Eulogy - First Draft

 

The world didn't need S---- R-----. History was not awaiting his arrival. The day's media took no notice. By all accounts, his parents didn't want him. His half brother had his own troubles. He sister split as soon as she could. He wasn't popular. He had a low IQ, was a C student, overweight and uncoordinated, nearly blind, a prolific sweater, single until a dating service hooked him up, and foiled at nearly every turn. The church gave up on him. His employer forced him into an early retirement. His greatest blessing in his last years was a brain tumor, something to hasten S---- R-----'s demise from the otherwise methodical advance of Alzheimer's.

Lately, he had been drooling uncontrollably and babbling incoherently, like an overinflated child now desiccated. With no history of aggression, he started taking swings at staff. He was known as a "tough case" and a "handful." That's how he left this earth that even now is erasing him as his beloved Lake Michigan's waves claw back the shore.

But even with all the tragedy, his life was a sort of triumph. He made it out of a broken home, made his own way, made his own family, made a career, made the best of a bad beat. How many world historical figures could you say the same about? He'll be forgotten, but there's still the record. So, for the record, let me state:

He was C---- R-----'s second husband. He stuck with her through all the sickness and the modicum of health, through the oases of good times and deserts of bad. And he was my father. He loved me as best he could despite his matching low emotional intelligence. He took me out to the ballgame and wrote checks to cover my textbooks when he couldn't get approved for a car loan.

S---- R----- developed a good working knowledge of architecture, how to protect tax-payers' money, and how to hold contractors to account. He favored function over form without succumbing to ugliness. He tried his damnedest to keep from declaring bankruptcy, and even though he did, boy did he postpone it. All his life, he beat the odds that were heavily stacked against the child of two devoted alcoholics.

S---- R----- had a knack for delaying the inevitable, but he couldn't stop it. None of us can any more than his loved ones and medical professionals could get him to calm down and sit still once his mind had been hijacked. So I guess that goes to show that even those who fared better in life still can't do any better than S---- R----- could at evading death. So, fuck everyone else who gave up on him and thank you all for not doing so as evidenced by your being here today.