Daddy

My dad died two weeks ago today. Among so many other life issue, my father helped to teach me about love; respect, including respect of animals, and understanding loss. This is the eulogy I wrote for him that was read by my cousin, Declan, at the luncheon following my dad's funeral. Declan lost his dad, my beloved cousin, Tommy, a few short years ago. I don't know how he was able to read this for me and I will always be grateful.

My father, I have been told, had to hold me on his shoulder when I was a baby so that I could sleep. Decades later, I miss that shoulder. That shoulder and his other arm patting my back, later turned to his patting my head and saying one word. Just one. To let me know that whatever was upsetting me would be okay. And it always was okay because he was always there and that is what always mattered to me.

My father is a devout man and, I am certain that his Mother Mary and His Father, Joseph, and his true beloved, Jesus, met him with a love beyond understanding and a peace he long craved.

Rumi wrote thousands of years ago: “Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.” I know that I lost my father here, but I also know that he lives within me and will be here, patting my head, loving me, and protecting me until my time comes to see him again with all of our loved ones in a place of unimaginable peace.

Daddy lived the life he chose. It took me years to understand this about him. He suffered losses, many losses, in his life. Yet, he remained graceful and accepting, understanding that the God Who knows all things walked beside him when he was no longer able to walk on his own. When my father could no longer talk—when that brilliant, extraordinary, deft mind was held captive by his aphasia—I would like to think that he spoke to the God of love, Who was listening to his beautiful words, his complex thoughts. “In silence there is eloquence,” Rumi also wrote. My father was eloquent every moment of his life, whether in contemplation or in a forced silence.

I could talk about how my father taught me Spanish, to ride a bike, to dance the Charleston, to cook, but he was so much more than that. He was a brilliant man who is now shining a brilliant light to guide our way one day to him.

He taught me about love. It took a long time for me to get this right, but I eventually did, marrying my love who is so like my father I can feel him in every breath and with every heartbeat.

My father was a gift for which I was grateful every day. We all worried every day that we would lose him and when I told him that not too long ago—that I cried and worried every single day since he became ill—he was surprised. He patted my head and said, “No. No. No.”

He wanted to explain something about three years ago to both Joel and me. Our lives had been challenging then and he, in his way knew this. Separately, when we were on one of our calls, he was explaining his feelings and I understood. But, “No,” he said, “More.” He said, “I love you. I LOVE YOU,” “I LOVE YOU!!!!!” He asked to speak to Joel and said the same words. That was our closure. That was our understanding. That was our release from what the three of us understood and had long left unspoken.”

That was my father. He taught me about love, confronting that which is sacred, apologizing, speaking the truth. He apologized to me more than once and taught me, in his simple words about forgiveness.

My heart is broken. This break will not heal in my lifetime. But, as my cousin, my father’s nephew, Tommy, told me on his deathbed, while he was leaving us with a big piece of my heart, he was leaving me with a big piece of his heart. I’ve thought of that every day since Tommy’s death and have found comfort in his parting words to me.

I have also found comfort in what my father always knew and what Rumi wrote all those thousands of years ago, “The heart is the secret inside the secret.” That secret was the father that our universal Father blessed us with and who He keeps safe until Daddy is returned to us one day, in God’s time.