Remarks, D.H. Livingston:
My brothers and sisters and friends, I consider it a great honor to be asked to speak to you on this occasion. It is going to be difficult for me to do so because Bob, you k now, is just like my own child. I helped raise him and I became very much attached to him in his youth and I have loved him in his young manhood.
I think we have had a beautiful service so far. The music and the remarks that we have listened to have been inspired and encouraging and I trust that I will not say anything that will detract from the good things that you have already heard.
I couldn’t help but feel that there are some things I might like to say on this occasion in supplement of what our previous speaker has just said. The great, wise Solomon said, on one occasion, that it was better to go to the house of mourning that the house of feasting. And my brothers and sisters, I believe that is true. And it would only be true if gong to the house of mourning could make us more mellow, more kind and more charitable and will bind us together in bonds of friendship to an extent that wouldn’t be possible under any other circumstances. And not only that, but it is on occasions of this kind, when we are called to part with our loved ones, that we can’t help but think of the purpose of life and what it all means to us, who we are, where we come from, where we are going. These things can’t possible help but come to our minds in these serious moments. After all, death is no more mysterious than birth. Birth is just as mysterious as death. We see before us today everything we have ever known of Bob. Everything is still here that we have known, except that which loved and that which we loved and that which talked. That has left, but that is all that is gone, the rest of it is all here. And the wise men throughout the ages have tried to solve this mystery of life. The greatest scientists and thinkers of the world all failed in the answer to this great mystery, what is life and what is death. And we are wholly dependent, my fiends, on what the lord has told us through his servants He has had here on the earth and what He Himself has said when He was here upon this earth in respect to this mystery that we call life, this mystery that we call death. From Adam down the great prophets of the Lord have repeatedly declared and tried to make the people that they were associated with understand that we are dual personalities; that we have a spiritual body as well as this physical body. And one is just as distinct as the other. The poets have sung of this. All the prophets of the Lord have spoken of the spirit that is within man and declared that it is eternal, that this immortal sprit that is within man is an eternal substance. The great, wise man, Solomon, said, “The dust will return to the dust as it was but the spirit will return to God who gave it.” And that has been the teachings of the holy en of old and it wasn’t thoroughly understood until the Savior came, and He exemplified that in His life. He taught us very distinctly that this spirit body of ours was in the spirit world before we ever came here. That we are children of God and that God had a purpose in sending us down here to this earth and that purpose was to learn the ways of the lord and carry out His program here in this life. The Savior tells us definitely, he said, “IO came from the Father and I came unto the world. Again I leave the world and I go back to my Father”. The Savior’s life was just like yours and just like mine. He was born of the virgin Mary; He lived the life of a normal child and He grew into manhood entirely surrounded by the power and influence of almighty God; He died on the cross; He lay in the ground two or three days and then He came forth and He said, “I’m the resurrection and the life. He that believeth on me, through he were dead, yet shall he live.” Now, my brothers sand sisters there are some that may be here that do not believe that, but it doesn’t make it untrue if they don’t. That is a fundamental truth that those who believe on our Savior, though they were dead, yet shall they live. This boy believed on our Savior and he has gone unto h is reward. There isn’t anything mysterious about it. It is so simple and so real if we well only accept the word of the Lord. Why, even before the Savoir came, Job, the great prophet of God, though he was humiliated and tried beyond almost human power to endure, he cried out on one occasion and he said, “I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” And I believe that. You can’t destroy that moral spirit. It is eternal. It existed before it came here and it goes on and exists after it leaves here.
There isn’t anything we can say that will change what Bob has done or failed to do. He has gone to his reward. And those of us who knew him at all are not concerned about his welfare. I know as well as I am speaking to you today that his reward will be grand and glorious. We are told that “Eyes have not seen nor ear heard nor yet entered into the heart of man the joys that await the faithful sons and daughters of God.” I believe this and I m satisfied that his father and those of his family who have gone before, his grandfather and his grandmother, they will all be there and they will welcome him. This isn’t any dream, this is reality. The hereafter is just as real as this life, just as our life here, just as real as it was before we came here. And this boy now has gone home. It is sad to lose him, yes, it seems untimely, as the speaker said, but probably it isn’t. In the mercy and wisdom of Go, probably everything was just what it ought to be. And we have to learn to say, as the Savior said at the time of His crucifixion, “Not my will but thine be done”.
