When I started to write Marc’s Musings, I didn’t intend it to be a forum for writing about funerals, but once in awhile one comes along, and with his family’s permission I’ll share this…
Harland Drury passed away on July 12th in the house where he was born 89 years ago; the same house that his father was born in 119 years ago and passed away in. Harland never moved off the farm. He was a country boy through and through. He had a love of the land and tended to his crops with great care. One day when Harland went skating he met a young lady named Jean Embury who would become his wife and the mother of their children. Over the years, Harland and Jean’s family grew to include four children, twelve grandchildren and ten great grandchildren. Harland loved his family almost as much as the John Deere tractor he used to work his land. And so when he died and his grandson thought it would be most fitting to take Harland’s casket to the cemetery on a tractor drawn wagon, there was no turning back…it was a true reflection of Harland’s life, almost like coming in from the field at the end of the day when the crops were planted and his work was done.
Harland always quoted the phrase “Happy is the bride that the sun shines on; happy is the corpse that the rain falls on”. And so it would be that two days after his death his eldest granddaughter would be married under the bright summer sun. And on July 18 amid a gentle summer rain we made our way to the cemetery with Harland’s John Deere tractor and wagon carrying his casket. It couldn’t have b
een more perfect.
