Two weeks ago, I shared my experiences of my new appointment at Napa Methodist Church with a group of United Methodist clergywomen. I told them about preparing for my first funeral in this new ministry setting. You see, Doris, who lived to be 103, had been a member of this congregation for 47 years. I was keenly aware that she had helped build this church and her fingerprints were on pretty much everything here. Doris died just 15 days before I arrived so I had not met her. Her family wondered about the new pastor and none of us were pleased that by our denomination’s tradition, I was Doris’ pastor. To be honest, I was so scared I spent a sleepless night or two and I even prayed on my knees pleading with Jesus to return before Doris’s funeral!
Then Dianne handed me a form Doris had filled out back in 2003 titled Planning Your Own Memorial Service. The pastor at that time, Rev. Doug Monroe, had invited the congregation to complete it.
Doris filled out that form with extraordinary care. She listed her favorite hymns and scriptures, and she recorded stories and details from her long life.
As I read her handwritten reflections, I began to understand the depth of her resilience. Doris had lived through profound scarcity. She described the dire poverty of the Great Depression on an Illinois farm, the death of her mother when she was only nine years old, and her family’s migration to California in search of a better life when she was just sixteen. These were not small sorrows. They were life‑shaping lessons.
Yet Doris did not linger in the shadows of those memories. She named the challenges, but she refused to let them define her. Instead, she lifted up the “glass half‑full” blessings: a family rich in love, and brothers who made her feel safe during the uncertainty of losing her mother and entering a new world. She remembered tenderness more than trauma, abundance more than scarcity, hope more than hardship. In response to a question about how she navigated conflict, she wrote simply, “realizing no one’s perfect”.
Putting Doris’ note side by side with scripture, I was able to take on the mantle of being her pastor. She left breadcrumbs—holy clues that allowed me to be her pastor now, even though we never met in person.
Out of gratitude, I called the now‑retired Rev. Monroe, who had created the memorial‑planning form, to thank him for a ministry whose harvest I was reaping 23 years later. And then I bent a rule. Although pastors are not supposed to contact members of churches they previously served, I decided that calling 104‑year‑old Martha Ann from my previous church might be an acceptable exception. You see, Doris had mentioned in passing the challenges of living through the Great Depression, and I wanted to learn more about that experience from someone who remembered it firsthand. Martha Ann said Doris was “a spring chicken” and relished remembering her own childhood during the depression.
The question on the form asking “If you were to die tomorrow, how would you want to be remembered?” became the theme for the celebration of Doris’ life. You see, in her own handwriting, Doris had answered she wanted to be remembered as “Glass half‑full”.
I want to believe Doris influenced this congregation to be a community that lives with resilient optimism rather than a spirit of scarcity. Like Doris we are a community that chooses gratitude over grievance, blessing over bitterness. Doris’ story inspired me deeply, and I remained grateful to the pastor who, decades earlier, had prepared the table for my first funeral in a new place.
So now Dianne and I are thinking on how to reproduce that form. Very soon, I will invite everyone at Napa Methodist to plan their own memorial service—one that, with God’s help, will not be needed for another 50 years or more. You see, your story is not just yours alone. Your story is the story of this community of which I find myself overwhelmed with gratitude to call my new home.
With love,
Pastor Grace