Goin' Strong

Our community lost a good friend last week when Morgan Miers died at the age of 91. Morgan and his wife Nansi were treasured members of our church family. My lifelong membership at our church was blessed by the presence of Morgan and Nansi. Nansi has been gone 10 years now, and we will all miss Morgan's smiling face in our midst on Sunday mornings.

At the funeral service, they had some 'vintage' photos displayed, and I took a picture of this picture with my phone. Nansi was my kindergarten Sunday School teacher and directed the Children's Choir for many years. I loved the choir and Mrs. Miers. I remember how she entertained us with her handkerchief when we needed to be quiet during church. She taught us the proper pronunciation of the word "of" (not like the uhf we used to see on the TV dial), and one of my favorite choir songs, "That's What God Made Mothers For." When we said the 23rd Psalm at Morgan's graveside yesterday, I remembered that it was Mrs. Miers who taught me to recite that scripture from memory. She always called me SusieQ.

I love this picture of the handsome American soldier and his beautiful Welsh bride.

This photo is from the bookmarks they passed out at the funeral. It is that great smile and positive attitude we will miss. When asked how he was doing, his standard answer was, "Goin' strong."

He showed just what that meant when, at age 86, he decided to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. His comment, "Nobody told me not to do it." You can read more about his jump here.

In 2007, I snapped these photos at the Fourth of July parade. Morgan was indeed a colorful character. One young dad at the parade that day said to me, "I hope I can be just like that when I'm 88."

Morgan was an inspiration to all who knew him. He taught us to live each day, that "fantastic" is an attitude, and to keep "goin' strong." Thank you Morgan.