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TOPICS My blog e-mail me | My family & its history Dad's memorial service: David's eulogy |
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When Grandpa Lou, Dad’s father died, I guess I was 9 or 10 at the time. Mom and Dad told me that he had gone away and was never coming back. I understood exactly what they meant, but it was said in a way that I could completely handle it. Though of course it was a shock. It is remarkable to me that given how Dad felt about his father - he didn’t go to Grandpa’s funeral; wouldn’t even if he could... I think Dad was in the hospital recovering from a heart attack at the time - that he allowed me to have a relationship with my grandfather. That was a gift to me. It was such an important relationship for me. Grandpa Lou doted on me. Loved me unconditionally. And was very kind to me. He was physically, very imposing to me, but never took advantage of that. He was gentle and patient with me. It was a blow to lose him. My father (and my aunt) had terrible experiences with my grandfather, their father. How could my father or my aunt allow me to have that relationship and not prejudice me at all? Remarkable. There was of course much more to Grandpa than met the eye. My father and Mimi have written clearly about it. And there was much more to my father than met the eye. So many contradictions. In November 1995 at age 77, my father wrote to me about my Grandpa Lou and said, “In the past I’ve blamed my father for my behavior. He was an SOB to his family also. He beat my mother and his kids and I figured that that was the norm. Lately I’ve begun to think that perhaps his childhood had an impact on his behavior, and perhaps he wasn't totally responsible for his misdeeds.” That was from a series of letters to me where my father was acknowledging and apologizing for his own misdeeds. Also in the same letter he wrote, “I’m aware of being a pretty bad father and a terrible brother and a rotten husband, and perhaps most regrettable, an awful son.” In a later paragraph he wrote, “There’s been a change in me. I’m kinder, gentler, and a hell of a lot more understanding than I’ve ever been and I’m blessed by being more in love with my wife than ever. I never thought that at 77 a man could be so happy holding a woman.” He was forgetting a lot by that time, but was still very articulate in his own style, very familiar and comforting to me. He wrote, “I’m keeping up with my dramatic propensities. I’ll be reciting Casey at the Bat and a powerful piece by Howard Fast about the murders of the Nazis. That was Dad. Casey at the Bat on the one hand. And the Nazis on the other. That was the way he wrote. I would call him up and Mom would hand him the phone and he would say, “Hi Davy-o,” and I would say, “Hi Daddy-o.” So, we made peace! Not by avoiding and pretending. But by facing it all. It is a miracle that both he and I both worked at. I am so grateful that there was nothing left unsaid between us. I am deeply sad about his death, but I am not tortured and distraught. We expressed our disappointments and our appreciation for one another. I got to tell him what he gave me. Dad used to say to me growing up, “Why don’t you learn my good habits? Why do you have to learn all my bad habits?” He is part of my life today and his excitement, his wonder, his passion, his values, and his silliness have infused themselves into my teaching and my personal life. I have fun with my students while trying to help them be courageous, authentic and to individuate. I am so surprised to be so very calm since his death last Friday. A deep sense of calm...and emotional, of course. Freely crying at the most surprisingly innocuous things. You probably know exactly what I mean. We went to synagogue together once that I can remember. On the High Holy Days when I was around 14 or 15, in New Brunswick. I always felt he was fiercely proud of being Jewish, but he seemed to be very uncomfortable with religious practice. I got the impression he felt it was mindless and even stupidly coercive. In the last two years , he recited the Kaddish to me by heart, I think because it was the one of the few things he could still do by heart. In the last year he told me he talked to God. Not that he had turned to Judaism, per se. I can’t remember his exact words, but he was telling me it was helpful to him. It wasn’t heavy. It was light! Just a simple, soothing fact for him at the end of his life. I was startled by his revelation. And very glad for him, that he found peace and some equanimity in doing that. He had always seemed so tortured. Because of my struggles with my Dad