The Memorial Service

October 9, 2010 – Matt’s Memorial Service

Okay, here goes! How can describe this day and the days leading up to it and the days following? When I asked my wife, Sabine, how she would describe the day on a scale of one to ten, she said, “Twenty!” And I agree!

Family members began to arrive on Thursday and continue to Saturday and some stayed through the next week. On Friday, the massive “Matthew stone” arrived from the quarry and stone-carvers shop after son, Peter, and grandson, Ben, went to Galena, IL and picked it up in my pickup truck. It was then moved to the top of the hill in back of our farmhouse we now call “Restoration Point.” Thankfully, our friends at the hardware store in Mazomanie offered to provide a forklift to maneuver the ½ ton stone into place.

Thursday afternoon found a number of family members in our screen house reading letters of sympathy and support. I was only good for one round before I had to adjourn. Grief comes that way upon us, suddenly, often in unsuspecting times and places.

The liturgy began on Saturday just after noon with a fellowship meal brought to our farm by our wonderful parishioners at St Peter’s in North Lake. The day was spectacular: sunny, temperature in the 80s, and vibrant fall coloring in our woods. Our friends, Andy and Kathy, brought a car full of food and treats! What a wonderful way to begin with this time for food, fellowship, connection, and story-telling.

I asked my dear friend, Jeff, to be the worship leader. Jeff and I have known each other since I got out of seminary and he was my pastoral education teacher when I did a year chaplain residency at Meriter Hospital where he is the director of spiritual care. Jeff and his wife, Bonnie, live down the road from us and we do a lot of biking together in the rolling hills which surround us.

At 2:30 we all assembled on the path which winds up to Restoration Point. Jeff made the following remarks to us: “Your steps toward healing and restoration are ones you don’t need to make alone. Look around you, go ahead. You are a family, combined and complex… We know Matt felt peace here, for this is where he wanted his final resting place to be. Today’s steps up this hill are symbolic of your journey toward healing and restoration. It may take a lifetime to figure out what good may come out of what appears to be so bad. It is a journey that is not helped by going it alone, laughing in denial, or resigning in despair. It begins today from the place we are standing now. Let us walk this path to Restoration Point where Matt’s ashes will eventually be spread with the ashes of today’s fire. Let us make this walk in silence.”

And so we began the 30 minute walk up the hill. When we neared the top, we met those who needed assistance and then we all processed the rest of the way up the path with items for the Table: flowers, candles, a large cross, a white tablecloth, photos of Matt, and bread, wine, and chalice.

When we arrived on top, we set the Table and I anointed the palm of each person as they entered the clearing which contained Matt’s stone. The holy oil I used was the same oil I had used to anoint Matt’s body in Los Angeles just a few days before. We sat on blankets that encircled the stone and Table. Michael lit the ceremonial fire and Jeff prayed an opening prayer for our family – asking God to heal us in our grief, that we would not be overwhelmed by grief but have confidence in God’s goodness and strength in the days to come.

Tammy read the first lesson from scripture: 1 John 4:7-21, “Love is from God… If we love one another, God lives in us and his love is perfected in us…” Then Karl read the second lesson which was from 1st Corinthians 13:1-13, “Love is… patient… kind… not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude… does not insist on its own way… is not irritable or resentful… does not rejoice in wrongdoing… but rejoices in truth.”

Then most of us shared the letters we were asked earlier in the week to write to Matt. Some of us were able to read them before we cast them into the fire. Others (like me) simply were not able to read them out loud. In my case, Jeff read my letter to Matt:

(If you wish to view a copy of this letter, please contact me)
After finishing our letters, we cast them into the fire where their ashes would be mixed with Matt’s ashes and spread on this ground – this “Restoration Point” which is both a piece of land, but also a point of beginning in our lives together.

When we were all finished, we blessed the bread and wine, broke the bread and said the Lord’s Prayer together. Bread and wine were passed and shared: “Receive this bread/wine in love.” An Agape Meal of forgiveness, healing, restoration and love.

We concluded with a departing prayer. The same one I had used after anointing Matt’s body:

“Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant Matthew. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive him into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light. Amen.”

We then concluded with a Celtic blessing:

“O Christ of the poor and the yearning,

kindle my heart within.

A flame of love for my neighbor,

for my foe, for my friend,

for my kindred all.”

Next we formed a “Circle of Love” around Matt’s stone and passed love through a hand-squeeze up one arm, into our heart, and out the other arm. Love was passed around this circle to each one of us.

“There is an end, and a new beginning.”

We were invited to leave the hill when we felt ready. Most of us stayed on the hill, taking family pictures, hugging, laughing… then crying… then laughing again. Then some of us sat in silence and slowly moved down the hill.

It is Sabine and my plan that this 20 acre parcel of land, with access off a nearby township road, be kept in the Couper family – for perpetuity – as a place for memorials, celebrations, visitations and recreation – to be a point of restoration.

Pictures of the memorial liturgy can be seen at: http://picasaweb.google.com/davidccouper/MattSMemorialAlbum?authkey=Gv1sRgCPeGo5zJroWsUQ#

As for me, I am beginning to heal. This is a great grief but it is somehow lessened by being family – finally after years of pain and separation.

My hope and love are beyond measure.

Matt is happy as God holds all of us in the palm of his hand.

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The Obituary

Matthew Couper, age 42, died unexpectedly at his home in Los Angeles on September 29, 2010. He was born in Minneapolis, MN on June 13, 1968 and was graduated from Madison (WI) Memorial High School.

Matthew was preceded in death by his grandparents, Jack and Elsa Couper and Leroy and Sally Kugler, and niece Allison Couper.

He is survived by his two daughters whom he deeply loved, Heather of Kawkawlin, MI and Gracie of San Diego, his father and step-mother, David C. Couper and Sabine Lobitz, his mother and step-father, Julie (Kugler) and Donald Manter, brothers Peter (Tamara), Michael, Joshua Couper, and Charley Manter; sisters Catherine Hubbard, Sarah Ineichen, Jennifer (Karl) Almquist, Sumi (Scott Shimek) and Yumi Couper, along with numerous aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews.

A family memorial service and rite of Christian burial will be held on the Couper farm near Blue Mounds, WI on October 9, 2010, officiated by the Rev. Jeffrey Billerbeck.

“’A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping…

There is hope for your future,’ declares the LORD, ‘your children will

return to their own land.’”

(Jeremiah 31:15, 17)