Standing in the shadow of a great man, I feel like a failure. So much of what this man has done tugs at my soul, giving me someone I wish I had met, someone I wish I had had a chance to get to know, someone who would have given me more then just advice. He would have given me an example.
Dan left me with much to think about. A lot of thoughts were that he was a man, just a man. But he created a legacy that will outlive him by many many years. For he was the sort of man that interacted with everyone in the same way. A man who lived his life so consistently that no matter where one had gotten to know him, each and every single one of the hundreds of people at this memorial could have told the same stories, the same phrases, he was the same man to every single one of them.
He was great. Not in the worldly sense of greatness. But in the biblical sense of greatness. A servant of all. Putting the wants and needs of others first, asking everyone he ran into what he could do to help them.
The whole audience knew that he was a man with a funny personality. A man who told jokes, but at the same time was able to carry serious conversations late into the night. A man who balanced the light and heavy sides of life, and in the end came out ahead.
He is the kind of man I long to be, living each and every day to provide his very best service to his Lord and Master. That goal shone through every story I heard of the man.
And I only know the shadow, what is left AFTER the man has moved on.
Dan was the greatest man I never met.
When you think of it, pray for his wife and three children. They now have to sort out how they are going to keep going without him in their lives. And I know its going to be rough, really rough.