I couldn’t sleep this morning. Today we bury Poppa. He’s always been “Poppa” to me – I met him when I was 17 years old, before I married his youngest son. Those were days when I loved to climb the pecan tree in his backyard, and he would laugh at my great sense of adventure. Eventually he called me his “tree-climbing daughter-in-law,” even after we gave him six grandchildren.

Now we’re here to give a last collective tribute to the man who gave life to many of us. And of those here who can’t actually call him “Daddy” or “Poppa,” many have the life we do possess because of Harold Rabalais.

Poppa was known as – what we’d call today – a “workaholic.” In fact, it’s hard to imagine him resting even in heaven! Surely he’s found some gold brick pavement to lay. I wonder if there’s even a divine version of old Bertha, his concrete mixer, in heaven?

But really, I think, in this hindsight of death, that what Poppa really spent his life doing was not so much working but serving. He literally spent himself so others could live, and live better.

In the wee hours of November 7, Joe and I and Meme Sadie sat beside his still, quiet bed at Green Acres Nursing Home.

Meme spoke softly. “I was always his number one. My whole life, it seems, I was his number one. Everybody needs to be number one to somebody,” she said. “You need to feel that you’re special, that everything about you is the most important thing to someone else. I was always number one to him.”

I think Poppa began his numbering system with God, skipped right over himself, and assigned Sadie number one. It reminds me of those greatest commandments, to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. It’s a good thing Poppa was good at math, because there were 7 more who followed closely behind Sadie. What did Poppa do in his life that wasn’t for these 8 people, and then their spouses, and his 21 grandchildren? I struggle to remember something he did in his life that was just for himself.

Poppa took the principle of providing for his family so deeply to heart that in many ways it cost him more than money. Sometimes I think it cost him personal happiness. Sometimes it meant he couldn’t make good on promises of fun and adventure, because in his mind, need trumped fun every time. And by the time he was finished spending his strong years raising a God-fearing, self-motivated, educated, hard-working daughter and six sons, I think he had a hard time remembering how to do anything else.

And really, if I had to choose between someone who would make my dreams come true, and someone who would teach me how to reach my dreams, I’d choose the latter. That’s who Poppa chose to be. Many, many of us will know our dreams one day because of how much he sacrificed to teach us those things. I can’t think of a better gift.

It reminds me of that One who Poppa followed from his childhood, that One who also gave his life so we could live.

As a young Baptist girl coming into this family, I didn’t understand the Catholic way. I didn’t understand Poppa’s fierce devotion to 7 a.m. mass – a mass his children were brought to through rain or shine, a mass sandwiched between pouring concrete in the dark of morning and laying bricks in the heat of day. But Meme and Poppa didn’t let our difference of belief be a wall between us. They climbed that wall and hugged me tight and loved me well.

Over the years, as I’ve watched their devotion to God and their commitment to pleasing him and serving him as well as their children, I’ve realized that what we shared wasn’t so much difference of belief, but sameness of faith. Their faith is my faith, spoken in a different language maybe, sung to a different tune, but honoring the Father in wonderful harmony.

Poppa, in your life you gave us an indelible image of Jesus. The Bible says we’re made in the image of God, but he’s so big; we’re so small. It seems like we finite humans can only reflect facets of God’s character. Some of us reflect his mercy more, some reflect his strength. Some look more like his gentle nature, and others his willingness to pour out Himself for those he loves. Poppa that was you. In your 81 years, you let us see, hear, smell, taste and touch that glimmer of God’s nature that says, “Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for a friend.” You did that well, Poppa. You did it very well.