Eulogy for Father :: Eulogies Eulogy

Eulogy for FatherFor the first time in my life, Ill solemnize Fathers Day this year without my dad. The objet dart who had the intimately influence on the man I became headinged away on April 14. Jack was 79.It has been said that the loss of a parent is one of lifes most traumatic events. I now get laid the devastating truth of that statement. Ive been told that, in time, the hurt will fade, only to be replaced by positive memories that soothe the soul. Already, I can feel that happening. perchance its because my father and I had a simple and loving relationship. He was a remarkably good man, like many of the inspiring role models and mentors who oft appear in Fast Companys pages. Like them, he was a someone of devotion and integrity, a man who understood a hard days work. Yet, distant most of them, he never had the advantage of a college education. He worked picturesque much his entire life in two places a sully mansion house and a post-office sorting facility.His core a ccomplishment was family. And as his only child, I was the lucky beneficiary. My father poured vast amounts of love and energy into me during my most formative years. That is why I measure his life in the storage warehouse of photographs and movies he created for me. It is why I measure it in the size of his hands. Because what I remember most about my father are those sandpaper-rough hands, made elusive from factory work. From my earliest days, he took my hand in his and we discovered the valet de chambre together.With his hand in mine, we walked through New Yorks Times Square. We went to Tads Steakhouse, where you could get a T-bone, a baked potato, a hunk of garlic bread, and a tossed salad for $2.79. We went to my grandmothers house on Saturday afternoons for endless games of gin rummy, Parcheesi, and Chinese checkers. We went for long hikes on sunlight afternoons, through the nearby woods. We hitchhiked together. We played music together -- he on a keyboard, me on a drum ki t. We strolled the railroad tracks together in Paterson, New Jersey, laying pennies on the rails and waiting for the train to pass so we could use the flattened coins for guitar picks.We look fored together, in rowboats, off riverbanks and bridges, in rivers and lakes, with worms and fish eggs, and lures and flies.