well Marc was in church. Marc was so consistently here if he could be and so consistently in the same seat that we bought him his own chair. Right here with arms on it so that he could more easily get up for communion. That’s Marc’s testimony: his consistency in worship, and his consistency in following the principles that guided his life. You could see his faith as death approached. Marc was concerned about Martha and his family, not himself. Marc had no doubts about eternal life, no anxiety over his own death. Marc wanted to make sure that Martha and everyone else was OK. He knew that he would be just fine. Marc did not die believing or even hoping in the resurrection. Marc died knowing he would be resurrected not on his own merits, but because of his relationship with Jesus Christ. Martha remembers his last words as being “going home.” She didn’t understand and said, “Yes, you’re going to get back home.” But Marc pointed up and said, “Going home.” Our Gospel reading for today ended, “This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.” Marc knew he believed and he knew that he too would be raised. Now that’s right. May we all find that sense of certainty as we face our own mortality. Amen. Follow this link for photos from the Memorial Service
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