May the lord bless this family. May the sweet influence of His spirit that is here today go with them to their homes to comfort and build them up. And may they look forward to the time of reuniting with their loved ones again in my prayer in the name of Jesus, Amen.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Remarks, Thornley Swan----fraternity brother of Bob
I hope I may have composure to speak for a few minutes of our friend, Bob. It is with the greatest humility that I occupy this position, knowing how keenly, how deeply we feel the loss of this husband, father, son, brother and friend.
I first became acquainted with bob when I went to the University. At that time he had been on the campus a little more than a year and I had only been there a short time when he became quite influential in persuading me to join the Sigma Chi Fraternity. For that I am very grateful, because it was through that, that I got to know Bob better and I acquire many friend that he had chosen to call his friends. I had just been in the fraternity a short time when I learned the meaning of the name Armstrong in that fraternity. His brother, Bill, was on the campus at the time and I got to know him.
Bob or “Army” as he was most frequently called had a large circle of friends. They gathered around him because of his strong, affable and loving personality. He seemed to treasure their companionship and they his. I don’t every remember Bob coming into the fraternity house without displaying that well-known smile, the same smile that was portrayed in the pictures that appeared in the Deseret News. Bob always saw the bright side of things, and it was that fun-loving disposition that attracted friends to him and then a serious side that kept them. I am sure Bob carried this companionship into his home.
It is only natural that the paths of these friends would lead in different directions. Many of his close school friends have gone to other states and to other cities, some places quite distant, to pursue their different forms of endeavor. I see that some of these friends have returned for this occasion. How shocked they all must be to hear of Bob’s passing.
Bob himself left the state and spent several years in Boise and Yakama, Washington. He and Louise then returned to make Salt Lake City their home, to raise their boys here. I am sure he was influenced by his love for his family, his love for his many friends that he had here, in making the decision to return to Salt Lake City to make this his home. It may be that Bob realized more than anyone else that his stay here was uncertain. Only a few knew that since he was sixteen years old he had had a heart ailment that, for him, increased the uncertainties of life. But he chose to lead a normal life while he was here. He chose to lead an enjoyable life. He chose to find happiness. He enjoyed life and in doing so he enjoyed his work, enjoyed sports, enjoyed his friends and loves his family. The eloquent prose of Robert Ingersoll, uttered at the graveside of his own brother, might well again be spoken here:
The loved and loving brother, husband, friend,
Died when manhood’s morning almost touches noon.
And while the shadows still were falling toward the West,
He didn’t pass, on life’s highway, the stone that marks the highest point.
But, being weary for a moment, he lay down by the wayside
And using his burdens for a pillow fell into that dreamless sleep
That kisses down the eyelids still.
While yet in love with life, enraptured with the world,
He passed aside for some pathetic dust.
Yet, after all, it may be best for us,
In the happiest, sunniest hour of all the voyage,
While eager winds are catching every sail,
To dash against the unseen rock and in an instant
Hear the bellows roar over the sunken ship
For whether in mid-sea or among the breakers of the farthest shore,
A wreck at last must mark the end of one and all.
I know that Bob’s death seems untimely. I know what Bob’s passing means to Louise, to his children, to his mother, to Bill and the sisters. But we must be reconciled at these times. I would like to read some remarks made at the funeral of one whom I loved dearly and who seemed to pass before his time, they are these: “I never say that death is untimely because I never know. I know that partings are sad. I know that a continuation of the good works of man seems desirable. I know that such losses seem irreparable, but I do not know that death is untimely. I believe that is known only to Him who knows all things and who has power over life and death. I do not dare to say a person’s life was not complete and that he had not filled his mission here. It is true that he was not old in years, but even if a man were old in years when would you say his life was complete? I think, on reflection, you will say there are other factors of infinitely more import than old age. I believe with one who said that God is a Father, man is a brother, life is a mission and not a career. Life, then, is complete when life’s mission has been filled.”
