Text from funeral service for Johnny Curry

Thursday 14 July 2011

Reproduced below with the kind permission of Catriona Blaney and Rev. Patrick Barton is the text of Rev. Barton's funeral sermon for Johnny Curry.

Funeral service for John (Johnny) Alfred Curry
6th July 2011
Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8 & Matthew 5: 1-10
The wise teacher of Ecclesiastes knew that without God all searching and striving is futile, it’s like chasing the wind. There is a time for everything under the sun, but there’s no time like the present. Living in the moment.
It strikes me Johnny knew how to do that. Life is God’s gift to all and all is in God’s hands.

There is a time for everything under the sun. “A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance” “a time to be born, and a time to die,”
Isn’t it a blessing we don’t know when that time will be?
God only knows!

We could never have guessed on Saturday’s calm afternoon that Johnny’s time was up.
By our standards the timing is all wrong. The start of holiday time, festival week is coming up, a time to celebrate. So many family birthday and anniversaries, today is Johnny’s birthday anniversary, of all days. A birthday he shares with his brother Jim. And this happens just at a time when Johnny was starting to enjoy a new lease of life with his new knees...

With the loss of Johnny, time has become unreal, it feels surreal.
Along with you his family and friends, this whole Island community, and far beyond, a community of friends that Johnny has gathered from far and wide, we all share your shock and grief that this sad accident has taken him from us, out of the blue.
At this time it is too early to fully understand all the ways he will be missed. It’s as if he is still here with us, probably having a good chuckle at us all. He’d be scheming ways to get the craic started, to get a bit of fun going, and to put the fun back in funeral.
It will take time.

The shock will pass and over the next few days, then weeks, then months it will start to sink in.
He’ll no longer be sitting behind the wheel of his car at the Big Garden as his Dad did before him.
You’ll hear St. Thomas’ bell ring then remember it’s not Johnny ringing it.
I still expect to see him sitting down there at the back of the church, or down to meet the boat.
No longer sitting on his closely guarded stool at the bar.

He’s no longer physically with us but we will still feel his presence and know his influence. We still have a relationship with Johnny, only it has changed, it’s now something different as the love and friendship he shared so freely with us lives on.
I’ve known Johnny most of my life, since I was a wee fella, and to a wee cub Johnny was such a big man, a typical Curry build, broad shouldered, barrel chested and as strong as an ox. An imposing figure you would think might scare a wee boy, but no! Johnny wasn’t like that; he would never impose himself on anyone. He was good and easy company. A man’s man, yet, he had something that the Ladies found very attractive too! And the children loved him, he never snapped at them, he was always kind and generous, a real people person.

He always struck me as a quiet, gentle, good humoured man. He had a certain charm and a sparkle in his eye, and I always had the impression he knew more than he was letting on...
You know that Look? He was always a step ahead of you.

I say I knew him for 40 years but still I feel I didn’t know him well so it was a real privilege to talk to you his family and friends who knew him best and to share your memories of Johnny. As you can imagine for such a relentless joker, they were mostly funny stories of the kind he told so well. He had such a knack for telling a story, that you would swallow it, hook line and sinker. A very droll sense of humour, can you see him laughing under his breath? His shoulders shaking with an infectious laugh.

