The funeral director asked if I’d like to deliver a eulogy for my Dad.
I could speak at one of three places: 1. The Church service, 2. The Reception, or 3. The Grave.
“Absolutely!” I said. “I’d certainly want some storytelling
at my own going-away party, when it’s
time. Let me talk with my sister and brother and get back to you about when and
where, OK?”
~
At my mother’s funeral eight years prior, my sister had
asked me to read a Bible verse during the Church Service. Me, the Wiccan,
Shamanic Practitioner, Recovering Catholic… Me, who had already thought about, written,
and published several of my mother’s stories… Especially upon her death, I
wanted to tell her tales, laud her life, and praise her publicly. Reading
someone else’s words was a letdown. Even if they were God’s.
The only recognized storyteller my family trusted was a
priest. Also lapsed Catholics, they nonetheless thought the Church held the
only legitimate ceremonial structure to apply to major life events. They clung
to their beliefs as tenaciously as an abalone on a storm-tossed
boulder.
I caved. Delivering the first line with successful audience
eye contact, I actually felt pleased with myself for a nanosecond. This is like a book reading, I mused
dreamily, basking in the stained glass spotlight.
Then I looked down.
I’d lost my place.
An awful silence ensued, as my stomach knotted as tightly as
my mother’s crochet hook on one of her ubiquitous afghan squares. My eyes
scanned the page wildly, reeling at the stream of eight-point type on onionskin.
I remembered to breathe. The sanctioned words appeared. And
I continued reading… Someone else’s words.
~
A priest can pronounce judgments, hurl insults, and evoke
ideas...all of which my family drank in like a draught from the Grail itself. Every Sunday red-nosed Father Lamontange
worked himself into a frenzy during his sermon. He showered his flock with
righteous vitriol and venom about the daily excesses of his parishioners in the
face of Jesus’ suffering: “There are THOSE…yes, even among you RIGHT HERE (this
was punctuated by his index finger stabbing the air) …who eat and drink SO
MUCH…you have to take a seltzah to
get to sleep at night!” Devotees in the front pews were duly baptized with his spit
during the harangue…the price for their penitent proximity.
~
The media’s influence on my family’s life was on par with
that of our priest, and its effects were similar to those of giving a vampire
permission to enter your home...your tender, upturned throat and mind were made
available to their every whim…noble or nefarious. Seductive and able to erase
all vestiges of autonomy with a glamour, media hooked my family like a tweaker’s
hypodermic.
Carefully crafted copywriting was delivered by two revered members
of our household. These sentinels rose with us and remained turned on all day
(unlike us), even when no one was in the room. The radio or television was given
credence over my family’s own ideas and thoughts. Such good modern consumers,
so unquestioning in the beliefs that were delivered and implanted through
modern appliances, my family was ruled by others’ opinions.
My mother would perk up, hearing one of her “experts” on the
radio, and we were shushed—our own questions or curiosity deemed insignificant.
~
In my family I am the Distrusted Storyteller.
Yarn spinning and tale telling never occurred in my clan.
Mute holiday exchanges involved cards…and never phone calls. A Hallmark
sentiment was deemed superior to any handwritten or spoken word. And while I
marveled as familial troubles always smoothed themselves out through skilful
dialog on the Brady Bunch—in a nice, tidy half hour, complete with commercial breaks—our
home was the cold war palace, the seething stewpot of unvocalized resentments,
the unexamined umbilicus of the undead…keeping us toxic and tethered to
mediocrity.
~
I actually wrote a eulogy for my Dad…in a seaside restaurant
of my hometown. I agonized for hours over just the right words, the best
representation of my father, to deliver to his loved ones on his special day. I
decided to extol his virtues, and created six bullet points to expand
on…humility, integrity, altruism, service, non-violence, and creative thinking.
The story gained momentum.
He’d always placed our family’s well-being over his own
interests. His was the humble hero’s journey. He accepted the role of the
low-key, yet steadfast rock of support to his family. Of course there were challenges
throughout the years to which another man might have reacted to differently,
but I admired the non-violent path he chose and it has influenced my life
greatly.
As an Engineer in a family tool and die shop, he delighted
in grappling with creative challenges, ranging from single-handedly building a
second story to our house, to puzzling over and then creating an elegant
solution for hanging a quilt I’d made.
He lived his life with deep commitment to his role as a
provider, and with respect for his roots and for the Earth. His careful tending
of hearth, home, and land created many small miracles. Out of a garden whose
soil seemed to grow an inexhaustible supply of rocks each year, he coaxed the
largest, most luscious tomatoes I’ve ever tasted. Every summer evening, after
working all day, he’d painstakingly water and weed until nightfall.
While never coddling, he provided comfort and lightheartedness—singing
to me as a child many times. Later, his political views–which opposed those of mine and my sister’s—would provide
for some lively debate in our house.
Even later, he cared for my mother, under the difficult
circumstances accompanying her five year descent under Alzheimer’s. As my
mother’s life approached its conclusion, his devotion to her was absolute, even
at the expense of his own health.
~
In the end, my brother convinced me that my Dad wouldn’t
have wanted a big fuss made of him at his funeral. Again I caved to family
pressure. I convinced myself what I’d written sounded trite and ridiculous. The unsung hero whose life I wanted to honor
and respect with my own words was sent off on his journey by a priest, uttering
God’s words. A priest who smelled like a homeless man. Who cracked jokes about
the unused rosary that the mortician had wrapped around my father’s hands.
Hands who I’d never seen touch prayer beads. But hands that were nonetheless
ministered to by this minister as a result of this politically ingratiating
gesture on the part of the mortician, done in order to squeeze my Dad’s last-minute
funeral into the pastor’s busy schedule. Making him appear devout.
And yet, even as the smelly priest droned on at the funeral
home, and showered my father’s body with holy water, I felt my father and
mother up above me in balcony seats—beautiful and young again—laughing hysterically
at the absurdity of it all. Throwing a shower of popcorn back down on the
priest. And I realized it was all alright.
Distrusted or not, the story lives. As does its teller.