May we find comfort in these words and in our memories of bob, in the joy which he gave to us. May we find comfort and hope in our abiding faith in God and in our fellow man I ask in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen
I hope I may have composure to speak for a few minutes of our friend, Bob. It is with the greatest humility that I occupy this position, knowing how keenly, how deeply we feel the loss of this husband, father, son, brother and friend.
I first became acquainted with bob when I went to the University. At that time he had been on the campus a little more than a year and I had only been there a short time when he became quite influential in persuading me to join the Sigma Chi Fraternity. For that I am very grateful, because it was through that, that I got to know Bob better and I acquire many friend that he had chosen to call his friends. I had just been in the fraternity a short time when I learned the meaning of the name Armstrong in that fraternity. His brother, Bill, was on the campus at the time and I got to know him.
Bob or “Army” as he was most frequently called had a large circle of friends. They gathered around him because of his strong, affable and loving personality. He seemed to treasure their companionship and they his. I don’t every remember Bob coming into the fraternity house without displaying that well-known smile, the same smile that was portrayed in the pictures that appeared in the Deseret News. Bob always saw the bright side of things, and it was that fun-loving disposition that attracted friends to him and then a serious side that kept them. I am sure Bob carried this companionship into his home.
It is only natural that the paths of these friends would lead in different directions. Many of his close school friends have gone to other states and to other cities, some places quite distant, to pursue their different forms of endeavor. I see that some of these friends have returned for this occasion. How shocked they all must be to hear of Bob’s passing.
Bob himself left the state and spent several years in Boise and Yakama, Washington. He and Louise then returned to make Salt Lake City their home, to raise their boys here. I am sure he was influenced by his love for his family, his love for his many friends that he had here, in making the decision to return to Salt Lake City to make this his home. It may be that Bob realized more than anyone else that his stay here was uncertain. Only a few knew that since he was sixteen years old he had had a heart ailment that, for him, increased the uncertainties of life. But he chose to lead a normal life while he was here. He chose to lead an enjoyable life. He chose to find happiness. He enjoyed life and in doing so he enjoyed his work, enjoyed sports, enjoyed his friends and loves his family. The eloquent prose of Robert Ingersoll, uttered at the graveside of his own brother, might well again be spoken here:
The loved and loving brother, husband, friend,
Died when manhood’s morning almost touches noon.
And while the shadows still were falling toward the West,
He didn’t pass, on life’s highway, the stone that marks the highest point.
But, being weary for a moment, he lay down by the wayside
And using his burdens for a pillow fell into that dreamless sleep
That kisses down the eyelids still.
While yet in love with life, enraptured with the world,
He passed aside for some pathetic dust.
Yet, after all, it may be best for us,
In the happiest, sunniest hour of all the voyage,
While eager winds are catching every sail,
To dash against the unseen rock and in an instant
Hear the bellows roar over the sunken ship
For whether in mid-sea or among the breakers of the farthest shore,
A wreck at last must mark the end of one and all.
I know that Bob’s death seems untimely. I know what Bob’s passing means to Louise, to his children, to his mother, to Bill and the sisters. But we must be reconciled at these times. I would like to read some remarks made at the funeral of one whom I loved dearly and who seemed to pass before his time, they are these: “I never say that death is untimely because I never know. I know that partings are sad. I know that a continuation of the good works of man seems desirable. I know that such losses seem irreparable, but I do not know that death is untimely. I believe that is known only to Him who knows all things and who has power over life and death. I do not dare to say a person’s life was not complete and that he had not filled his mission here. It is true that he was not old in years, but even if a man were old in years when would you say his life was complete? I think, on reflection, you will say there are other factors of infinitely more import than old age. I believe with one who said that God is a Father, man is a brother, life is a mission and not a career. Life, then, is complete when life’s mission has been filled.”
May we find comfort in these words and in our memories of bob, in the joy which he gave to us. May we find comfort and hope in our abiding faith in God and in our fellow man I ask in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen
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