Fiamma victim no stranger to grief
Hundreds gather to recall Clark, whose wife died in 2010
Kevin Clark, one of five people killed last week at Fiamma, led by example, Willow Creek Church Pastor Kevin Labby told about 500 people gathered Monday morning.
That was particularly true after Clark lost his wife, Kelly, seven years ago at age 37 and became a single father to Gavin, now 18, and Delaney, now 14.
“Kevin was no stranger to loss and sadness,” Labby said. “Kevin didn’t see his grief or sadness harden his heart — it made him softer.”
It was a poignant message for many in the sanctuary who were at the beginning of their grief as hundreds more gathered in downtown Orlando to mark one year since the shooting at the Pulse nightclub, which killed 49 people.
Two different shootings with different circumstances, but both perpetrated by angry men who stole the lives of innocent people.
Clark’s funeral was the last of the publicly announced services for the employees who died at Fiamma, the awning and accessory maker for RVs and vans, in Orange County, just eight miles from Pulse.
Robert Snyder, 69; Brenda Montanez-Crespo, 44; and Kevin Lawson, 47, were laid to rest over the weekend. A service for Jeffrey Roberts, 57, is private. Labby didn’t mention the specifics of the shootings.
He talked about “events that defy our understanding” and the “senselessness, even the malice that took Kevin from us.”
“Our world is not the way it should be and we know that,” he said. “There is darkness.”
“Jesus suffered an unjust death, too,” he said. “But death could not hold him … Don’t let the darkness win.”
Friend Baird Lyons remembered the first