"Tell them you love them. Tell them you're proud of them. And be thankful to God himself that you have them, because there's no promise you'll have them tomorrow."
Tim Kelley delivered his 20-year-old daughter's eulogy on Saturday, just two weeks after Hannah Grace Kelley was?accidentally shot in the head inside the church he pastors.
It was not a day of mourning. It was not a day to place blame. It was, however, a day of celebration of the life of the young woman who, her father said, dreamt those 20 years of being married.
The dream was mere months from being reality, but tragedy derailed her dreams, and her life.
As her fiance and the gun's owner examined the weapon, a bullet tore through a wall and struck Hannah in the head.
The odds -- astronomical. The forgiveness that flowed from a grieving?father -- unbelievable.
Kelley holds no animosity toward the man who had his hand on the gun when the bullet left the gun, 48-year-old church member Moises Zambrana.
With many likely justifiable reasons to do otherwise, Kelley forgave Zambrana the night his daughter was fatally wounded. The young woman died last Saturday after holding on for a week after the shooting.
One week later, no words of tragedy nor blame?were spoken. Instead, dancers danced, singers sang?and Hannah's mother spoke in her honor.
But nothing was more powerful than the public words?spoken?by her?own father:
"I didn't want to give her up. I still don't. I don't think?I ever will. But, I know -- I know -- my daughter is full of joy, full of peace and full of life."
It would be?a?marriage he could have never?imagined. One he could never afford.
"It was not the wedding she was planning. This one was planned before time began. My daughter, married the Lamb of God."
He refuses to talk about?his daughter?in the past, because he?dreams of his future, just as his daughter did. He dreams of the future he said will reunite him with the daughter he was not promised would be there tomorrow.
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