on grief and writing as affordable self indulgence

This is a picture of my father from some time in the last few years on the deck of their last house in NH.  It's kind of a big grill so I think it was a few years ago -- the grill got smaller as he got less enthused about cooking -- or maybe that there were less of us for him to cook for, since it was mostly just him and my mother.  And a year ago, the small grill went to Rhode Island to my sister's and they moved to an apartment in a place where the nice people in the dining hall did the grilling for you.  

I say that I don't have a lot to say about the things that have happened this summer, that writing about your own life is so self indulgent -- but the reality is that I do and it does not appear that I have access to the usual Upper Middle Class White Person's Solution to Stress (aka "vacations, spa treatments, culinary classes, therapy, shopping, private trainers or marathon running").  So, here is a first shot at it -- this is the eulogy I wrote and said for my dad.  It is unapologetically sentimental.

Eulogy

July 15, 2013

My mother used to call my father her “diamond in the rough,” but I realize that all those rough spots are what made my father an interesting man.     He liked golf  and in golf, the rough is annoying, but it’s still integral to the game.   I don’t think it really was his grammar or his manners --   maybe he seemed rough because he wore his feelings on his sleeve – whether angry or excited, happy or sad, caring or concerned, or my mother’s favorite adjective “grumpy,” the temperature of the room was often shaped by how my dad felt.   He’d often start out saying, “You’re not going to like this but I’m going to say it anyway” –  That roughness was built upon a foundation of love.  There was no question that no matter what happened or what you did, whether it made him cantankerous or critical, you always knew my father loved you.  He expressed his feelings with a freedom that I embrace, knowing it’s not always the best approach to every situation.  (The diamond, I think, is the love between my parents, for 63 years, something they forged together.)

Because we often disagreed about politics, I sometimes felt that my dad did not care about community, about poverty and all the moral social dilemmas that galvanize me and some parts of our family.    But he actually cared very deeply about the communities of faith, the communities of brotherhood, and the community of kin and friends who he met or who we brought home to Brian Street and Newbury Drive and Appleton Way.   People were welcome, food was served, questions were asked, and laughs were had.  But my dad’s idea of service – to serve the church, to serve as a Mason, to serve as a parent, to serve as a mentor – was a calling I didn’t understand when I was younger and felt that to change the world you banged up against powers that be.    

He was, unfairly I think, compared to Archie Bunker at some points.   But even though he grew up in a landscape where prejudice was rampant and ordinary, he saw his daughters and granddaughters as more capable than many men, and he treated everyone equally regardless of race, religion, or sexual preference  ---  as long as they weren’t, as he put it,  “idiots.” 

My dad always said he wasn’t good with words, (especially when he wanted help on his college papers, written when he was in his 50s) but the words he used were sincere and from the heart.   His handwritten letters and emails and the story he wrote about his life – are full of the profound and the mundane – details about making brisket or encouragement about our work and family lives ---  but they are mostly full of people.   Whether he was Artie or Arthur or Daddy, Mr. Julier, or Unk, he was interested in what you were doing, what you knew, what you were good at, and what worried you.  

One thing my father loved was the satisfaction of doing things and whenever possible, doing them well.  Of making good food or a well made object.  Of using the right equipment, whether for cutting down trees or fishing.  He worked for decades in quality control – making sure other people made things well so that planes could fly, medical and vision machines would work, and rockets landed on the moon.   He complained, but he always fixed things for us, for my mother, for others who needed them.  In the days before superglue, I thought he was magical, mixing the grey putty of epoxy on a piece of wax paper and trying to repair the cracks we’d created.  Friends coveted the applesauce he canned, wanted benches that he’d made, and always appreciated his ability to engineer solutions.  Recently at our college reunion, 30 years later,  Zack found, still standing, a wall in my old dormitory suite that my father and my brother in law built so that we had some privacy.

If you spent the day with my father, you did things with him, sometimes reluctantly and sometimes enthusiastically --- working in the yard, building a replica of a granite quarry float for the bicentennial parade, cooking at a block party or church supper, transporting sausage and peppers, sauerbraten, turkey, whatever meat you can imagine, across the US by car, by plane, to our homes for holidays, Building wooden toys for our children, benches for our gardens, growing vegetables and putting up horse fencing, falling off ladders, making us stand there and hold tools for what seemed like hours, Playing scrabble with my mother.  Savoring music, seeing how much shrimp could be consumed at an all-you-can eat buffet;  One of the things he loved to do most of all was watching us all doing what we were good at ---  play music, run fast and jump high, earn degrees,  flip upside down, recite Hebrew, sing, dance, perform, and generally make public fools of ourselves in a variety of ways  -- and he was always proud.  Really proud.   It pained him to miss anything we did, no matter how big or how small.

I loved that he was not above making mistakes and as he got older, more willing to admit that he’d made them.  He always wished for us to have just the right amount of difficulty with life, so that we would learn from it, understand it, and recognize the positive, wanting us to be good people even when it was difficult or unclear how to do that – and indeed, Daddy, we obliged and have made many mistakes, and maybe what we have learned from you is forgiveness, because here we all are and there is no doubt that you loved us, for all our flaws.    After all, what else would we talk about when you called at 6 am already at work at Kollsman, waking us to ask, “what’s new?”   We could complain for a bit, but we had to be prepared for his solutions, always emphasizing that you had to work hard at whatever it was and you certainly needed to stop squandering money on stupid things. 

Zack, my partner in crime for 34 years, said that my father believed the measure of a person was based on what he did, not what he said.  And by that measure, he was the best of fathers, the most wonderful husband, and a loyal friend.  He demanded integrity while always providing unwavering support.

 When my father was evaluated for the heart valve replacement, we joked about the fact that the doctors said his heart was too big.   Everyone who met you knew you had a big heart, Daddy.   Once, he and my mother and I went to see a production of Our Town at the Peterborough Players. It was a beautiful production on a summer night in the exact town Thornton Wilder was writing about.  My favorite line is at the end, when young Emily looks back at the living and asks, "Does anyone ever realize life while they live it...every, every minute?"  and the stage manager answers:  "No. Saints and poets maybe...they do some.”

My dad would not have considered himself a saint or a poet, but he realized life while he lived it and always made sure to share it with those around him.