I have spent the last two weeks living inside memories. Assisting with planning a funeral does that to you. You go backward before you can even imagine going forward. You remember the stories you have told a hundred times and the ones you forgot until someone else brought them up. You remember the laughter and the arguments and the years that you never thought would end. And then suddenly they do.
Below is the speech I gave at Bob’s funeral. But the video only captures ten minutes of a much larger story that has been unfolding inside me since the day he died. The past two weeks have been some of the hardest and strangest and most meaningful days I have lived in a long time.
So many people loved Bob, and the room was full of stories that will keep unfolding long after the funeral.
What I did not say at the funeral is how surreal it felt to be at the center of everything Bob left behind. Sitting with his daughters. Listening to their stories. Watching the way grief hit each of them in waves they could not prepare for. Brandi, Becki, and Ashleigh are three different women with three different temperaments, but the same look showed up in each of their faces at different times. That stunned expression that says a world has been rearranged and nothing feels familiar yet. I was honored to sit with them. As a friend. As a witness. And as a man who loved their dad in a way that is very hard to explain.
I was also moved by Bob’s brothers, sisters, and their families who showed up with their own stories and memories of him. Their presence reminded me that grief branches out in every direction and that every one of them carried a piece of who he was long before I ever knew him.
I was also grateful for his sons-in-law, who showed up with steady support for their wives and carried their own quiet grief for a man who shaped their lives too.
Then there were his six grandchildren. I watched them interact with one another in ways only kids can. They were hurting, but they were also somehow carrying everyone else by just being themselves. Kids have this strange way of softening a room without even trying. Each hug, each laugh, each moment of innocence felt like a reminder that life keeps moving forward even when the adults in the room feel frozen in place. Spending time with them felt like an honor. Like I was being invited into something sacred.
There is a kind of stress that comes with funeral planning that nobody talks about. You are making decisions with a mind that is foggy and a heart that is broken. You are meeting with funeral directors and writing speeches and hunting down old photos while also trying to hold the emotional weight of everyone looking to you for strength. It felt exhausting and meaningful at the same time. I kept thinking that this must be what it feels like to walk around with your chest cracked open. You feel everything. You have no filters left. Grief burns through all the nonsense and leaves only what is real.
Somewhere in all that stress and tenderness I found myself thinking about the life I want to live from here. Not the life I pretend to want. Not the one that looks good on the outside. The real one. The one where I spend more of my time helping people feel comfortable being human. That has always been my work in counseling, but something shifted these last two weeks. Watching Bob’s daughters grieve, listening to his grandkids talk about him, feeling how all of us leaned on each other without needing explanations, it reminded me that none of us needs to be impressive. We just need to be present. We need to be honest. We need to be open to the life that is actually happening, not the one we keep trying to force.
Going through old memories of Bob, I kept returning to what made him unforgettable. His humor. His stubbornness. His relentless work ethic. His love for his daughters. His pride in his grandchildren. His mischievous grin when he pulled a prank. His generosity when nobody was looking. The way he made everything into a competition. The way he picked me up and pulled me in as if we had always known each other. Calling him my brother from another mother was more accurate than most people ever knew.
And now that the funeral is over, I can feel the slow quiet settling in. The kind that only shows up when the chaos has passed. It is the quiet where grief finally has room to speak. It is also where gratitude shows up. Gratitude that I got to know him. Gratitude that I got to love him. Gratitude that I got to laugh with him and argue with him and annoy him and be annoyed by him and hear him say things that only he could say. Gratitude that I was part of his life long enough to have stories that will outlive both of us.
I would be remiss if I did not talk about Lori. Six years ago Bob married my aunt, and the four of us slowly formed a rhythm that felt like its own little world. Dinners that turned into five-hour conversations. Vacations where nothing had to be planned because simply being together was enough. Nights where we sat around a table telling stories and laughing about things that probably would not be funny to anyone else. It was easy. Natural. Comfortable. The kind of connection you do not realize you are building until you lose one of the people who made it work.
Being with Lori these last two weeks has been a kind of grief inside a grief. Helping her carry what she should never have had to carry. Watching her face the reality that the person she built a life with is suddenly gone. Standing beside her knowing that no words can soften the weight she is holding. Grief changes the shape of everything. Even the strongest people collapse in ways the world never sees.
The truth is that one of our four is now missing and nothing about our dynamic will ever be the same.
We will still love each other.
We will still show up for each other.
We will still keep the rituals and the memories and the dinner table jokes.
But the shape has changed. The laughter will sound different. The energy in the room will feel different. The future we pictured without thinking has shifted into something none of us know how to imagine yet.
I do not know what it will look like going forward. I only know that we will figure it out one day at a time, the way families always do when life takes something from them that they were never prepared to lose. And I know that Lori carries Bob’s love with her in a way that does not leave when the person does.
These last two weeks brought life into perspective again. They stripped away the things that do not matter and made the important things impossible to ignore. Love. Connection. Presence. Laughter. The courage to show up as a flawed human being instead of a polished one. The quiet realization that helping people accept their own humanness might be the most meaningful work any of us can do.
That is how I want to live the rest of my life. Not trying to play the role I was handed. Not trying to be impressive. Not trying to be right. Just trying to be human in front of other humans. And maybe helping them believe that their stories, their memories, and their imperfect selves are enough.
Bob helped me see that more clearly.
I will miss him. I will love him. And I will carry him with me in every memory that still makes me laugh or cry or shake my head. That is the gift he left me. The gift he left all of us.
Thank you for being part of this with me.
Peace my friends,
~Travis
