Life After Lynn

Saturday 9 March, Debbie and I attended a post-life ritual that marked the end of a very theatrical teacher. We remembered Lynn H. Wilke with family and friends at his church. As we arrived, my wife and I joined a gun dealer in the west side back pew of Lynn’s musical/spiritual last venue. Lynn used to visit this gun guy quite regularly, but now he’s never going to visit that gun shop again, but his presence there, in the past, is remembered and was spoken of in appreciative terms in our hearing while we were among those who celebrated his life.

Now that Lynn no longer walks among us, we walkin’ around types could do with some reassessing of walking around. Some of us notice a difference in the complexion of the pathway we walk.

Rear view mirror on my High School Path.

I guess Lynn’s departure might look to some of us like a big un-patchable pot hole. Given my understanding of Entropy, it seems likely that many life paths are populated by numerous pot holes, major bridges in disrepair and some totally burned down happy structures never to be seen again. Lynn was one of those very happy way stations on my path.

There I found lots of provisions to stuff in my luggage. His memory figures large in my mind which means that I only have to glance in my rearview mirror to see him looming like a big oak tree shading the path I already traveled. Like some kind of squirrel, I treasure the acorns I gathered from below his branches.

Me and my plunder!

He gave me a living example of what an imagination can accomplish. His ability to imagine what he might do next, courage to do that which was often the most unlikely, and the brilliant recklessness to share his creative thinking are some of the largest of the little acorn nuts I gathered while in his shade. What I did with these little treasures helped to make my path more successful as well as more interesting. I hope to keep them smooth from use until my walk comes to God’s ultimate stop sign. Hopefully, if He hears my prayers, it will be just around the last of many more interesting bends.

No STOP sign ahead, yet!

For those of us who remember him happily, putting Lynn’s examples to good use, as we pursue our own paths, could be the best way to honor his memory. After all, he seemed always looking forward to the path he had not yet traveled. What he imagined he would encounter only he could tell, but he inspired me to imagine a path for myself that seemed fantastic to the back woods boy who once sheltered in his shade and my imagination couldn’t envision just how fantastic my path would turn out to be. Had I not seen Lynn’s example of courage to follow inventive thinking no matter where it leads, I may have chosen the path more traveled.

Lynn and Trombone

A friend of mine, who is also a Lynn cognoscente, often says “You can’t make it up!” That is to say that reality is always more fantastic, weird or crazier than you can imagine. Lynn was a person whose memory should stand as an example of this truth. No one but God could have thought him up, and I’m glad He did.