My father’s funeral was this past Monday (7/1/19) and here’s the eulogy I wrote. A number of people who attended the ceremony commented about it quite glowingly  and I’ve been asked to put it on my website/blog, as well as the Face Book page I finally broke down and established this past week. Here it is for various people to read and comment about. Incidentally, the picture at the end of this essay is a mural I painted on the side of a shed in the yard where we had the post-funeral reception. The Google image for the mural I painted appears here.

Word Count 1643

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dad’s Eulogy

When my mom’s oldest brother passed away, I wrote a eulogy that was similar to this one in that I got to thank him for all the somewhat hidden things he did for me. I never got a chance to tell my father certain things before his passing.

There are so many incidents and memories I want to thank my father for, and this eulogy could go on for the next three hours. Rather than contribute to your drowsiness, I’ll just mention a few of them;

 

Thank youfor contributing to the greatest day of my childhood. When we were growing up, the pattern was pretty much set. Mom was the disciplinarian and would have my sisters and I do various chores after school, pre- and post-dinner, etc., etc., while dad turned into the good cop. Inevitably he had to go to the family grocery store in the evenings to balance the establishment’s books. Upon his return home, he generally always brought all sorts of candy, chips, and various other junk food items which contributed to a happy, healthful, and hyper-active diet during a large percentage of our childhood.

Sure enough, my sisters and I contributed to the children’s college fund of our local dentist on numerous occasions, and I ended up with eight cavities that needed to be filled in the fall of 1969.  This facilitated us having to go to the dentist in Durango and three of us went under the knife.

Upon my return to the waiting area, mom told me that dad and two of the girls were down stairs from the J.C Pennybuilding on main street visiting an old friend/proprietor of his at a place called “Haffey’s Confectionary”.I managed to stumble my way down the stairs amidst an intense shooting pain emanating from my jaw not unlike that of a medieval torture victim. Upon walking into the store my father was conversing with the owner and told me to walk around. Suddenly I was stunned when I noticed that there were four full racks of comic books staring me in the face. Right at that point, my father whipped out a ten-dollar bill and told me to buy a few. Do any of you people realize just how many funny books a person could buy with a $10.00 bill back in 1969? I didn’t think so.  By the way, I spent the entire $10.00 on graphic reading material that day in case you’re wondering.

 

Thank youfor bringing that suitcase full of baseball caps with you to Kenya. Throughout my four and a half years attending the People’s Republic of BoulderI would always come home at Christmas and my father and I would carry out a heated political discourse. Him on the side of Bedrock Republican Values, while yours truly was another one of those Lame Brained Liberal types.

After graduating, I took the liberal thing another step forward and did a U.S. Peace Corpsstint in Kenya. In February of 1984, I managed to convince him, my mom, and my baby sister to come and visit me. I will go to my grave wondering how this phenomenon managed to occur. Yes Maynard, some miracles do happen.

When my father asked me what he should bring for me to give to the workers at my tree nursery, initially I didn’t know what it should be. Right after they arrived in country, we had dinner at the home of my fellow forestry buddy just outside of Nairobi, and that’s when I first learned about the baseball caps. A week later when we arrived at my home area of Nyeri, we took the ball caps to the offices of the Wambugu Farmer’s Training Centerwhere I worked to give them away. We opened up the suitcase and word got out soon after that. Every one of our workers dropped whatever they were doing in the nursery and sprinted to the office. We didn’t have enough ball caps to give everyone on that particular day. This was one of the best things he could’ve carried on an airplane half-way around the world and I will always be grateful because of that.

 

Thank youfor teaching me about the importance of taking responsibility for your actions.  In 1991, I made the mistake of moving to Australia and getting into a bad marriage. After only six months we got separated, and the day that happened my ex-wife closed the joint bank account out and kept all the money. This left me unable to pay for the flight back to the states, and as the proverbial saying goes, high and dry. Right at that time, I called Colorado and my father offered to send me the money to pay for my plane flight back home. Even though I was sorely tempted to take him up on the offer since among other things my mother was in a losing battle with cancer at the time, I didn’t. These were the exact words I said to him; “Thanks, but no thanks Dad. As you and mom have taught me, I should take responsibility for my actions. I dug myself into this mess, I’m going to dig myself out of it.”Fortunately, I had just landed a job at a commercial tree nursery and slowly, but surely, I saved up the money to pay for the plane ticket. As the old saying goes, “Live and learn from your mistakes.” Thank you for instilling this character trait in me, dad.

 

Thank youfor being so understanding. As I’ve tended to do at various times in my life, I’ve changed horses in the middle of the stream. When I first returned to the states from Kenya in 1985, I attended a cartoon art school in New Jersey. My last year at art school only happened because my father helped me to pay for it. Nothing like putting the parental support thing to the test once again.

After having worked in the field for a while, I made the decision to pursue my passion for writing. Amongst other things, this meant discarding the painting thing and further entrenching myself in the starving-creator lane.

At this point, I need to thank my step-mother as well for being so understanding.  In the fall of 1996, I walked into our family hotel and she was there when I told both of them that I’d discovered my passion for writing. Suddenly I was going to abandoned the artist thing and even though he’d helped me to get through art school, I was now moving in a totally different direction. I’m sure this decision on my part perplexed him to no end when he went to bed that night. Once again he ‘d been forced to accept his son’s lifelong eccentric behavior. Thank you for doing this.

 

Thank youfor passing your unique story-telling ability onto me. A large part of being a writer is the ability to tell an intriguing story. Throughout the years as my skills to do this have grown and evolved, I’ve followed in your footsteps as a storyteller. It almost seems as if you’ve passed your unique storytelling ability onto me through some sort of bizarre form of osmosis.

 

Some of you recall seeing that old MovieTone newsreel of Lou Gehrig standing on home plate at Yankee stadium announcing his retirement because he’d contracted ALS Disease and that forced him to end his career. At the very start of his speech he announced to everyone that he, “Considered himself the Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth”.  Well he might’ve been the luckiest man on earth that particular day in 1932, but I consider myself extremely lucky right now.

 

I’m very lucky every time I ski through a field of knee-deep powder snow and I keep kicking myself for not bringing a snorkel on that particular day. The snow is so deep and so Colorado dry as it keeps flying up in my face while I’m blasting down the mountain. Skiing through powder truly is one of life’s great pleasures, and I thank you Dad for instilling this obsession in me.

 

I consider myself lucky every time I hike up a ridge early in the morning during the summer monsoon season and come across a field of wildflowers so plentiful and with colors so intense they almost seem too incredible to believe. In this instance, life just doesn’t get much better, and I thank you dad for bringing me into this world to experience that.

 

My luck has hit a high mark since I’ve had the chance to live, work, and visit some of the most unbelievable places on earth. Thank you dad for letting me go every time I partake of another one of these fantastic adventures.

 

I’m very lucky since all of my family and friends keep telling me I’ve got a guardian angel sitting on my shoulders. Despite all those missteps with me landing in shit, I always seem to find a way to come up smelling like roses, I’ve gone through my entire life with that angel watching over me, and I thank you dad for putting in a good word with the man up above to send an angel down to watch over me.

 

My favorite quote is a Winston Churchill saying, “If you discover your true passion in life and can make a living from it, you’ll never have to work another day in your life.” I consider myself very lucky because I’ve discovered my passion and every time I write, it brings me one step closer to that particular goal happening. Thank you dad for giving me the freedom to discover this.

 

I will always consider myself one of the luckiest people on the face of the earth because Gerald Swanson was my father.