The eulogy I wrote and delievered for My Dad given 3 years ago on what would have been my parents 35th wedding anniversary.... For those of you that don’t know me my name is Kristin and I am the oldest of my father’s 3 children. I’d like to give you a little summation of what growing up with my Dad was like. It’s not all pretty, children are far from perfect but neither are parents. As a parent to my Dad’s 3 oldest grandchildren I started out trying to try to fix whatever I may have viewed as mistakes my parents made and vowed not repeat them with my children. However, I’ve come to realize that there are no mistakes. Only different ways of teaching and loving our children and no matter how we go about it we are all striving for the same outcome....to raise who will one day become a smart, successful, good human being, who will reflect who we were and the people that we wanted to be. We are not trying to fix our parents errors but rather the errors we see in ourselves. The desire to be more than we are, to be perfect, is what made us all view our parents as sometimes being unfair. Although Dad was the example that we looked up to, our mentor, our protector, our friend, he was sometimes also the enemy. If you were to ask someone who knew him to give you one word to describe Dad you would hear things like...smart, athletic, brave, loyal, eloquent, tough, opinionated or loud but the most common word in our house to describe Dad would be stubborn. It took me many years to realize that the stubbornness came out of love because although we saw him as uncompromising and inflexible for not letting us take the car out, go to a concert, hang out with particular people or date a certain boy it was not because he was unreasonable it was because he felt the need to be tough in order to protect us. It was his job to protect his country from enemies, to protect his President from harm and to protect his children from themselves. At a very young age I knew and understood essential basics - because he cared to inform me - while so many of my friends were still just trying to understand what a quarter was. I was the girl who sat on her daddys lap, and not only found out about where quarters came from, how to get quarters, and what one could do with a quarter, but discovered - thanks to Dad, that there were even bigger and better things than quarters....there were dollars too! Trying to make me understand even then not to settle for average, go for the bigger and better things. Just do honest, hard work and you could earn quarters and turn them into dollars. However in our house if you wanted to earn a quarter you were going to do dollar work for pennies because the world wasn’t going to hand us anything and neither was he. When he believed there was truth in something, he strived to educate others in the hopes they might open their minds to new possibilities....in the loudest possible manner. His lively presence was always felt in a room. He was a voracious reader. If I ever had a question about something, he always had answers because hed read an article or a book recently about it. And his answers were always right and as his child as long as you didn’t disagree with his answers then you were right too. So many of you who knew my Dad knew him as a strong and proud man. Youd probably be surprised to know that he was also one of the most entertaining men Ive ever met. Whether he was waltzing with me to Lawrence Welk Show in our living room or having me lead the way dressed in his Marine uniform as Kerry, Adam and I marched around the house singing cadence he liked to make us smile and have fun...as long as it wasn’t while he watched sports. In our home we were like planets orbiting around him as a sun. Not many can match the brilliance of his mind/spirit combination. He used his brain and his heart. He attracted our attention and emulation, as he did with most who met him. Our family activities whirled around his gravitational pull as he taught, advised and cheered us on. And as with all charismatic figures, his strength radiated into his flaws with equal volume. When he intended to annoy or criticize, he really succeeded. When tired, he demanded to be waited on like a genuine patriarch. But I loved to hear him tell his stories. He loved being the center of attention, telling involved stories of his adventures or weaving historical scenarios and explaining how they relate to our lives today. Of course, he always laughed loudest and longest at his own jokes, with a big grin and wiggling bushy eyebrows. A laugh that was only slightly less embarrassing than his off key, out of tune singing that could be heard for miles. I loved to hear him teach. Id often ask one question about current events or politics, and hed be off and running. Ideas, facts and historical precedents would cascade out of him with increasing momentum, usually turning into a discussion of American history, then world history. The best part would be when his eyes started to gleam, his voice rose in pitch, and his hands would start moving about as he spoke. As though sitting on the edge of his spot on the end of the couch, speaking at a deafeningly loud volume and waving franticly at you would help you better understand what he was saying. It was beyond my comprehension, how he could maintain such a thorough understanding of everything he read and heard. He would weave together all the threads of history, politics, economics and sociology, then reach his own unique conclusions. I always asked for his input about who to vote for because his answers would invariably point out connections and subtleties I hadnt noticed. I think that he may have grown tired of my questioning his choices in politics because during this last election he would call me or sit me down during one of the many times during the week I would be at Mom and Dad’s house to not ask me but rather to tell me, at the age of 33, who I was voting for. I was lucky I had already made my choice and agreed with his opinion. Voting for me from now on however, will be a much more uncertain process. Its agonizing to talk in the past tense about a person who knew me through and through, nurturing and supporting all my dreams throughout my entire life. Im trying to focus on being grateful to have had so many years with Dad, instead of being confounded by the thought of the rest of my life without him. So I will hold on to one of the finest features Dad possessed...his viewpoint of enthusiasm. Everything was Great! Fantastic! Couldn’t be better! Every hideous drawing I drew or misspelled card I made was a miracle of genius according to Dad and he kept them all. I think in his mind each day was “Great! Fantastic! and Couldn’t be better!” Kerry, Adam and I really were the best he ever made. We are proud of him, of all that he was, and all that he tried to make us be. We are mostly proud to say this one thing: Of all that he was - He was OUR Dad.
Posted on: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 22:11:58 +0000
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