In Memoriam: Barbara Olberding (1923-2009)

Barbara was a quiet person. In fact, she was so quiet that people who met her might sometimes assume there wasn’t a whole lot going on in there. But those of you that knew her, and knew her well, know that there was a great deal at work behind that silent façade. She had that wry sense of humor. Pat Morrison told me about the time she went up to Tennessee to visit her, and the first words out of her mouth were, “Well, it took you two years to get here.” And she was a dedicated volunteer around here, working with the Bargain Shop and the Food Pantry, delivering Meals on Wheels with Albert at her side, and was also involved in the Presbyterian Women, receiving Honorary Lifetime Membership in that national organization ten years ago.

And knowing these things and hearing all of your stories, that quiet surface, the quick wit that could catch you off guard, the dedicated time and energy she spent caring for “the least of these,” it struck me as I learned from you knew her best what a hard life she had. She was a single parent, working full-time and raising four children. And in order to make ends meet at first, she moved the family in with her parents in Austin, Texas, which couldn’t have been easy. Even after the family moved to Atlanta, where she began her work at Yerkes Primate Center, she made sure that her children had plenty of extracurricular activities, which surely took time and energy, of which she had precious little. And on top of all that, she lost two of those children, John and Cindy, who preceded her in death.

My expectations of such a life, and the way that many of us here might have handled being dealt such a hand, is that it would lead to bitterness, anger, selfishness. But as a wise person once said, those things are like a rocking chair: they give you something to do, but they don’t get you anywhere. And from what you all have told me, Barbara’s life was marked by just the opposite: kindness; generosity; thoughtfulness. I can’t help but wonder if there was, in this silent determination, a desire to take lemons and make lemonade, to turn these difficulties into something that meant something for the world around.

Barbara’s life wasn’t all hardship, though; she was deeply blessed, too. Especially when she was able to retire and to focus some of that time and energy on herself, she took advantage of it. She took up photography and turned out to be quite the shutterbug. She traveled, getting to take a trip to Austria and an Alaskan cruise. And she got to explore her nature-loving, Audubon Member side, taking birding trips to Costa Rica, and another down the Okefenokee with Albert.

And when it was no longer possible for her to stay down here in Atlanta, she moved up to Knoxville where she spent her final years close to Robert, Terry, Mark, and Eric. I understand she was even able to celebrate Eric's eighteenth birthday with the family. And when she passed, she did so peacefully.

It strikes me that Barbara’s life and character says something about the very thing that we do here today. As a church, when we gather in the wake of death, we are sure to place signs of life all around; the flowers in the sanctuary and the photos in the Narthex are just such things. Because for us, it isn’t death, or even a life of hardships, that has the final word. It is life; life abundant. It is the gift that a retirement to be enjoyed is what stood on the other side of a working life marked by struggles. It is the surprise of that quick wit lurking behind the wordlessness. It is the reality of an empty cross and a vacant tomb that defeats death and despair and gives life and hope to us all. And it is the celebration of a life that miraculously transforms the tears of mourning into the smiles of joy.

There’s something else that strikes me on a day like today, though. For most of us, we don’t get those sky-splitting, earth-shattering, burning bush moments that announce God at work in our lives. Is there something of that silence that begins to give us pause? I don’t hear anything; is God really there? Is it all true?

I think that it is in the glimpses of a life like Barbara’s that we can begin to learn something about the God who created her and redeemed her and sustained her and welcomes her. There is this quiet presence, perhaps just always out of view, hard at work in ways that we might not notice until we look back on our lives: giving grace to “the least of these”; keeping things afloat behind the scenes while we live our lives and take our chances and make our mistakes and rejoice in our successes; always leaving that door of mercy open for when we need to fall back, collapse, weep and rest, get back on our feet; offering that kind touch or that gentle word through everyday agents of grace; and finding just that moment to surprise us, to catch us off guard with blessings we can’t even imagine.

Friends, the truth we celebrate her today is simply this: God loves us even, and especially, now. And God loves Barbara even, and especially, now.