Watch video from Monday's memorial serviceAnd that would have been a worthy effort, one that would have taken far too long, Larry noted. Where, for instance, would he start in thanking a town that gave his family its heart and soul?
“Just hand me the phone book and start at A,” he said Monday at a memorial service for his only son, who died last Thursday after a seven-year war with cancer.
“I’d like to talk about Noah,” he said quietly.
And he did, in a voice that somehow held pure and clear while the truth poured out.
“Noah was raised in a house where it was more important to play a song than do the dishes,” he said. “If you’ve ever been to the little house on Sussex, that’s why there’s always an instrument near, and dirty dishes in the sink.”
Have you ever heard 300 people simultaneously struggle for air?
“Ours is a house where it’s more important to get good hugs than get good grades,” Larry said.
He wasn’t telling people how to raise children. He was explaining how a 26-year-old man, a man who bestowed legendary expansive hugs, became a symbol for what is good in his community.
“Ours was a house where the last words said every night are, 'I love you, too.’ ”
The crowd that had struggled to breathe quit struggling, letting their breath and tears merge in liquid, salted air.
Watch Missoulian.com throughout the evening and Tuesday morning’s print edition of the Missoulian for more coverage - photos, video and story - of Noah Ginning’s memorial service.
|
 |
 |
Add your comment now! Write your comment in the form below.
(Email address is for verification only. If you'd like to email a story, look for the link above)