and his fierce pride in being Jewish, I wanted to unlock Judaism’s secrets. I learned to find community in Judaism as I had in Alanon; to reach out and be willing to ask questions, and ask for help, drawing on others’ experience and wisdom. As a result, I’ve discovered a very down-to-earth practicality, a blueprint for living for myself, and can draw on a small portion of its wisdom. Because of my father. And because of my father’s own struggles, I’ve learned not to deal with life’s challenges alone. If he had been different, you might say I wouldn’t have had to, but I probably wouldn’t have that huge gift in my life. Thank you, Dad. It’s easy to hate a villain who’s a villain through and through. That's not what my father was. He was complex... as most of us are. That's taught me to think twice sometimes when I want to condemn someone else. I always talk about how he got his high school diploma and then went to Glassboro State full-time, at age 38, to become a teacher. He seemed to love it! It was an inspiration to me. In the piece he wrote about Van Cortlandt park I hear his familiar wonderment and wonderful love of nature! How he found peace and joy! Steviann and I were in Sedona, Arizona on Friday after I got the news. And I took a hike by myself in that wondrous place that I knew he would love, and I talked to him. He’d been there and loved it. I was glad that he was at peace. And he taught me to find wonder and peace and joy and comfort in nature, too. I remember so well, him dipping his hands into the edge of a lake to lift out a mucousy mess which turned out to be frog’s eggs. “Look, frog’s eggs!” showing me. How could he touch them?! How did he know all this? Or on the farm, he held a long snake, a king snake I think, after he had washed it off, cleaning it up from it’s stay in the chicken coops. “This is a friend,” he told me. They kill rats.” I was scared of it. But, he wasn’t. He knew. How did he know? Oh, he was reckless, too. In so many ways. Putting out the fire underneath the car on the shoulder of the New Jersey Turnpike, in a blizzard, with snow. Going out to the chicken coops during a hurricane to hammer the roof supports back to vertical, so the roof wouldn’t cave in. We went fishing together a lot. He was a tough companion. Not always patient. But he loved it. And he taught me to love it. It was fun. He was passionate! About so much. Politics. Being ethical. If I understand correctly, after going bankrupt, he and Mom tried to pay bills they didn’t have to pay to people who had extended credit to us. Like the milk man. I give to the Southern Poverty Law Center. I believe he was probably very strongly supportive of them. That’s who he was, too. Politics with Mom and Dad was not a game. It had practical repercussions on real human beings. And they both taught me that. He was very warm when he could be. Always very emotional. About us kids. About Mom. About Music. Ode to Joy, Scherezade, Paul Robeson, Oklahoma, Carousel, The Moldau. The dramatization on record of the McCarthy Hearings. And plays. Many plays that he did and didn’t do. THE CRUCIBLE. TIGER AT THE GATES, VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE, SUNDAY COSTS FIVE PEOSOS. We would sit, the three of us and watch someone like Maurice Evans doing Shakespeare on Hallmark Hall of Fame on a Sunday afternoon. I was 7 or 8 or so. I couldn’t understand very much, but I knew from my parents that it was the Holy Grail. I knew from my father...and my mother...that it was important. Valuable. The first play I remember seeing with my parents was DEATH OF A SALESMAN, in Atlantic City. It’s ironic. A play that strikes a deep chord with me. And Ricky just got to play Willy Loman. And I want to. Then I saw Fredric March in Philadelphia in GIDEON. I was surrounded by the arts. And that became my profession. I learned to love people that are imperfect by learning to love my father. I remember the good, the bad and the ugly. All of it. I deny none of it. I’ve had to work very hard to deal with the effects of the bad and the ugly. Still do. I, too, have learned to be, “kinder, gentler, and a hell of a lot more understanding then I’ve ever been.” I wish it had been different. I wish he had found more peace during his life. My father showed me what not to do as well as giving me many gifts. Every time I make a certain kind of “Dad” joke, a silly riff, invent a fantastical story to explain an ordinary event, say something that was (it’s very odd to say “was”) so typically DAD, I tell Steviann...that was my father. You have my father to thank for that. Goodbye Pop. I hope God holds you in his arms and gives you peace at last. | |