Memorial Service, Ernest "Brother" C. Fulcher

Philippians 3:4b-12

Central Baptist Church, Lowesville, VA

28 October 2006

We gather here today to celebrate the life of Ernest C. Fulcher, or “Brother”, as he was know to most. I did not know Brother, but I had heard more than one mention of him over the last month. On Sunday, we announced his birthday in church, along with a call for folks to visit him. Brother had been hoping to see his 97th birthday last Sunday. Apparently satisfied with that milestone, he passed away in peace.

Brother was a father, a husband, a grandfather, a cousin, and a friend. He was a World War II veteran, and many other things besides to different people. He leaves a hole in many of our lives with his death. We do not grieve so much for him. Brother died at peace after a long, full life. We do grieve, however, for ourselves and for what we have lost with his passing. Grief, after all, is about the loss each one of us experiences. It is our process to adjusting to the harsher realities of life—change, death, trauma, pain, and the loss of opportunity.

Grief and separation are required experiences in life. They are challenges to our sense of comfort and security. We grieve the small experiences of loss. We grieve the more traumatic experiences also. We look back upon what we have lost or laid aside. We evaluate what that loss means. Then we begin the process of rebuilding our lives in the knowledge of our loss. This rebuilding is a long process made more complicated by repeated experiences, each with a new sense of compounding loss.

Paul understood something of this need to get on with the task of rebuilding our lives in the light of loss. He did not ignore the past or the meaning of loss, however. Hear his words from Philippians 3:4b-12. Paul remembered clearly the former foundation of his life, based upon the shallow foundations of heritage and a righteousness based on works. On experiencing the grace of Christ Jesus, however, he had to let all of that go in order to accept the new life Christ Jesus offered.

Paul uses the word “forget” is speaking of laying aside his past. At the same time, he rehearses for us what that past was. He did not forget in our normal sense of the word, nor was that something he encouraged others to do. Rather, he wanted believers to accept the past as well as the challenge of living the new life set before us. His desire and call was to press on to the new life in Christ, living for the eternal realities of God’s call, not allowing the past to drag us down to a lesser quality of living.

Paul reviewed his own past. He assessed the value of his past. He assessed the value of what he had learned from Christ. Upon that foundation, he pressed on to take hold of the rest of God’s blessings for his life. We find some of this same message for us in Brother’s example. Brother lived a long life. He experienced his own share of grief, loss, and change. Through it all, he kept his eye on building his life toward the expectations of what was yet to come. He looked forward to his 97th birthday and accepted it as a blessing. He looked forward to life beyond that milestone, beyond the grave.

In life, Brother enjoyed his food, especially egg custard pie. Brother enjoyed dressing up. His were probably the only bib overalls in the county that were regularly laundered and pressed. Brother enjoyed gathering with people and socializing. From his front porch, he would sit and wave at every car passing by. He was not so concerned with the cars as with connecting with people.

Brother enjoyed dressing up to go out. He didn’t like to travel far, but he enjoyed going into town, to church, or to other social gatherings. He was always present at the Piney River Firehouse Chitterling Supper. I don’t know how much of the chitterlings he ate, but he enjoyed to socializing with friends.

After serving in the European Theater under General Patton in World War II, Brother had difficulty finding a job back home. He and his son, James, decided to attend the Monroe Trade School together on the GI bill. They originally signed up for the same electrician class. When that did not work out too well, Brother switched to a welding class. For some time, he worked at ship building down in the Norfolk area. Before long, he returned home to Amherst County, working at the American Cyanamid plant in Piney River, where he retired.

Brother liked the Amherst area. The flood of 1969 chased him out temporarily, but this was where he felt he belonged. Until it became necessary to enter a nursing facility, he could be found keeping his porch clean, moving his car to keep it in the shade, and feeding a neighborhood cat a gallon of milk every week. He liked his car and kept it clean, not allowing food to be eaten in it. His winter coat was what the family called his Panama Jacket. He enjoyed wearing his suit and wingtips. He enjoyed Bob Wills’ Texas swing music after hearing him once in Bakersville, California.

He shared with his family his love for his church and the old hymns. Brother did not have a big family. His wife passed away before him, as did one granddaughter. He enjoyed people, however, seeking always to connect with others around him, bringing them into his life as possible.

He enjoyed Coke in the little glass bottles. “You can’t get anything like you used to,” was one of his pet sayings. He recognized that some things of today might be better, but he noticed and commented on the difference in the world from the older days.

As we have gathered to celebrate the life of Ernest Fulcher, we also begin here our process of grieving the loss his death has brought into our own lives. We rejoice for his being freed from captivity to his body ailing in his final days. We rejoice in the gift and impact his life was for the benefit of others. We must also confront our own mortality and the question of the legacy that our own lives will leave for the benefit of others.

Paul spoke of pressing on toward the fullness of what God holds in store. Paul did not write from a vacuum or a life devoid of the experience of pain, loss, and grief. This was a man who had much experience with grieve and suffering. Paul knew that there was more to living than the experience of pain. Paul understood that God himself experiences our sense of grief and loss alongside us. Jesus lived the experience of losing his earthly father, as well as the death of his friend Lazarus. His own death on the cross on our behalf adds further personal experience to God’s perspective on our sense of grief.

We are not left alone in our grief. We are not abandoned. We are called to march onward, even as Brother continued with his own expectations of God’s blessings beyond the death of his own wife and granddaughter. Brother leaves us a legacy of a forward-looking faith, and assurance of God’s faithfulness amid the storms of life. May we find the strength needed to refashion our lives along the lines of this assurance and hope. As we press on to God’s upward call in Christ Jesus, God will walk with us, sustaining us for the days and years ahead.

—©2006 Christopher B. Harbin