I had the privilege of delivering a eulogy at my father's funeral last week. I had an impulse to wear one of his hats – a brown fedora. I don't know. I thought it would be a talisman or something. He always looked so dapper, and he was one of those people who can wear a hat and look good in it. I asked my step-mother if I could borrow one of Dad's hats for the funeral. She fetched his signature fedora from the front hall closet, I tried it on, and it was too small and slid up my head and looked ridiculous, so I thanked her, but no, it wouldn't work, I told her.
Then I decided to email my friend Jimmy. A couple of years ago I was at his house for dinner, and when I left, it was raining hard. He insisted on giving me a hat to wear since I didn't have one of my own or an umbrella. I got kind of lazy about returning the hat -- when I wore it, people would stop me on the street and say, "That's a great hat." After about a year, I brought it back to him. In some kind of mysterious, manipulative move, I left the house with not only the original hat, which was brown, but also one of Jimmy's black hats. The guilt eventually got to me. I found a hat store in Georgetown and I got the hat cleaned and blocked, and I returned it to Jimmy. My conscience was clear, plus I had a pretty cool, black hat.
But I hadn't brought it with me when I headed up to New York for my father's funeral. Jimmy was coming up a few days later. I emailed him and asked him to lend me a hat. "Black or brown?" he asked. "Either," I replied.
The day before the funeral I realized that a brown hat was what I associated with my father, not a black one. I texted Jimmy that morning, "If you're still at home, would you bring a brown hat? DON'T WORRY IF YOU'VE ALREADY LEFT." "Okay," he texted back.
That evening Jimmy walked into the funeral home with a big hatbox. He was grinning, and told me to make sure not to forget the medication he's also brought with him that he picked up from my pharmacist. During the course of the evening, my former husband (Jimmy's his best friend) told me that Jimmy was planning to give me the hat, but that it was supposed to be a surprise. I was touched, but I also felt slightly dirty, like I'd wheedled something out of someone.
The next day, I wore the beautiful, brown hat to the funeral and delivered my eulogy. Everyone loved the hat. It was perfect. It evoked the spirit of Dad. Later at the reception, Jimmy's wife, Lisa, said something to me about Jimmy having bought the hat for me. I was flabbergasted. This went beyond wheedling. This was like larceny.
Jimmy laughed and said, "I asked Lisa for her advice about whether to bring a black or brown hat, and she told me black. So I'm wearing this black hat up on the train, feeling like a damn funeral director or something, and then I get your text. So I get to my appointment and I ask where there's a hat store, and they say, 'You've got to go to Worth and Worth.' So I go there, and the guy shows me this hat and asks me if I want him to steam it. And I tell him it's not for me. 'You're buying a hat for someone else? Well, what's his size?' I answer, 'Well, I think she's about the same size as me.' So we find something that we think will work. I didn't want you to know I'd bought it because I didn't want you to feel guilty during the entire funeral."
So, that's the story of the hat. And now I have a hat.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Eulogy for my Father
ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S CHURCH, NEW YORK CITY, AUGUST 20, 2010
There is something powerful about looking out at this audience. Something holy. Here are people from the two different universes that Dad inhabited and that meant so much to him: The religious world and the world of advertising. Those worlds clashed, yet he was shaped by both worlds, and both worlds were mightily affected by him. I really think that often what people loved about him was the part of him that represented that other world. I imagine that people at Bethany Chapel loved him because he was so cool and sophisticated; with his long hair and his Peter, Paul and Mary records, and I also imagine that people at Young and Rubicam loved him because he was refreshing and had the courage of his convictions, could quote the Bible, and liked to sing hymns. He operated in these two different worlds with incredible ease and grace --- and he always created a parade of people who loved him and wanted to be with him. And, at the head of that parade, of course is the love of his life, Bernadette.
Dad in so many ways embodied contradictions. He was sophisticated and refined, but he also told gross jokes. He was tolerant and laid back, but he could be a perfectionist who went around straightening all the pictures hanging on one's wall. He was a man with whom you could feel instant intimacy, and yet there often seemed to be a part of him that was held back, mysterious, reserved, and unknowable.
In the last few days some people have written or called and said that Dad was their hero. He was easy to put on a pedestal, easy to idolize. The tasteful thing to say would be that he didn't like that, but I suspect he loved being adored. Even so, I think he would much rather that I talked about his heroes. They were often artists like Ray Charles, Graham Greene, Alan Paton. People who spoke hard truths and saw the messiness of being human. Dad was deeply human and deeply in love with humanity and human-ness. He had great compassion for people who got themselves into messes.
But the two heroes I think Dad would most want me to talk about are lesser known: Henry Hart, who sadly died a few years ago, and Sam Fink, who I hope was able to make it here today. Dad had known Henry Hart since the late 50's when Henry joined the youth group that Mom and Dad welcomed into their home every Sunday. Henry suffered from arthritis almost all his life. Dad often talked about how Henry endured the pain silently and cheerfully and gratefully. Sam Fink exemplifies for Dad authenticity, creative energy, and delightedness. What Dad loved in both of these men was kindness and humility. I think he saw kindness and humility as the same thing. All I know – and this is really the main thing he taught us – is that you could have all the money, power, talent, good looks in the world, but if you couldn't be courteous to a cab driver or a waiter or a kid, you were – in Dad's eyes -- …. a loser.
As I said, Dad had compassion for people who screwed up. One of my most enduring memories involves Dad, Georgie, and a couple of neighborhood friends, Pauly Richards and Mike Kulsha, I think. He took us to a football game, and Pauly and Mike tried to sneak in without paying admission. Dad, who was scrupulous about money, saw this and called them back to him. But he didn’t scold them. Without comment, he simply paid for them and then sent them on their way to enjoy the game. I was outraged. Daddy PAID for them? You mean these guys weren't going to get in trouble? I had been getting all excited about the prospect of their getting yelled at.