Very briefly and inadequately, here is his story.
John Alfred Curry was born on the 6th July 1945, the 5th of 7 children to Bill and Mary. Big brother Jim was heard to say; “Huh! Is that all I get for my birthday? Another baby.”
Can you imagine them all crowded in to that wee cottage on the “horses’ hill” “Crock-na-nagh”?
Before moving to Ballyconagan in 1949. Everyone had to pitch in on the family farm and Johnny knew farming well. He was a happy farmer...but school was a different matter.
He hated school!
Jim would leave him down to school then return home and Johnny would be home again ahead of him. Or he would jump over the wall and hide in the grass. He said even the smell of the chalk and the rubbers would make him sick! He must have got over it later though because he served his wee school well as a very supportive governor.
A pity school didn’t agree with him because Johnny was a clever customer. He would say that Teresa taught him everything he knew, but she said he was the cleverest man she met. He was shrewd from early on, shrewd enough to know when he was being cheated, but sadly not quick enough one time, when he was disappointed after working hard alongside Bertie at the T.B. testing up at Frank Craig’s.
Unlike Johnny, Frank wasn’t renowned for his generosity, and when he offered the boys a 10 shilling note in payment, the way you might say, Bertie said “Och Naw!” But Frank didn’t insist, and quick as a flash the note was back in his pocket! Well Johnny clodded Bertie with stones the whole way home! That was unusual though for he was seldom in bad form.

Teresa was the light of Johnny’s life, his first ever girlfriend, they married on 7th July 1971, another anniversary tomorrow!
Then a short time later another woman entered his life, a real Daddy’s girl if ever there was one. Catriona, with at least 4 boats named after you? You can see the things that really mattered to Johnny, what he really valued in life. The great loves of his life.
The boat was to Johnny what the car is to other men, and he wouldn’t think twice about hopping in and flying off somewhere. You were nearly reluctant to ask him for a trip because you knew he would go out of his way for you.
Johnny offered a “Martini” ferryboat service, anywhere for anyone, “anytime, anyplace, any weather” except if fog had “closed the airport”, an auld sea harr like this morning.
At home on the sea, a fish out of water away from it. Johnny died doing what he really loved.

I think that recovering from bowel cancer and major surgery must have made Johnny re-evaluate life. Then when cancer was claiming Teresa’s life, there was never as patient and caring a husband as Johnny and as protective a father to Catriona. 21 years ago was a hard time for you all with many losses round that time including Mary and Bill and Teresa. Yet life continues and every moment is a gift from God to be appreciated and enjoyed. Johnny always bounced back as he did after his tough time in hospital this year with his knees. Never complaining but, boy, was he on such a high when he got out. Like being released from prison, he said, back home to the Island and to the sea.

As he has done today Johnny was great at bringing people together, he was a peacemaker. Blessed in his gift of friend ship and blessed in his capacity to enjoy life. He loved a bit of craic, he was a wind up merchant though always in fun, never with malice and he could take a joke as well as dish it out.
Kind and generous and peaceable, in many ways Johnny’s ways were much like Jesus ways. The qualities that Jesus praised in the Beatitudes that Fr. Hugh read from Matthew’s gospel.
Jesus’ words from the “Sermon on the Mount”
Do you know how they distil the whiskey over in Bushmills? The liquid is condensed and concentrated. Well, the Beatitudes are like a distillation of all the things that Jesus taught his disciples. A concentrated memory of many hours of his teaching.
Blessed are the meek, the humble, the considerate, the unassuming, the peaceable towards both God and man. Jesus himself is the completely happy man of the Beatitudes, it means, “happy attitudes” and Jesus calls others to be what he is, and that’s very much like the way Johnny was.

Catriona, Kevin, Ronan and Aidan. Doreen, Jim, Freda, Bertie, Raymond, Alan and your families; May I express my deepest sympathy to you all at the loss of your father, granddad, brother, uncle and friend. The family would like to give their profound gratitude to the rescue services, to the R.N.L.I. and the Coastguard and the Police, and not only the professionals but also all those boatmen who mustered to the search for one of their own. And to all those who rallied round, instinctively, to help, and comfort, and support and just be there.

Johnny was very much part of an extended family here on Rathlin, who pull together so strongly at times of personal difficulty and tragedy. It is most impressive and moving to witness.

We share your shock and sadness at Johnny’s untimely death. I hope you will find comfort here and now in the moment as we consider our loss, but also give thanks to God for Johnny’s life and how he has touched and shaped all our lives. In a moment’s silence let us hallow our own particular memories of Johnny before God.... (Silence)... Amen.