A big man in so many ways.
Big in stature. Big in ambition.
Big in skills, courage and love of his family.
These are the qualities that other men admire.
Swede packed more living into 26 years than most people do in 70.
The love of speed showed in Swede before his 10th birthday, and it resulted in participating in all types of racing, from quarter midgets to championship machines.
Using his intelligent mind and his good form in the most possible ways he had the capability of leading every race he entered.
Many men have the skills necessary to make the field but many less have the capability of moving to the front.
And this alone showed that he was capable of being the next "World Champion".
To be born with a strong body is one thing, but it is more important to tune it, to strengthen it, to perfect it.
This is just one example Swede left us.
Few could fight the overwhelming odds that he did for over a month.
An essential ingredient of a successful life is ambition, and Swede had that burning inner desire to succeed.
His mother tells that all his life he had one goal: To drive in the Indianapolis 500 and that he did.
He had always said that you have to decide either to risk everything to fill ones dream or sit for the rest of ones life in his own backyard.
For him that decision came early in his life.
Spending the past two weeks with the racing fraternity I was struck with the constant concern of Swedes condition.
And through every conversation was the immense awe we all expressed of his courage and his ability to battle the odds.
And then you remember that he suffered critical injuries earlier in his career. Injuries that would have perhaps stopped the ambitions of a lesser man.
But he came back fighting and made the one decision to return to the drivers seat.
Perhaps ordinary men will never understand that courage.
It is one thing to step into a race car when the crowds are cheering and the bands are playing, but the real courage comes in the quiet of a darkened hospital room.
The nurses, doctors, and his family all report the same, his courage minute by minute, day by day is unbelievable.
Swede was the one who was leading the cheers for those thirty three days he remained in the hospital.
He was the one that was comforting everyone else.
And never once did he ever lose his wonderful sense of humor.
Fully aware of the odds against him he was the tower of strength, the source of inspiration to the staff and family.
As though we were the students and he was the teacher. And what a great teacher he was.
His lesson being: All goes if courage goes.
It is keeping up ones chin when ones back is breaking or ones shoulders are sagging, or ones eyes are filled with tears.
Swede loved the sport of racing.
He accepted its dangers and its tragedies.
And with that quiet smile on his face, he would tell us to feel that same love even as our hearts fill with sorrow.
He would want us to do things that would only improve not restrict the competition.
Only 26 years...
Yet how much inspiration he has left us.
And our prayer tonight will simply be, "Lord give us the capacity to understand and to give us the strength to translate the meaning of the life of David Earl Savage Jr. into our own lives... For we will be better for it."