April 23, 2022 Mother Vicki’s Eulogy for Br. Lawrence Oluf Koester, OSB
Brother Lawrence Oluf Koester, 1931-2022
“Prayer! Prayer! Prayer! That’s what the peacocks cried out every day to remind me.” Br. Lawrence recounted that story to me around this time last year when I went to visit him in Tucson. The peacocks had long before been given away, but their cry remained in Br. Lawrence’s depths. “Prayer, prayer, prayer.” You might say those three words sum up the heart of our dear Brother.
He lived his life simply, pouring himself out in service to his brothers. He was caregiver to Fr. James as his abbot became more and more helpless with Parkinson’s disease. Prayer accompanied Lawrence and flowed forth in loving care of him to the very end. He watched over the many dogs they had, making sure they had food and water, and he nurtured the myriad trees and plants on the monastery grounds. Always, prayer was his companion. How could he forget? The peacocks would not let him! “Prayer, prayer, prayer.”
As time progressed, his health began to break down. Pain, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s took their toll on him and became the backdrop for prayer. Many of you became his caregivers first at the monastery and then at the nursing home, for which he was very grateful. He lived and thrived there after the monastery closed, and he was able to stay in independent living, with help from an agency to administer meds, etc. Gratitude filled him and he would call us sometimes just to let us know it. A life of prayer had opened him out to God’s Presence everywhere. The fruit was ripe and God was coming to pluck it.
On January 24, he began to come down with a cold. By January 27 it had become acute and he was taken by ambulance to the emergency room. There he was diagnosed with pneumonia. On Friday, January 28 he entered hospice and on Sunday, January 30 he went home to God at around 7:00am. Some of us were rushing to be there when we got the call that it would not be much longer. We missed his passing by minutes. But all of us know he is with the One with whom he spent so much time on his earthly journey. Jesus called him home: “Come, blessed of my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”
May you rest in the embrace of God, dear Brother.