Funeral of Barry Vaughan
Last Saturday Barry Vaughan died in Beaumount Hospital. While the end came quite quickly, it was for Barry the end of a long period of struggle and decline that must have been hard for him and certainly hard for those who loved him to watch. On this the day of his funeral we meet to honour the memory of an intelligent, reserved, humorous, capable gentleman and to commend him to the love and care of Almighty God.
Barry in the course of his life lived in five different countries. He was born at Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela where his father was working in the oil business. Schooling, as was the case with all children of expatriate communities, involved a variety of locations and separation from parents fro an extended period of time from quite a young age. He spent a year in Montego Bay in Jamaica before moving on to British Columbia via New York. For his secondary education he was sent to Loughborough (near Derby, in the English East Midlands). During his time there he excelled in cross country running and other athletic events as well as rugby. But towards the end of his time in Loughborough he learned to glide and so began a lifelong association love of flying. When he left school he went to work for Shell in London but this was not his thing. He left to join the RAF in which he served for 8 years. During this time he flew Hawker Hunters and was involved in the Black Arrows, the forerunners of the Red Arrow Display team. He left the RAF to join Aer Lingus and moved to Dublin. Here he met his wife Mary and here they reared their daughter Jane. Mary died relatively young in 1992.
As I say a reserved man with a remarkable life story, intelligent with a wide range of interests. Jane, while going through papers came across some thoughts that Barry had obviously made concerning today; our reading from Philippians, the hymn ‘The day thou gavest Lord is ended’ along with a couple of poems, one of which I am going to read in the final prayers of this service.
That passage from Philippians concludes with those lovely words:
Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
I just want to set that passage alongside the other passage that we read today, from the second letter of Paul to the Corinthians. Our recent experience of Barry has been of decline, of incapacity. That is not the Barry Vaughan we give thanks for today. Today we are not just looking to the past, we look forward in hope as we entrust Barry into the loving care of Almighty God. In this portion Paul presents us with the reality of our own mortality and death, he talks very plainly of the body wearing out. But just as he talks of the reality of physical decline and death, Paul talks of our new heavenly home. The words that really stand out for me are ; “So that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.” This is our hope for Barry Vaughan, that all the limitations of these latter years, the frailty, along with all the limitations that go with being human are “swallowed up by life”, that is our inheritance in Christ.
So today we gather to thank God for Barry Vaughan, for the many different ways he touched our lives. We come to pray for his family, his daughter Jane, his sister Linda and close friend Patricia. We gather to set his life and our lives in the context of our faith in a loving and living God as we commend Barry, father, pilot, good friend, remarkable human being into the hands of a loving heavenly Father.