A Testament to a Life Well Lived

By David H. Waller

“Home for the believer is where Jesus is. Cody is now home.”

Matthews Memorial Presbyterian Church pastor Michael Atmar said those words last Thursday at Cody Leech’s funeral, and they have stuck with me ever since.

What a comfort those words are. And what a truth.

Jesus is our home, and one day, all of us who believe will be there. Cody Leech is there now.

I know there are so many people who could write a tribute to Cody. His family, his lifelong friends, the people who knew him far better than I did. And I encourage them to do that.

I don’t like my voice being the main voice of The Albany News. This newspaper belongs to this community, and I always encourage people to write letters or columns when they have something on their heart. If you want to do that for Cody, or for any loved one, that door is always open.

But what I witnessed last week moved me so much that I felt like I needed to put it down on paper.

Cody’s death was one of those moments when you remember exactly where you were and what you were doing when you heard the news. I was sitting on the beach in Port Aransas, watching my boys play in the sand, when I found out.

My stomach dropped.

Immediately, I thought about the entire Leech family and what they were going through. It was a helpless feeling, knowing that a family from our community was suddenly facing something so painful.

That feeling stayed with me throughout the week.

Then, at the funeral Thursday morning, I heard those words:

“Home for the believer is where Jesus is. Cody is now home.”

And somehow, there was comfort in that.

Cody was 15 years older than me, so we never really ran in the same circles. But I always admired him and looked up to him. He was the kind of person you noticed. He was charismatic, he never met a stranger, and it was obvious how much his family meant to him.

Then last Thursday, I witnessed one of the greatest outpourings of love I have ever seen.

As a deacon at MMPC, I arrived early to help with the funeral. The church staff had printed 300 programs, thinking that would be enough to get us started.

We were wrong.

The sanctuary began filling nearly two hours before the service. Cars lined the streets for blocks. More programs had to be printed, 300 more to be exact. The sanctuary filled, then the fellowship hall, the youth room and classrooms. The Feed Store across the street opened its doors to make room for more people. Others stood outside the church simply to listen.

By the time the service began, we estimated nearly 700 people had gathered on the church grounds and across the street.

I have never seen anything quite like it.

But maybe that is the greatest tribute that could be given to Cody Leech.

Hundreds of people stopped what they were doing on a Thursday morning and came together because one man had meant something to them. They came because Cody had been their friend, their neighbor, their classmate, their customer, their family, or simply someone who had made an impression on their life.

That kind of turnout cannot be manufactured. It is earned over a lifetime.

It said more about Cody than anything I could ever write.

And when the funeral was over, there was one more scene I don’t think I will ever forget.

Cody was carried to his final resting place at the Albany Cemetery in a horse-drawn wagon, followed by 20 cowboys on horseback and countless vehicles making their way through town behind them.

I could only imagine what someone passing through Albany that morning must have thought as they watched that procession go by.

It must have looked like a Texas version of a royal funeral.

And in many ways, I think it was.

Not because Cody was royalty, but because of what that kind of procession represented. It was a community honoring one of its own. It was friends riding alongside their friend one final time. It was hundreds of people showing a family, in the most visible way possible, that Cody mattered and that he was loved.

To Kalico, Leddie, Laithe, Donna, Jim and the entire Leech family, from the bottom of my heart, I am so sorry Cody is no longer here with us. I hope you know how much this community loved him, and I hope what we all witnessed last Thursday brings some measure of comfort in the difficult days ahead.

And I hope the words spoken that morning continue to bring comfort, too.

“Home for the believer is where Jesus is.”

And Cody is now home.