I delivered this eulogy for my dad on May 29, 2021, two months after he died from cancer. I wrote it in the form of a letter to my daughters, who were 11 and 8 at the time.
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Dear Rory and Wren,
First, I want to thank you for being so patient over the past few weeks — for putting up with the long car ride, and for wearing dresses and uncomfortable shoes, and for being polite to all of these people who you barely know. We’ve had to say goodbye to a couple cats and a horse over the years, but this is the first time you’ve lost someone who loved you.
This is what we do when someone dies.
We get in the car, and we put on dresses and jackets and uncomfortable shoes. And we hug the people who shared our love for the person we’ve lost. These rituals are important. They really are. After grandpa died, a friend sent me a card that said, “When a parent dies, the world is diminished.” I love the simple wisdom of that. “Diminished” means to be made smaller, or somehow less than it used to be. That’s why we’re here this weekend. Everyone gathered around you right now is trying to make sense of this new world we’re all living in, a world that has become diminished because grandpa is no longer in it.
The silver lining, I guess, is that we had an excuse to bring you to Carlyle, the town where grandma grew up and where Aunt Laura and I spent so many happy weeks during summer and Christmas vacations when we were your age. If you thought yesterday was bad, the trip from Maryland took 14 hours. We’d usually leave in the evening and drive through the night. Laura and I would stretch out in sleeping bags in the back of the station wagon. No car seats. No seat belts. Just pillows and bags of candy. It was like a traveling sleepover.
Usually when I woke up during those long drives, grandpa would be listening to jazz at really low volumes, trying to keep himself awake without disturbing us. I have to remind myself that grandpa was 10 years younger then than I am now — just one more husband and father doing his best and trying to figure it all out. When I remind myself of how young grandpa was, it actually changes my memories of him slightly. I’m so glad you were both able to spend time with him after he and grandma moved to Knoxville. But I’m sure the last few weeks with him, after he got so sick, were a little scary. I’d love to replace those memories with other images of grandpa.
He grew up about 200 miles west of here, in a tiny town called Dixon. I haven’t been there for 25 years but I can still picture it clearly. He, Aunt Alice, and their older sister, Glennis, lived on the main street that runs through town. When Laura and I were little, we’d all walk a couple blocks from the house to a little dime store and get candy, hamburgers, and milkshakes. It looked like it was from another era, even then — the kind of place you might see in those old black-and-white movies I always watch.
Dixon made a deep impression on grandpa. I don’t know if this will make sense, but I think his imagination was fixed to that place. He never quite escaped it in some ways. His dad — Benny, my grandpa — ran the Western Auto, which was like a much smaller version of Home Depot. He liked to hunt and tinker with tractors and, in his later years, play bluegrass music and make instruments like the violin we have at our house. I don’t remember Grandpa’s mom, Bertha. She also died from cancer, when I was younger than you are now, Wren. I’ve heard that Bertha wished she’d been born a gypsy and could have traveled and seen more of the world. Instead, she spent nearly all of her life in the Ozark mountains of Missouri.
I often wonder what Benny and Bertha made of Grandpa, who was, by his own description, a textbook, straight-outta-central-casting geek. When he was your age, Grandpa became obsessed with electronic equipment, music with big chords, and, most of all, trains. The Frisco railway line ran through Dixon, close enough that Grandpa could feel the rumble from his bedroom. Seventy years later, as you know, he still loved electronic equipment (Facebook replaced his old HAM radios), he still loved music with big chords, and he still loved trains.
I think you’ve seen pictures of grandpa as a kid. He looks so tiny in them, and cute, with thick glasses and a crooked smile. It couldn’t have been easy for him, growing up a small, awkward kid in a mountain town in the 1940s and ‘50s. He was picked on a lot — so much so that at least once Benny had to chase bullies away from the house. A couple years ago, around their 50th wedding anniversary, I asked grandma and grandpa to answer a couple questions about their lives, and grandpa’s memories of those days were so vivid. He told me dozens of stories — about boy scouts and mowing lawns and science fairs and doing chores with Alice on Saturday mornings in exchange for 25 cents from Bertha, which was enough for a movie ticket, popcorn, and a Coke.
Grandpa prided himself on being a good worker. (I’d like to think that’s something I inherited from him.) He went from mowing lawns, to working at the Western Auto, to finishing college and moving to St. Louis, where he got his first professional job. That’s also where he met Grandma, who was a young nursing student at the time — only seven or eight years older than you are now, Rory. Imagine that!
I keep mentioning ages because that’s another important ritual of grieving: death reminds us not only of that old cliche, the cycle of life; it also reminds us that we’re all walking time machines, bundles of accumulated experience. I’m 49 today, eulogizing my father. And I’m 42, dropping Rory off for her first day of kindergarten. I’m 21, holding Joanna’s hand for the first time. And I’m 9, lying awake in a tent, annoyed with my dad who is snoring so loudly beside me.
When they got married, Grandma and Grandpa surprised their families by announcing they were moving to Maryland — the real start of their big adventure. They bought a house in the woods, where Laura and I were raised, and where we lived as happily as anyone could reasonably hope to live. We stayed busy with church activities and swim meets and soccer games and piano lessons. You both know how much I love music, and I’m sure one reason is because when I played piano or showed interest in some record Grandpa was listening to, I’d get his undivided attention.
It’s like the time machine has fast-forward and reverse buttons. I’m 19, playing “Take Five” with Grandpa and one of his big bands. I’m 14, standing at the top of the Eifel Tower. I’m 40, showing off my newborn daughter, Wren. I’m 15, finishing my first shift making sandwiches at Subway. If I press pause on a memory, he’s always there.
I have to admit there were many times over the years when I wished Grandpa had been — how should I put this? — a bit less nerdy? More of man’s man? He and I talked a couple months ago about how, in some ways, his diagnosis was a blessing because it gave him time to meditate on death. That bullied kid had built up a lot of defenses, and I think cancer finally broke some of them down. His ego seemed to soften. I certainly felt myself soften toward him. The last lesson I took from him while he was alive was to be grateful to have had a father who modeled a more generous kind of manliness.
Here’s the full extent of my wisdom, girls. This is all I’ve got.
I’ve gradually come to understand that those of us who are basically good and decent people? We love each other the very best we’re able. We do. The trick, though — the thing that makes this life so complicated and maddening at times, but also so miraculous — is that we can never love any one person in all the ways that he or she needs to be loved.
So, here are my three wishes for you . . .
First, I want you to never doubt for even a second how ferociously you’ve been loved since the moment you were born — by me and mama and grandma and grandpa, and by all the people sitting around you today. That particular kind of love is a tremendous gift. As you get older, you’ll meet people — you might even love people — who have been denied that gift through no fault of their own. Please show them grace and kindness. They’ve suffered a real cruelty.
Second, I hope you will learn, sooner rather than later, how to forgive the people in your life — including me! — for not being able to love you in all the particular ways you need to be loved. Life is such a messy thing. This world is teeming with souls who are doing their very best and trying so hard to figure it all out. And failing and trying again and failing and trying again. Be patient. Show us grace and kindness, too.
Finally, I want you to also love ferociously. To take risks. Don’t fear a broken heart. Surround yourself with family, friends, partners, mentors — with people who, collectively, will be able to love you in all the ways you need to be loved.
How this advice worked its way into a eulogy for Grandpa, I’m not quite sure. I suppose it’s simply because I’m so grateful for this messy, complicated, magnificent life I’ve been given, and for the part he played in it.