I just recently found out Uncle Bob died suddenly of a heart attack. Bob and his wife of 46 years, Bev, never had any children of their own.  So my sister and I were able to have a unique relationship with them. I played my first video game on Bob’s Atari in the finished basement of their home near the river.  I remember going to visit and being excited to get gifts of cereal box toys that were set aside carefully to await our next visit.  (my favorite was the wall-walking octopus).  There were family vacations to places that seemed exciting and exotic to a 7-year-old. It takes a special kind of person to willingly go on a vacation with a family of small kids that aren’t yours.

We had a special wave or hand sign to each other that was based upon Bob’s partially amputated first finger.  The “knub brothers” was one of the most important “clubs” I belonged to as a kid.  There are certain, rare people in the world who make you feel like you are the only person in the world when they were around.  They gave you undivided attention, remembered details from conversations from months or years ago, and celebrated every gathering like it was the only thing on their calendar.  That was Bob and Bev for me as a kid.

Bob was a big man; tall like my dad, and sturdy like the college football player that he once was.  But he was one of the kindest and gentlest men I have ever known.  My dad died when I was 16 years old, and Bob was not only a comforting reminder of good times gone by but, in a strange way, a means for my relationship with my dad to live on because of how close the two of them were.  We didn’t get to see Bob and Bev much as I transitioned from a kid, to teen, to adult; But I’m forever grateful that last fall, in a bit of spontaneous inspiration, we made the decision to head to Branson, Missouri over fall break.

There we had the chance to meet up with Bob and Bev for a day at the amazing aquarium in Springfield, near their home.  Spending hours in wonder and play with my kids, conversing about memories from my childhood and memories about my dad from before I was born is the most idyllic day of vacation I could imagine.  It will be a day I never forget.  Because we enjoyed that trip so much, we were planning and doing it again this October.  Sadly we missed seeing Bob again by about 2 and a half months.

The news of his passing was hard for me and caught me unprepared.  The busyness and stress of life in the present with its sense of immediacy and urgency has numbed me a bit to emotional awareness.  I had gotten caught up in my world of tasks and responsibilities.  And Bob’s death pierced through that calloused and numb exterior and shook me enough to feel off-balance for several days.  Life kept moving forward with all the demands of problems to be solved.  Church budgets, staffing concerns, and services continued to require and consume my energy and effort.

But at times I felt something that I can best describe as “dizzy” . The world was turning but somehow I wasn’t turning with it.  Losing Uncle Bob was that unexpected disruption to the status quo that I had sunk into through the grind of pastor life. 

And it has left me unsettled. 

I think a big part of that feeling is that I haven’t actually said goodbye.  The busyness of life keeps pulling me into the day to day demands; the stress of leading a small church keeps my teeth gritted and my focus on surviving the day well.  My hope is that when we head to Missouri this fall, we can spend some time with Bev, grieving his death and celebrating his life together.

But since Uncle Bob’s passing, I can’t shake this one big thought that seems to be a very important lesson to learn from Bob and a life well-lived: Bob wasn’t my uncle.  We called him that because he was my dad’s best friend from work, but he was like family.  And I think this is the thing that hits me most in the context in which I find myself as pastor of a church in a small town.  The love of family is so important. It provides stability and safety; a sense of belonging and identity; a system of support and care.

And in this small town in which I’m pastoring and nearly everyone is related to everyone else, hardly a day goes by where I don’t encounter the reality of broken relationships, dysfunctional family situations, and unresolved conflicts from long ago that push families apart.  People are isolated from their families or forced to leave their families.  Drugs, abuse, poverty, anger, mental illness, and marital unfaithfulness, are just a few things that are tearing apart our families in our community.  It’s heartbreaking.  It’s so hard to be confronted with the reality that, for example,  a 3-year-old child in the community living in a terrible home situation,  has little hope to grow up without terrible scars and brokeness because their family is wrestling with the consequences of addiction and abuse.

At that same time, I’ve been leading our church through a summer sermon series in which we talk about bringing peace to our community and making it our mission to use our faith to bring healing to the people we encounter.  And so while I see so many families (kids and adults alike) struggling with the ongoing effects of family trouble, I have found a passion for our church to “adopt” our community; to become a family for anyone who needs a family. As long as we are faithful to what God is calling us to be and do, no one should feel like they don’t have a family to turn to.

But in my time reflecting on my uncle Bob, who, along with Bev, were the best family I could have ever hoped for, I realized that my imagination of how people who don’t share biological ties can become a family with deep and healthy relationships was formed by my growing up thinking of Bob and Bev as family.  When the world told me that family was only people that you were related to, Uncle Bob taught me that sincerely caring for others, making space in your life, and taking a genuine interest in the lives of others is what creates a family.

I now believe that growing up knowing that my Uncle Bob wasn’t my uncle but also knowing that there were few places that I felt safer or more love than with Bob and Bev is what began my journey of not only understanding family really is about, but my vocation of inviting others to and protecting a family comprised of, people not necessarily related to each other, but created into a family through the love of God and the love of one another.

And it’s not some kind of thing we call family and put an asterisk by it or wink when we say it, but that in many ways it can be more real and more closely aligned with what God intended for families than what many family members are experiencing today.

The Gospel that I do my best to share, not only through Sunday morning sermons but through prayers, calls, visits, appointments in the office, and whatever else I can squeeze into my pastor calendar is the Gospel that, through faith in Jesus we are being made into a new creation, we have been adopted into a family where God is our father and Jesus is the firstborn sibling.

We are being created as a family and taught how to live as one; love one another, carry one another’s burdens, forgive often, show grace, be generous.  And the world will know you are part of this God family because of how we love each other.  The Gospel I try to proclaim is that God’s making us a family gathered by the death and resurrection of Jesus is how God is bringing healing and redemption to those in desperate need of it.

And so after these many days of reflection, I’m left with such a strong sense of gratitude for my Uncle Bob.  Thank you, Bob, for the way your life shaped mine.  I hope that someday people are able to call me family, not because we’re related by blood, but because we shared life together as members of a family. Thank you for teaching me how to care about others in such a way that they feel like they are not only are welcome, but that they belong, that they are a part of the family, and that they are missed when they are gone.  Thank you, Bob, for teaching me some of the most important things about family.  I’m so glad my kids got to spend time with you last year and we were once again able to spend some time together on vacation… as a family.

Obituary for Robert L. Burrus – Uncle Bob

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