Saturday morning was the funeral of my friend Playford Thorsen, and it’s strange how you can fully expect something to occur and yet be utterly unprepared for it. Three and a half years ago, Playford was diagnosed with ALS – so his death last week should not have been a surprise at all. And yet, for all of us who loved him, and for all of us who prayed for him to be released from his suffering, his death still left us shaken. That was certainly my state of mind as I drove up to First Presbyterian Church to prepare for the service.
I had three responsibilities for the funeral, and they all mattered a lot to me because I knew they mattered a lot to Playford’s family. First, I was asked to gather together a small group of singers to sing two pieces that Playford and Kathy had selected for the occasion – and I was so pleased to have four of my Musici Amici answer the call: Becky Whitefoot, Jennifer Cobb, Andrew Johnson, and Nic Sluss-Rodionov. What a lovely quartet they were, especially for Marty Haugen’s “Shepherd me, O God” – which is a truly exquisite setting of the 23rd Psalm.
Secondly, Playford and Kathy asked me to sing “Caleb’s Song,” a piece I wrote a few years back as a graduation present for a special voice student of mine at Carthage named Caleb Sjogren. (I think the song is on my Listen page.) It turns out that Playford and Kathy made it to Holy Communion for the concert which celebrated the release of my CD “God gives me Wings” – that’s a couple of years ago now – and when I saw them afterwards in the parking lot (Playford in his wheelchair, smiling ear to ear) they told me that they wanted Caleb’s Song for Playford’s funeral, whenever that turned out to be. I was so honored- and I’m happy to say that Saturday morning, I managed to sing that song better than I had ever sung it before. There was something about singing it for Playford that just seemed to lift me to a whole different plane.
The toughest assignment of all was the eulogy. When I was originally asked to do it, mine was going to be one of two eulogies- with the first one being a much more light-hearted set of funny stories about Playford. But that friend realized a few days beforehand that she just couldn’t go through with it, which meant that my eulogy would be the only one – as if I wasn’t already feeling a massive weight of responsibility on my puny shoulders! This is why I decided to open the eulogy by quoting a funeral sermon given well over a decade ago by Professor Dudley Riggle, speaking at the funeral of his dear friend Larry Hamilton ( a much beloved psychology professor at Carthage.) Professor Riggle began by saying “I don’t want to be here today.” He let those words sink in for a moment before continuing: “I don’t want to be here today . . . and yet, there is no other place I would rather be.” From there, I just did the best I could to describe Playford and what was so wonderful about him. Among the things I shared is that when Kathy and I Christmas caroled at their house last year in our annual outing, Playford requested – via his keyboard – that was sing “God rest ye Merry gentlemen.” And as I thought about that carol and why Playford might have requested it, I found myself drawn to the second line: Let Nothing You Dismay. One year later (almost to the day) it was almost as though those words were Playford’s words of wisdom to all of us trying to make sense of something so ultimately senseless.
One of my most important responsibilities in that eulogy was to share some of Playford’s own thoughts, which he had entrusted to me well over a year ago. He had words of love and praise for his two children and for his wife, including:
Early in our courtship, I declared to Kathy that if she ever got a cat, I would leave her.
She promptly got a cat.
But I fell in love with the cat, and I fell in love with Kathy shortly thereafter!
When I visited him last week, something inspired me to ask him if he had anything else that he wanted to say for me to include in the eulogy. By this point, he had declined drastically. He needed constant oxygen and had lost all control over his head movement, which meant that he could no longer use the computer keyboard that had meant so much to him. Communication had become incredibly laborious and difficult, but he answered YES to my query. What would he have to say, I wondered. Profound words about life and death? Would they be words of bleak resignation? Angry bitterness? As it turns out, Playford’s final addition to the eulogy was:
Real Vikings Don’t Wear Horns.
And right after that, he asked me “In which opera did Brunnhilde sing?” I told my friend that it was Die Walkure and that if he wanted me to, I would bring my CDs over the very next day and we could listen to all five hours of it. Which of course never happened. Playford died the very next morning. But that last addition to the eulogy showed all of us that Playford was still Playford right to the end, with that wonderful North Dakota wit still fully intact, even as the disease continued to do such savage damage to him. And I finished my eulogy by saying that I looked forward to the day when I would see my friend again and would have the chance to proselytize about opera even as he did the same with hockey!
By the way, this is the third eulogy I’ve delivered in my life. For the first two- for Everetta McQuestion and for Bill Guy- my remarks were precisely written out, word for word – and in both cases, I got to the podium and proceeded to ball my eyes out for what felt like hours but was probably 30 or 40 seconds before I could finally begin delivering what I had to say. But still, it is such a horrible feeling to have something important to say and be unable to spit the words out. This time around, I actually only had notes to which to refer – and I think the fact that I had to think about my words and actually formulate them rather than just passively read them off of a sheet of paper is what allowed me to deliver the whole eulogy without serious difficulty. The other thing that made a big difference is that the service was really designed to be a celebration as much as anything – and Pastor Lance did such a great job of setting the right sort of mood for the service— with just a touch of levity that allowed some sunshine into the room. On the other hand, he didn’t turn the funeral into one of those guffaw-filled Celebrity Roasts; he made it possible for us to still grieve, to feel our sorrow. But he made room for laughter as well and I think everyone there was so grateful for that . . . that we could laugh and cry as we celebrated our good fortune in knowing Playford Thoresen and being able to call him our husband, father, brother, son, neighbor, colleague, and friend.
pictured above: Playford’s casket at the committal – covered in a Minnesota Vikings afghan that meant the world to him. As the funeral ended, we were inundated by a downpour – but by the time the committal service had begun at the cemetery, the rain had pretty much ended. Playford is buried in the same cemetery where Everetta and Bill are buried, so I now have three graves to visit there.