A Notre Dame canopy outside Warsaw Community Church reads, “#smithstrong” in commemoration of Charlie and Scott Smith. (Photo by Amanda McFarland)

WARSAW — Warsaw Community Church was packed Tuesday morning, Oct. 13, as a community gathered to remember a father and son who left their mark on a community in many ways.

More than an hour before the service began, cars were already starting to fill the parking lot for the memorial service in honor of Charles “Charlie” and Scott Smith.

Street department employees in fluorescent vests joined police officers and firefighters in uniform, co-workers in business suits and city officials dressed in their best.

Family and friends viewed memorabilia from Tippecanoe Valley High School, Notre Dame and other aspects of their lives. Four horse outfits were also on display, which the Smiths often wore to Notre Dame games.

Pastor Denny Wilson officiated over what he described as a particularly difficult funeral service. “One of the things that is particularly difficult about today is, I’ll be doing the funeral of a father and a son together,” Wilson said.

Zachary LeDrew described his grandfather, Charlie, and uncle, Scott, as two individuals who lived life to the fullest. “No matter where you went, you saw Grandpa or Uncle Scott doing something for someone,” he said. Those gathered wiped away tears and laughed as Zachary shared memories.

Wilson read a message that Charlie’s stepdaughter, Angela Cox, wrote about her stepfather. “Charlie taught me a lot about life and about myself,” she wrote. “Although he didn’t always agree with my decisions in life, he always supported me as a person. He played a huge role in molding me into who I am today.”

Former Tippecanoe Valley football player Doug Dickerhoff told some of his favorite memories of his coach, Charlie. He recalled a game from the 1980s, the first game of the playoffs, which the team lost. “As players, we felt we let Coach down, we felt we let the community down,” he said. “But Coach took the heat. It was ‘his fault’ for not prepping us enough. It was ‘his fault’ for not doing extra preparation. The buck stopped with Coach and that’s just how he was.”

He also recalled “Coach” taking him up in a plane so he could get aerial shots of his son’s football game for a commemorative book. He was able to show Charlie the book during this year’s Warsaw Air Show and pass along a note of appreciation and a gift card. He still has the text on his phone Charlie sent him in response.

Dickerhoff also recalled Scott as a 10-year-old. “He was the ball boy. There was no more hardworking ball boy and he wanted to do nothing but please his dad and he was a chip off the old block,” Dickerhoff said. “Any of you who knew him know how true that is.”

As Wilson returned to speak, he confessed he was angry when he first heard the news and struggled to make sense of what happened. “As I was driving back to Warsaw, knowing I was going to be meeting with the families later that day, I was arguing with God,” he said. “Wondering how in the world … am I going to make sense of this?”

Wilson recalled first meeting Scott at a Notre Dame game. “I met this guy in a goofy horse outfit with a smile on his face and I thought, ‘how much have those guys been drinking,’ ” he said, eliciting laughter from those gathered. “Then I realized who it was and I thought, ‘wow, he goes to church here,’ and he came up to me and it was like he knew me forever.”

“He had a perpetual smile on his face that was contagious. I knew he loved life, he had the same greeting, where ever it was it was always the same.”

Wilson remembered them both as being full of life and passion for everything they did.

“There are a lot worse ways to go than how they went,” he said. ”I can’t imagine any of them getting to a point in life where they were unable to live passionately the lives that they loved, even though I’d love to have Scott around another 30 to 40 years.”

Wilson described  the impact that sudden tragedy can have on the way people relate to their loved ones. “It kind of pulls the veneer back a little bit and it thins the gap between heaven and earth,” he said. “It makes us all realize, we’re all mortal and none of us are going to get out of here alive, so we begin to do things and live a bit differently, don’t we? We begin saying the things that we ought to say to the people we ought to be saying them to. We begin to do the things for one another that we should always be doing. You realize at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is each other.”

He also described what he believes heaven may look like for Scott and Charlie. “We have our images of heaven, don’t we? I just can’t imagine either one of them floating around on a cloud playing a harp. That would be more their version of hell,” he said, causing those in the room to burst out laughing. “I’m envisioning more a perfect powder day, could be a fresh powder, 72 degrees and sunny.”

He illustrated Charlie’s and Scott’s lives with a quote from the movie “Braveheart:” “‘Every man dies, but not every man really lives.’ Scott and Charlie really lived,” he said.

Wilson closed with a reading from the book of Revelation, which talks about a new heaven and a new earth, with no more death or sorrow.