Here is the eulogy I gave at the Celebration of Life on October 17th:
I’d like to share with you how I observed my Dad over these past 50 years. Don’t worry, I won’t go year, by year. But, HE was always observing, and I like to think that I learned from the best.
There are SO many things I will miss. His whistling around the house. Him asking “How’s Squeaky?” (his nickname for our dog). Seeing him working at his desk with his baseball hat perched ON TOP of his head, not actually ON it, tipped down low because the sun was beaming into his eyes. Watching him tap his foot to 50’s music. Him saying “It’s 10 degrees cooler in Gloucester! The ocean is natural air conditioning!” or asking me if I wanted to bring the PVC pipe with me to walk the dog, like he did, to fend off any coyotes; watching TV and flossing together - (yes we are a weird family like that)
Dad was the most thoughtful person I know. What I really love is that he was great about SHOWING he was thinking about you. Like, when Adrienne and I were very young, he worked at Hershey Foods and would often come home with Hershey Kisses for us.
I’ll never forget when he started coming home from work with record albums he bought JUST for me and Adrienne; I think we were ‘tweens. You see, Dad’s turntable and record collection were sacred to him. Adrienne and I got many lessons on how to hold the records just right so as to not get any fingerprints on them, and how to place the needle on the vinyl, ever so gently. It was a rite of passage to give us our own records to start our own collection. Without us asking, he researched what was “cool” and showed up with albums from Men At Work or Bruce Springsteen - not albums he wanted, but ones he thought we would like.
Christmas Eve always meant Dad handing out the personalized gifts he’d selected for me, my sister, my mom and my Grandma from Handworks, his favorite artisan gallery. Later, he would travel into the Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge to hand-select books for each of us that were always spot-on.
I swear, just about every time I arrived at my parents’ house, he was wearing a shirt I had given him. The one from the Montana diner with 50 different pies, or from the surf shop in Australia, or the “I (heart) Pad Thai” sweatshirt I had made for him. I asked him about this just a month ago and said, “Dad, do you always wear a shirt I gave you when you know I’m coming over?” He said “No,” but I honestly think his thoughtfulness had become part of his subconscious, his way of being in the world.
For his 83rd birthday, I gave him a small fill-in-the-blank book called “Dad, In His Own Words” and we just discovered that he had started to write in it. One of the questions was: What do you miss most about being a kid? And he wrote “Being Free to play. I liked being playful.” I can tell you that Adrienne and I, and Kai, Kole and Charlie, don’t think he ever lost that playfulness. As kids in Harvard, I remember BEGGING him to wrestle with us after dinner, and giggling with anticipation when I knew he was trying to tickle me under the chin, which was his signature move. Later, at family gatherings in Gloucester, he and the grandkids would disappear for their wrestling match, and usually the kids would emerge first, red-faced and sweaty, all disheveled, with victorious ear-to-ear grins. Eventually Dad would appear, hair mussed up just a tiny bit.
He also kept on playing the many different sports he loved. Skiing, basketball, tennis, racquetball, kung fu, tai chi, windsurfing, sailing, kayaking, golf… to name just a few. [HAHA] Our backyard in Harvard had: one (regulation height) volleyball net, one (regulation height) badminton net, one (regulation distance) horseshoe pit, one (regulation height) basketball hoop (that was WAY too high for his daughters) and one on-demand croquet course that was always laid out at, you guessed it, regulation distance. He also coached our youth sports teams, organized town tennis tournaments and an annual softball game/cookout, and, as often as possible, was the #1 fan on the sidelines of his grandkids’ various games.
Dad just loved learning. And, when he decided to learn about something, he learned ALL ABOUT IT. In that way, he was like the bulldogs he loved so much (Jinx, Oliver, and Winnie) - relentless in his pursuit, not of bones or shoes, but of knowledge. He read something every single day – there were many novels, but far more nonfiction than fiction. He is someone who actually read ALL the newspapers and magazines he subscribed to like: The Boston Globe, Foreign Affairs, The Week, and his beloved Consumer Reports. I bet many of us in this room received articles he’d cut out, maybe highlighted with the things he thought we would find interesting. I don’t know about you, but those clippings were ALWAYS something I found interesting. He nailed it.
He also learned from all of us. From his TEC clients, his daughters’ friends, his grandkids, his neighbors, and his many, many friends, he listened and learned. He asked questions that drew things out. He somehow heard me say things I couldn’t say, or didn’t even know I was saying. He took his time, and was deliberate with his words.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how my Dad helped so many people fix situations and figure things out over the years. Which is really VERY ironic because he was not good at fixing actual things; he was NOT handy AT ALL. Although he did build a house once! A dollhouse, for me and Adrienne, but I tend to suspect his friend may have been the general contractor on that job. Pretty much the handiest thing he ever did was pull his miniature swiss army knife from his pocket every Christmas, extract the tiny scissors, and (eventually) cut whatever plastic strip was preventing a grandkid from getting into a present.
My Dad taught us all how to fix things ourselves. He empowered and guided his children, friends and clients with knowledge and wisdom. He provided us the tools we needed to be better humans in the world rather than telling us HOW to fix something or WHAT to do. Well…. except maybe when it came to sports… I received a few unsolicited tennis and golf swing lessons.
Aside from that, he really never told me what I should do. Even as a teenager when I would sneakily approach him to get permission to do something Mom had already said “no” to, his answer was always “What did your mother say?” - I would grunt and stomp away, and I figured out for myself what I should do.
I keep wanting to be able to FIX the last year of his life, especially the last ten days - make him more comfortable, make him less thirsty. But, ultimately he fixed what he needed to fix for himself. He figured it out on his own. I believe that.
From now on, I may just spell the word “guide” by replacing the “i” with a “y” because this IS my Dad: A loving and wise Guyde who will continue to coach us and support us for as long as we want.
Lastly, I want to say that I am incredibly grateful for my Mom. My parents loved each other so very deeply, and for 54 years! which is just truly amazing. She says my Dad made her a better person, and he said the exact same about her. They set a crazy high bar for what a marriage can be (sorry, Tim!) and it’s important to know that what they created together is still here. It’s not gone.
Thank you for being here to celebrate the best Dad ever, and for letting me share all of this with you today. And for quietly listening, like Dad would have, and probably is.
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