"It is for us the living to pick up the burdens"

In 2015 we posted A Writer on Living with Depression, an eloquent article on mental illness by a disabled person. Following is a eulogy written about his mother, Adeline Williams (not her real name) by a man who, still in his teens, was serving in the Navy at Pearl Harbor when Japan attacked on December 7, 1941. He was subsequently diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent most of the rest of his life institutionalized. Later in life Mrs. Williams cared for him; and as she approached her nineties, he cared for her. Lincoln advised using "the very clearest, shortest, and most direct language." This is how it's done:

We are gathered here to bury the earthly remains of Adeline Williams.

In life she was a pillar of strength to all who knew her.

Twice widowed she passed on at the age of 92.

In life she was mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother.

We can do no more than thank God for her life and for many of us the life she and her husbands in sequence of life gave to us.

Her life was not easy. She worked much of her life and in so doing inspired others to be creative like her.

For that we thank God for her. That she fulfilled the needs of life and gave love at the same time we are grateful to her and thankful to God who caused her to be.

We in tribute to her can do no more than treasure the memory of her and her philosophy of love.

Now we place her body in burial.

It is for us the living to pick up the burdens she in infirmity of old age and transition to spiritual existence lay down.

May God give us wisdom in so doing.

Amen

 The relative who supplied this passage wrote, "__________ as I knew him was always a kind, decent man. Schizophrenia robbed him of love, friends, marriage, children, and a career. He didn't deserve the half-life of institutionalization it condemned him to.

The eulogy he wrote showed that his spirit survived the terrible tribulations of his life. We should all honor his courage in the face of adversity."