America’s Emotional Farewell to Billy Graham

FAMILY AND FOLLOWERS PAID TRIBUTE AS THE PREACHER WAS LAID TO REST

Someday you will read or hear that Billy Graham is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it,” the reverend known as America’s Pastor once said. “I shall be more alive than I am now. I will just have changed my address. I will have gone into the presence of God.” And when Billy passed away at 99 on Feb. 21, rather than feeling sad, his daughter Ruth Graham, 67, echoed that sentiment to Closer: “This really is a glorious day. My father is finally free.”

As many mourned his passing, plans were set in motion to lay Billy to rest on March 2 on the grounds of the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, N.C., next to his beloved wife, Ruth, who passed away in 2007. His coffin, “a simple plywood casket like my mother’s,” son Franklin Graham explained, “was built by convicted murderers at Angola

Prison,” where the family had donated money to build two chapels, and where Billy had preached to inmates. The casket suits the man whom televangelist Joel Osteen describes to Closer as “humble and gracious.”

BILLY’S FINAL JOURNEY

In the days following Billy’s death, family, friends and followers shared remembrances of how their lives had been touched by the powerful preacher. “The outpouring of love we are seeing as we travel from Asheville to Charlotte via the motorcade with my father is overwhelming,” said Franklin, 65. “People lining the streets, the overpasses — thank you!”

Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both paid their respects while Billy’s casket lay in repose at the Library. “He changed my life,” said President Bush. “His care and his teachings were the real beginning of my faith walk — and the start of the end of my drinking.”

From Charlotte, Billy’s coffin traveled to the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 28, where it was met by President Trump and other elected officials. The pastor is only the fourth non-politician to have lain in honor in the Capitol, joining civil rights icon Rosa Parks and two police officers killed in the line of duty.

The Graham family decided to hold a private funeral in Charlotte, with around 2,300 invited guests gathering under a large tent similar to the one where a fiery young Billy held his first crusade in Los Angeles in 1949. “I have just felt incredibly joyful today,” Ruth told Closer. “His legacy is going to be in the lives of people who were changed because of the Gospel.” — Lisa Chambers

“Someday this life will end, but for the Christian, death also marks a beginning.” — Billy

“My father made me promise that we would take him back to Charlotte after he died,” Franklin said from the motorcade.

Billy “saw George W. as sort of a son,” daughter Ruth says of the former president (right), with Franklin Graham and Laura Bush. Leaders of both political parties gathered for the arrival of Billy’s casket in the Capitol. Billy’s headstone will read...