Nikki Felton

A Reflection on the Occasion of a Service in Honor of Nicola JoAlice Harrell “Nicki” Felton St Mary’s Episcopal Church, Gatesville, April 12, 2025 Thomas Wilson, Officiant Wisdom 3:1-5,9 Psalm 23 2 Corinthians 4:16--5:9 John 14:1-6 Thank you for being here today. You all knew Nicki much better than I do. I met her about three years ago when my wife and I would come to this church and I would do a fill in service about once a month. We always got a big kick out of being here; the people were all so incredibly nice. The last time we, my wife and I, were here was when a covered dish supper followed the service and as we got ready to drive away back to the Outer Banks, the Senior Warden, a wonderful man, he still is, came running out to our car loaded down with all sorts of good food to take home with us. We did not know this would be our last time here as my wife’s illness got so much worse and I stopped filling in at churches in order to stay with her, until she died months later. I associate this church with lovely faith and simple kindness. When I talked with the family this week, they told me of the many kindnesses you shared with them during Nikki’s illness. They told stories about how strong she was in helping her friends, neighbors and family before she got ill. Especially the family. They reminded me how she found so much to laugh about and so much of herself to share. They also acknowledged that she was the “Boss” of that household and the heart. She may have been the Boss of the House, and not of her mother, but she did have a Boss, we call the Good Shepherd. Keep them in your prayers. I will because I knew my wife was the Boss of my house and the heart. One of the things I was well aware of was the difference between a house and a home. A house is a building in which you need tools like hammers, screwdrivers, plungers and brooms to take care of. A home is where you go to when you need love, and hope, and forgiveness, and fights to clear the air, and places to welcome strangers who become family and friends, and places to remember the past, and places to work and hope for the future. It is a place where you can go and have the last word. That was one of the things that Nikki used it for; it was her house and ghosts would not be allowed to have voice to say the last word. Robert Frost wrote a poem called “Death of A Hired Hand’ where the characters reflect to each other: ‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in.’ ‘I should have called it Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.’ The reading from the Wisdom of Solomon reminds us that Nikki is now fully in the hands of God, so her soul can rest and find peace in her forever house, and the 23rd Psalm underscores that she can rest without having one more darn thing to take care of. When Jesus was preparing his disciples for his death telling them that his own death is not the end of the story. Tomorrow, when you go to church, it will be Palm Sunday and you will probably have as the Gospel lesson that in His Father’s House there are many dwelling places for all who love him. The message to hold on to this day, that Day before Palm Sunday, is that Easter is coming. Try all you like, but nothing will stop New Life, nothing will stop forgiveness, nothing will stop hope, nothing will stop the people in our hearts from receiving our love..