Longtime Grace Brethren pastor, counselor, and musician Randy Poyner has gone to be with the Lord. Here is an edited version of an e-mail message from his son, Timothy.
I wanted to let you dear friends of my parents know that my dad passed away at 3:05am this morning. He never regained enough strength after his surgery last month and when he was not able to fully participate in rehab we moved him into a hospice facility in Port Orange FL early last week.
I received a call Sunday morning from a friend here in Palm Coast that was with my dad that morning letting us know that dad had taken a turn for the worse and was exhibiting signs that various systems were beginning to shut down. My sister, Susan, and I were both at his bedside through the night. We spoke of memories, played music, held dad’s hands and whispered peace to him. He rested most of the time due to some medication that the hospice nurse gave him to help him relax.
Around 2 a.m. his eyes were more open and, while he wasn’t able to say anything verbally, we knew that he was aware of our presence. I had just started playing his “Randy” recording. At 3 a.m. Susan left the room for just a minute and was talking to the hospice nurse right outside the room. I moved over to the position where she was sitting on the edge of dad’s bed (he was turned a bit more in that direction) and as I held his face in my hands, told him I loved him and whispered that he was free to go, he made his final emotional gasp and he was gone.
While we grieve at his absence we will feel on this earth, we rejoice knowing that his long battle and his aloneness is done. His body, mind, and soul are finally and fully healed, he is in the presence of his heavenly father, his brother Jesus and his comforter, the Spirit of peace—and he once again is with my mom, the love of his life that he deeply mourned over the past few years.
Because he will be cremated there is no urgency for a funeral service. We plan to have a memorial service here in Palm Coast within the next few weeks and a memorial service in Waterloo, Iowa, before the end of the summer. We are still trying to coordinate and finalize dates for these services.
Thank you for your friendship with my parents and especially my dad over the past few years.
On behalf of the Poyner kids,
tim