But this is one of the most beautiful things about my father. He took no pleasure in seeing people screw up or in catching them doing something wrong. He really enjoyed seeing people be their best selves, and what he wanted to do was enable them to be their best selves.
When my rage subsided after the Pauly and Mike incident, a little voice inside me said, "I want to be like that. I want to be the guy who pays for somebody's admission rather than the guy who yells at the person who snuck in."
I'm going to leave you with an image of my father that goes beyond words and thoughts. When I asked my sister what she might want communicated in this eulogy, she mentioned the same memory I'd been thinking of. When we were little we would run down to the end of our block at about six o'clock to meet Dad coming home from the train station and a day at work. Mom wouldn't allow us to go beyond the intersection of Maple Avenue and North Street until Dad came into our view, and then we could go further down Maple Avenue to join him. Joy remembers his stride being so long that she couldn't keep up with him. I remember running to him, hugging him and breathing in that unique smell of his suit and the smoke from the smoking car that clung to it. Over the years that scent has come back to me as vividly as anything I have ever smelled, and it evokes for me the pure delight of a child who knows that she is cherished. Of all his talents he was best at doing that. Jack Sidebotham knew how to cherish people.
There is something powerful about looking out at this audience. Something holy. Here are people from the two different universes that Dad inhabited and that meant so much to him: The religious world and the world of advertising. Those worlds clashed, yet he was shaped by both worlds, and both worlds were mightily affected by him. I really think that often what people loved about him was the part of him that represented that other world. I imagine that people at Bethany Chapel loved him because he was so cool and sophisticated; with his long hair and his Peter, Paul and Mary records, and I also imagine that people at Young and Rubicam loved him because he was refreshing and had the courage of his convictions, could quote the Bible, and liked to sing hymns. He operated in these two different worlds with incredible ease and grace --- and he always created a parade of people who loved him and wanted to be with him. And, at the head of that parade, of course is the love of his life, Bernadette.
Dad in so many ways embodied contradictions. He was sophisticated and refined, but he also told gross jokes. He was tolerant and laid back, but he could be a perfectionist who went around straightening all the pictures hanging on one's wall. He was a man with whom you could feel instant intimacy, and yet there often seemed to be a part of him that was held back, mysterious, reserved, and unknowable.
In the last few days some people have written or called and said that Dad was their hero. He was easy to put on a pedestal, easy to idolize. The tasteful thing to say would be that he didn't like that, but I suspect he loved being adored. Even so, I think he would much rather that I talked about his heroes. They were often artists like Ray Charles, Graham Greene, Alan Paton. People who spoke hard truths and saw the messiness of being human. Dad was deeply human and deeply in love with humanity and human-ness. He had great compassion for people who got themselves into messes.
But the two heroes I think Dad would most want me to talk about are lesser known: Henry Hart, who sadly died a few years ago, and Sam Fink, who I hope was able to make it here today. Dad had known Henry Hart since the late 50's when Henry joined the youth group that Mom and Dad welcomed into their home every Sunday. Henry suffered from arthritis almost all his life. Dad often talked about how Henry endured the pain silently and cheerfully and gratefully. Sam Fink exemplifies for Dad authenticity, creative energy, and delightedness. What Dad loved in both of these men was kindness and humility. I think he saw kindness and humility as the same thing. All I know – and this is really the main thing he taught us – is that you could have all the money, power, talent, good looks in the world, but if you couldn't be courteous to a cab driver or a waiter or a kid, you were – in Dad's eyes -- …. a loser.
As I said, Dad had compassion for people who screwed up. One of my most enduring memories involves Dad, Georgie, and a couple of neighborhood friends, Pauly Richards and Mike Kulsha, I think. He took us to a football game, and Pauly and Mike tried to sneak in without paying admission. Dad, who was scrupulous about money, saw this and called them back to him. But he didn’t scold them. Without comment, he simply paid for them and then sent them on their way to enjoy the game. I was outraged. Daddy PAID for them? You mean these guys weren't going to get in trouble? I had been getting all excited about the prospect of their getting yelled at.
But this is one of the most beautiful things about my father. He took no pleasure in seeing people screw up or in catching them doing something wrong. He really enjoyed seeing people be their best selves, and what he wanted to do was enable them to be their best selves.
When my rage subsided after the Pauly and Mike incident, a little voice inside me said, "I want to be like that. I want to be the guy who pays for somebody's admission rather than the guy who yells at the person who snuck in."
I'm going to leave you with an image of my father that goes beyond words and thoughts. When I asked my sister what she might want communicated in this eulogy, she mentioned the same memory I'd been thinking of. When we were little we would run down to the end of our block at about six o'clock to meet Dad coming home from the train station and a day at work. Mom wouldn't allow us to go beyond the intersection of Maple Avenue and North Street until Dad came into our view, and then we could go further down Maple Avenue to join him. Joy remembers his stride being so long that she couldn't keep up with him. I remember running to him, hugging him and breathing in that unique smell of his suit and the smoke from the smoking car that clung to it. Over the years that scent has come back to me as vividly as anything I have ever smelled, and it evokes for me the pure delight of a child who knows that she is cherished. Of all his talents he was best at doing that. Jack Sidebotham knew how to cherish people.
Monday, April 26, 2010
102 Maple Avenue
This is the address of the house I grew up in -- came home from the hospital to and lived in till I went away to college. I connected with someone on Facebook today who told me he sometimes walks by my "adorable house." There must have been something healthy in my dysfunctional family because that house had magic. Maybe it had nothing to do with us. Maybe the house had a soul of its own, and we were just the beneficiaries. We inhabited it like we inhabit the earth, not as owners, but as squatters.
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