Lisa Lopes

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From Soul Patrol:


by Roney Smith


Earlier today I attended the homegoing celebration for Lisa "Left-Eye" Lopes at the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church outside of Atlanta, GA.

It was truly a day that I will never forget.

The day began very early and I arrived at New Birth at 8 a.m.  The doors were scheduled to open at 10 a.m. and from all earlier accounts throughout the week, it appeared that the sanctuary would be packed beyond the maximum capacity.

There were people already there when I arrived.  Approximately 50 people or so were already standing in line.

Many of us still waited in our cars and appeared to all get out at the same time.

I was within the first 100 people.

Before much time had passed, the line grew and snaked around the huge parking lot until it was about to touch the line where I was standing.

Unfortunately, the county police started to control the crowd a little too late and people were doing the old fashioned "cutting the line" like back in our old cafeteria days in school.

A barricade was placed to appear to assist with the crowd control.  But a second line was forming on the other side of it.

A hush fell over the crowd that was slowly and surely becoming agitated when the 2 hearses arrived carrying the coffin and numerous flowers.

The crowd was peaceful and pleasantly remembering Lisa until it appeared that people that just arrived were going to gain access before the people that arrived at 7 a.m.

Someone later directed people to be allowed to walk to the main building and pandemonium broke out.

People from every direction swarmed to the doors where people were being checked with metal detectors.

My wife claimed to see me on the news in the throng of people as the lack of crowd control almost turned the day upside down.  But I was not hurt and did not hurt anyone clearly;)

There were people that had clearly overdressed for an Atlanta warm, spring day and they were several people that were quickly getting to the passing out and fainting point.

But after getting inside, everything seemed to change for the better.  Estimates of the attendance was between 7000 to 10,000 people.

There did not appear to be anyone that was turned away and I saw seats that were available throughout the sanctuary.

This clearly was the most star-studded funeral service that I have ever seen.

I am up to date on our popular culture, but I still was able to benefit from some younger sisters that were sitting next to me with eagle eyes on every celebrity that appeared to walk into the sanctuary.

I do not know how you would feel but it was the funeral of a celebrity, and the thought of other celebrities being there did not faze me up or down.

But a few of the names that were present were the members of TLC, T-Boz's husband rapper Mack-10, Usher escorted Rozonda, former Brave Otis Nixon and his wife former R&B singer-now-minister and pastor Pebbles, Bobby Brown, Whitney Houston and their daughter Bobbie, Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, Antonio "LA" Reid, Dallas Austin, Jermaine Dupri, Jagged Edge, Mary Mary, a new group discovered by Lisa Lopes named Egypt, Keith Sweat, and others too numerous to name.

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The biggest surprises that I saw was that Suge Knight slept throughout the eulogy and Janet Jackson walked in either with or near Jermaine Dupri.

There was clearly a spirit of heaviness in the atmosphere when the ministerial and family processsion began.  The entire day seemed totally surreal and felt like a terrible mix between a concert and a funeral all in one.

I believe that I now remember where the day appeared to come from.  It felt like the different movies of singing groups where one member dies and the funeral takes place.  It was that kind of day.

I have preached to youth that the death of my mother caused me to feel the same feelings that America felt on September 11th.  Today felt like this as well.

But Bishop Eddie Long stated that it would be a homegoing celebration and the New Birth Choir started singing the latest song by Kirk Franklin entitled "Hosanna" which immediately brought a spirit of praise into the sanctuary to everyone.

Mary Mary performed "Shackles" as the family stated that it was one of Lisa's favorite songs.

There were comments by several people and Antonio "LA" Reid (the CEO of Arista Records) spoke of Lisa's huge amount of creativity and even the problems that occurred due to her having so many great and good ideas.

Lisa was clearly the conceptual, driving force of TLC.

Her mother, Wanda Lopes-Coleman (called Sister Wanda or Mother Wanda throughout the service), gave a heartfelt, tribute as if you and her were the only people in the room.  She stated that Lisa had the public speaking and confidence gifts that she never had and that Lisa must have been strengthening her to speak in front of everyone.  She wanted to make Lisa proud.

Mother Wanda spoke of how she had been having visions for the past year and a half concerning Lisa.  She said that she saw Lisa evidently within a coffin in her visions and that is how she was able to deal with seeing Lisa in a coffin just days before the funeral.

Mother Wanda spoke of how Lisa was resolving old unresolved issues with different people and how Mother Wanda had prayed for her. Mother Wanda then read a greeting card with words from a mother to a child.

Believe me, this woman's faith has already been rewarded and will continue to be rewarded.  She was not numb, sedated, out of touch with reality, or anything like that.

The music group that Lisa discovered named Egypt were in the SUV accident with Lisa.  Two members were in wheelchairs and one limped badly still. They were called to sing.  They sang "The Thank You" medley recorded by
Destiny's Child.  These girls really saaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnngggggggggg and their lives are clearly going to be a testimony regardless of what type of music they will record.

When they finished, they were greeted with a huge round of applause and support.  They stated that one member is still in the Honduras for another month and requested prayer for this member.

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The funeral service progressed with a minister that evidently had known the family for some time.  He spoke words of comfort, encouragement, and gave specific directions to the immediately family and Tionne and Rozonda of TLC.

Afterwards, Bishop Long gave THE PERFECT EULOGY for the time and season facing everyone.

