Happy Father’s Day!

I lost my Dad about 20 months ago.  I was his unexpected mid-life surprise so I was very lucky to have him all the years that I did.  In honor of Father’s Day, I’m sharing the eulogy that I very tearfully delivered at his services.  Thanks Dad.

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My father was like the foundation of a house – often taken for granted, but essential to all that is built upon it.  His strength withstood all sorts of challenges, his own and his family members’.  Dad was a humble person who preferred to let others take center stage.  He would not necessarily be happy that I’m choosing to speak about him today as he was always self-effacing.  Nonetheless, I’d like to share a few things, in no particular order, that I learned from Dad.

1- Women deserve respect.   Dad always admired Mom’s intelligence and they made decisions together.  Their marriage was one of equals. I have to tell you that he had a legion of admirers within my circle of female friends, all of whom marveled at the conversations we had and the respect with which he always treated me.  My mother once told me that her father’s love and respect had empowered her… and I feel exactly the same way about my Dad.

2 – Reading and learning are a life-long pursuit.  Dad read frequently to his children and grandchildren and by doing so, he encouraged a love of reading. He particularly enjoyed whimsical rhyming books, such as Dr Suess, and he read them with gusto & flair, never seeming to tire of stories that he must have read hundreds of times. Until he lost his sight, he always read the Tribune every evening and once he lost his sight, he listened to U.S. News on tape. In recent years, he indulged his passion for history, particularly the American Revolution and the founding fathers. The last book he read was about China as an economic power and he was urging me to check it out from the library so that we could discuss it together.  (Instead, I read a novel… but at least he would approve of the fact that I was reading!)

 3– Choose your words carefully.  Dad had a tremendous vocabulary and he used it in even the most casual of conversations.  He expected proper grammar from his children and it was one of the few areas where he had limited tolerance for mistakes. He described himself as a “word mechanic” and he was precise in finding exactly the right words to describe a situation or a person.  I often think of his help when writing my first resume as it was a time when he awed me with what he could do with words.

4 – Enjoy your food!   Dad really enjoyed a good meal and he was effusive about food.  Until fairly recently, he had an excellent appetite. One of the pleasures of the past couple years was carrying in food that he didn’t frequently eat… it could be a Polish or an Italian sausage, a Thai salad, Chinese… You could count on him taking a bite and saying “this is delicious!” — and attacking his meal with gusto.

5 – Recognize your good fortune.  In Dad’s world, the glass was often overflowing and it was never less than half full.  No matter what happened, he felt he was a fortunate man.  When he lost most of his sight, he was grateful for talking books helping him become better read.  When he broke his hip and started using a walker, he was grateful that he was still up and about. When he lost Mom, he was grateful for their 61 years together.  Gratitude journals have been become very in vogue in recent years… but Dad didn’t need one of those to remind him to think about all the good things that happen every day as it was a core facet of his nature to always see the best in life.

And last – Always choose love.   I was recently reading a book where a dying mother was telling her daughter that instead of thinking about what might have been, it’s wiser to choose to love the life you have and to love & forgive the people in it.  And in the end, this is probably the greatest thing that Dad taught me.  Through his example, I saw over and over that love can be unconditional, that it can be strong enough to overlook people’s flaws and instead see the best parts of their nature.

 I will always be grateful to have had Dad as my father and to have had him in my life as long as I did.  Thank you  for letting me share a few of the many things that I learned from him.

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