Mary Louise Bingham Eulogy Introduction

Rob Bingham – April 12, 2004

We each grieve in our own way. I have written the Eulogy. It has a genesis, a purpose and some substance. I claim it has been vetted by two of the kindest, most generous and skilled counselors I have ever met: the Rev. Skip Hutton and Dr. Anne Brower. We are extremely well served in this house of the Lord.

In the fall of 1964, we met at a dance. Mary Lou immediately struck me by the comfortable way she carried herself. I was also impressed by the strength and wit with which she made her points.

In the Parrish Hall, you will see two photographs taken during the four years we knew each other before marriage. She was one fine-looking young lady! Ned scanned and computer-enhanced the pictures, as I have carried them in my wallet for over 35 years.

Mary Lou’s Dad took the picture of us sitting in his love seat. I loved, and continue to love, him and his family as much as I loved Mary Lou.

You may already begin to see my purpose here today. I mean to offer you help in the same fashion in which you each are now serving to help me to honor Mary Lou. My spirit is strong, but my brain seems a bit toasted, hopefully just temporarily. Together we can do this. …

Eulogy to
Mary Louise Bingham 1945-2004

I am honored to welcome your support as my community congregation. You share my empty broken heart. We come together to repair our grief and loss.

We are a team of family, friends, Church and community. Together we carry all the awesome happy memories. It is with these memories that we must fill our hearts and souls.

Memories have great purpose. They are for the living. We gather here today to share the strengths which Mary Lou has given to us. No one with any wit at all could be around Mary Lou without sharing some of her strength.

I am going to do this, and you, unfortunate friends and family have volunteered to help me. Let us continue, both to cry and to dry our tears. We each have work and fun things to do. Time is short.

Do you promise to never do harm, when you could step back and do nothing? Do you promise to look carefully at the present and create a vision of how things really might work better? Can you gather information and resources and inspire others to do the same? Do you understand that when a community is asked to individually volunteer their ideas, they become a team and move to earn ownership and pride in the power of their own being? Do you understand that a Plan, even a broken plan that must be revised and improved, is better than no plan at all?

Once there were 2PLNRS (license plate). Now there is but myself. You see me in my new disguise (beard?!) Behind this facade are three new things. I now carry a new fierceness, a desire to suffer no fool lightly, but to insist they learn to play to their strengths. I see the danger of a lonely, depressed old man. Lastly, I see a fierce young sailor, ready once again to embark beyond the rocks and shoals of an uncertain world.

My new purpose in life is to carry forth from this place with honor the memory of a wife, mother, worker and thinker. We each will do well when we walk in the footsteps of our Mary Lou.