His Scriptural text came from Ecclesiastes 12:1-7 and his eulogy was entitled "The Daughters of Music".

He spoke of how creativity, gifts, and talents all come from God and creative artists are only the tools that God uses.  The spirit returns upon death to where it came and that all of us were with God in eternity before our individual birthdays and that we are given what is known as time to determine what and where we are going to do in eternity upon our return via death.

He stated that it would be a mockery to Lisa's life for anyone whose life was touched by Lisa's to not acknowledge God the Creator that created the creation that is gifted with creative expression.

This message was not long at all and he concluded with an invitational call that had dozens of people standing to acknowledge God and accept Christ.

This was absolutely beautiful, amazing, and the perfect way to celebrate a homegoing.

Minister Bernice King, the daughter of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. prayed and another minister gave a few words to those standing.

The guy sitting beside Suge Knight even got saved praise God!!!
Suge Knight himself slept throughout the eulogy.

The service ended with another uplifting song ("I Have Never Seen The Righteous Forsaken" by Donald Lawrence and the Tri-City Singers) from the choir and although it was a homegoing, it clearly represented that Lisa "Left-Eye" Lopes' life was not in vain.

Amen.

The media coverage of the funeral totally consumed the evening news on all of the local stations.
More celebrities were interviewed in a press conference room and their wordswere on the news as well.

Finally, I would ask your prayers for the family and especially Tionne and Rozonda of TLC.  I could not see their faces but from their body language, I could tell that they were severely drained.

I praise God that there were lives changed.  My life has been changed in that I clearly realize that life is too short to hide or not reveal any gifts and talents that God has given to me.

So as I approach each new day to live in God's graceful and merciful opportunity, it is really going be "on to the break of dawn" from now on.

Take care locally and stay focused eternally and universally.

Peace,

Roney Smith

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More on Lisa


Date: Fri, 03 May 2002 14:44:16 +0000
From: "ronald mcintyre" <[e-mail]>
Subject: soul-patrol: Lisa's funeral

I made a deal with my 17 year old. If she asked her english teacher to
accept a report for extra credit on the funeral of Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes she
could skip school yesterday and the two us could go to the funeral. She did
and we went. The funeral which was open to the public was held at the New
Birth Missionary Baptish Church. One of Atlanta's mega churches with 10,000
seats and a membership of 20,000. The service was scheduled to begin at 12
noon and the doors were scheduled to open at 10am. The news and radio
stations said that the sreet the church is one would close when the parking
lot got full. When we arrived at 9:30am their were 2 very long lines of
people waiting get in, hordes of reporters and camera crews, legions of
cops, helicopters and celebrities. I won't go into it too much but entering
the church was a trip. It took forever. They wanted to make sure no weapons,
cameras or cell phones were brought inside and attempted to scan everyone
with metal dectectors. It didn't work! 10,000 people going thru 3 doors one
at a time will never work but I'll not belabor the fact that there was much
confusion at a church used to huge crowds. As we entered Suge Knight and a
WALL OF BIG BAD BROTHERS passed me by. Suge is even bigger and more
intimidating than one assumes. Other well known attendees included Janet
Jackson, Bobby Brown, Whitney Houston, Antonio "L.A" Reid, TLC members
"T-Boz" and "Chilli" and a number of rappers my daughter kept pointing out.
I couldn't tell you what their names were if they had chased me down the
street with an axe and CAUGHT me. Church monitors displayed changing
pictures of Lisa as a baby, toddler, pre teen and teen. As we stood to
recieve the rather large family of Lisa's they played they played TLC's
"Waterfalls". When Lisa's rap solo on the recording played I looked at the
closed casket thought what a tragedy this had all been and what her mom and
step dad must be going thru. I said a short silent prayer asking God to take
of them and thanking him for always protecting my family. The powerful 300
plus member New Birth choir then broke me out of my solemn thoughts as they
opened the service with a rousing arrangement of "Hosanna" and declared the
service a CELEBRATION!! Inspiring moments for me were the comments from
Wanda Lopes, Lisa's mom who bravely spoke to the crowd. Barely able to speak
or read at times Mrs. Lopes read a poem she had written to Lisa and
mentioned she had recieved a vision of Lisa's passing a year and half ago
and had been preparing for it. That was unreal for me. Lisa was developing a
female group named "Egypt". The members had been in the SUV with Lisa during
the accident. They sang a beautiful accapella song with one member on
crutches, another in an arm sling and they said they had a 4th member still
in Hondouras recieving medical attention. The group is physically and
emotionally in pain. "LA" Reid spoke, Mary, Mary sang and Pastor Eddie L.
Long of New Birth broke it on DOWN. He reminded us all that no matter how
worldly successful we become with our talents, we will all have to return to
God one day and give an accounting of how we used what HE gave us because HE
is the source of our talents, creativity and vision. The crowd was orderly.
Mary Wilson discribes in her book how disorderly and downright "IGNANT" the
folks got at Detroit's famed New Bethel Batptist Church was during Florence
Ballad's funeral. I hoped that would not happen for Lisa. Fortunately it
didn't even though there was a moment outside where things seemed they might
indeed go that way. Brothers, it would be inapporpriate in this post to go
into detail about the sisters in attendance so I'll simply say the sisters
were beautiful. I'll remember Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes. She was certainly a
product of contemporary African American youth. Talented, beautiful, bold,
confused and in need of guidance.  May she rest in peace.

Ron