Remembering Shayna Bergey
On Sunday afternoon, November 28, 2021, my son Dylan and his girlfriend Shayna ordered an engagement ring. He never got to propose. Two days later, Shayna was in a car accident that left her unresponsive. She died on December 4, and the Bergey and Raley families went with Dylan to pick up the ring the next day. Last Sunday, I was privileged to deliver these remarks at her memorial service:
Shayna Bergey only had two settings: turbo-charged and asleep.
She wasn’t merely bright. She was smart as a whip. She wasn’t just a hard worker. She was relentless. When she wanted to gain a skill, she would only be satisfied with mastery. She played board games as if Western civilization hung in the balance. If she decided to tease you, she probed your weaknesses like a cross-examining lawyer. When she loved you, you had a sheltering and affectionate home in her heart, where she guarded you loyally.
But no one can live with that much intensity all the time. So, Shayna slept through most movies.
We are gathered to remember how well God blessed us with Shayna. Part of remembering her is recounting what we have lost. A more important part is recounting what Shayna gave us that can never be taken away.
Shayna entertained me. She loved to argue. So, to keep me from getting bored, Shayna started lots of debates. Here are some of the pressing issues we debated at length, sometimes on more than one occasion.
Is it cold outside? (She’ll say no. There are icicles and gale force winds, and small children are turning blue, but it has been colder.)
What is the correct pronunciation of “roof?” (She will mock my pronunciation with dog-barking sounds.)
Is the car’s headlight setting called “brights” or “high beams?” (Those who say “brights” are from California, where, as we all know, they’ve lost touch with reality.)
Does my house have a basement? (She’ll say it does, even though none of it is underground.)
Does my signature have to include all the letters of my name? (She’ll say every last one has to be there.)
Does the word “kid” refer to human offspring? (She’ll simply make goat noises.)
Are polka dots necessarily happy? (I don’t even know how this got started.)
Shayna entertained me in other ways too. She was concerned that I eat the correct food. I needed to get ice cream from Lapp’s in Lancaster, with a waffle cone. I needed to try cheesesteaks from a short list of restaurants. I needed chicken parmigian from Chick-fil-A. These were not suggestions. She would take me to the restaurants or show up at my house with the food and the backstory on where it came from. “You need to eat this now.”
As I said, Shayna’s work ethic was a force of nature.
Cows were a big part of her life. She loved milking them. She could tell me precisely how long it took her to get from a dead sleep in her room to the cows in the barn at 3 AM. She devoted her career to saving cows by making people eat more chicken. She was so proud of working at Chick-fil-A, traveling to open new stores, and training people in the Chick-fil-A way. Her dream was to train hard at the corporate headquarters in Atlanta and then to open her own restaurant. I know she would have succeeded.
I say that because Shayna was Wonder Woman when it came to networking. This memorial service is proof. Look at all these people! No matter where I go, I often find someone who knew Shayna. I’m getting emails from people I had briefly met years ago who knew her. Whenever she heard that I had been somewhere, she would rattle off five names and ask if I had met them. A day later, she would think of three more. Her ringtone was always going because she was always connecting—and connecting deeply. Dylan told me that she was texting back and forth with a fellow West Chester student who is struggling with his faith. None of us knows who he is, but she knew.
In one of my first conversations with her, she oriented me to all the names in her extended family—the ones that sounded similar like Gerald, Darryl, and Jeryl, the ones that ended with “ah” like Shayna, Leisha, Natasha, Gloria, Shawna, Chelsia, Malina, and many others, the ones that ended with “ee” like Ashley, Stacey, Tiffany, Lacey, and Courtney, the ones that repeated like Eileen, and which men were not using their first names. Then she started on non-family members. Ten minutes of this. The thing was, for a new pastor, it really helped.
Though Shayna had big abilities, she also had big challenges.
Diabetes was a reality in her life. I have noticed that some people with chronic conditions let their illness define who they are. Other people, still taking their condition seriously, don’t allow it to define them. They resolve that their illness is only part of them, not their whole identity. Shayna was this kind of person. Diabetes was part of her, not all of her.
She was disciplined in how she handled this challenge. She kept up on the technology for monitoring her blood sugar and maintaining it. She set herself on a strict diet. But she did not want special treatment or sympathy. She did what was needed with grace and good cheer. The most dramatic example I saw of this was at the airport. Because of all the medical equipment and supplies she carried, Shayna always had to endure lengthy searches in the security line. But instead of being angry she joked around with the TSA agents, tutored them on the finer points of how to search her, reminded the other passengers to remove their belt and shoes, and probably identified potential terrorists.
Why was Shayna such a powerhouse?
When she was baptized by Pastor Mike Clemmer in 2018, she said that one of her favorite verses was Philippians 4.4-8. “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” She took these words to heart. They gave her power.
Dylan showed me some old notes that were on her phone. In 2017, she left notes from a sermon about wisdom. “Don’t get caught up worrying about the future!” she wrote. “Understand that God’s ways are higher. Be open to change. Let God take things away. Pray about everything!” She lived out these precepts among all of us. They gave her power.
In 2019, she left notes about Romans 12.1-2, where Paul says, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Shayna’s notes said, “You are either allowing the world to change you, or you’re changing the world in the way that you live. God’s will is who you are in Christ.” Then, in all caps, using bright purple letters, Shayna asked, “Am I conforming or transforming?”
Shayna was a powerhouse because she lived out the will of God before us.
If I focus on all I’ve lost in Shayna, then I will only get part way down the path of grief. It is crushing to lose her vitality, her power to bring happiness, and her love for Dylan. Grieving only this far will leave me with a question I cannot answer: Why did God allow her to die so young? No imagined divine plan would make Shayna’s death a fair exchange for some better thing. Her death is an evil.
But if I focus on everything of Shayna that I can keep, then I can travel all the way to grief’s end. I can keep her example of being transformed in Christ and her wisdom from God about challenges. I can keep what I learned from her about connecting with people. I can keep what she showed me about climbing over limitations. I can keep her faith, hope, and love. I won’t receive any more of these treasures from her in this life. But I can keep the treasures she’s already given.
And the evil of losing Shayna is temporary. There is a redemption of this evil coming. The end of grief will be our reunion with her in Jesus’s presence—Jesus, who suffered every evil we are suffering, even death itself, and suffered voluntarily. Though Shayna is asleep to us, it is possible that she has already climbed into the Father’s arms, saying with the turbo-charged confidence that he gave her, “You need to send Jesus back now.”