The manner of my father’s dying has been a great and ongoing blessing to those who miss him, particularly to me.

In the course of his long life, particularly towards the end, through extensive reading, wonderful church-based study groups and his own private meditation, he had jettisoned the dogma he had learned in his younger days. He faced his death with joy and a sense of adventure.

“Let God surprise me,” summed it up nicely, and that quote made it into his obituary.

A quotable quote indeed; it closes an article about end-of-life choices by Patricia Clarke in a recent edition of the United Church Observer.