*Note: The
following essay is adapted from the eulogy I gave at my father’s funeral on
December 12, 2011.
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| Dad, December 25, 2009 |
I have
always adored my father, so much so that I have sometimes denied his faults – though
he had as many as the rest of us.
However, about a year ago, I found a Father’s Day poster I had made him
in school with fill-in-the-blank sentences that started with “I love my dad
because….” Twenty or twenty-five years
later, those statements still ring true: “I love my dad because he has messy
hair.” And, “I love my dad because he loves me.” When not lost in thought, Dad was an electric
current whizzing through rooms, sending off sparks of love, sarcasm, irreverence,
and occasionally, taskmaster.
That someone
who worked so hard, without complaint, to take care of his body in order to
live has died is unfair. But, Dad
wouldn’t have wanted anyone to be melancholy on his behalf. Shortly before my grandfather died, Dad and I
sat in a room as he told me about the preparations he had made for the looming
funeral. With tears in his eyes, he told
me, “Life is so profound. We are all
only one breath away from death.” Since
expressing emotion was not Dad’s forte, he usually reflected on life in more
matter-of-fact tones. For example, a
month before he died, I told Dad about a student I wanted to help but could not
because of school policy. Dad said, “Let
it go.” When I repeated the story a few
days later, he said, “Nat, get over it.
Don’t ruin your weekend ruminating over this.”
Dad talked
often about the fact that life is unfair. He, however, was blessed with more
than his fair share of luck. His luck
began when my grandmother, Emma, married Herman Jacobs. Poppy, as I called him, was a grown-up kid,
and my dad loved him dearly. At Poppy’s
funeral a few years ago, Dad talked about the fact that Poppy never met a
person he couldn’t befriend. He told
those gathered that knowing Poppy reminded him it was worthwhile to make
friends.
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| Greasy and Poppy (Emma and Herman Jacobs), Date unknown |
Most people
haven’t ever heard Dad complain about the horror of having company over or
having to make an appearance at a social event.
What they do know is that once the party started, Dad had the time of
his life. He might have stolen the
showing, out-talked the host, or laughed so hard he nearly cried. He seems to have been friends with every
person he came into contact with, from the guard at the office building to
court reporters to strangers bicycling in Holiday Park to the judges he
addressed with nicknames such as, “Georgie Baby.”
Dad was
lucky throughout life. He was lucky to
break his arm badly enough in the 70s that he missed serving active duty in the
Vietnam War. He was lucky to have a form
of prostate cancer that grew slowly over a period of years. He was lucky to have had numerous heart
“events” but never a heart attack until last Thursday. He was also lucky to have a wife who
tolerated his absentmindedness and who knew how to keep him in line. He did, by the way, love my mom dearly.
My dad was
most lucky to know that he was lucky. He
didn’t take being alive for granted. He
didn’t moan and groan about aches and pains.
Simply put, he got up each day and lived.
I am a
teacher, and this past year, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how alike
the classroom is to the world at large.
We adults are not much different than a class of tenth-graders – for
better or worse. What I love most about
teaching is seeing glimpses of the little kids inside the pubescent minds and
bodies of my high schoolers. Being
around my dad was also a regular reminder of the joy and power of childhood.
Foremost
among the outstanding qualities of kids is a willingness to ask questions. My dad had an insatiable curiosity. He always wanted to know more, whether the
topic be brewing beer, the Civil War, or playing ukulele, which he started to
do two days before dying.
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| Dad in one of my parents' many gardens. |
My dad was
also passionate. His hobbies changed
regularly, but he was 100 percent focused on whatever had caught his
interest. At home, this meant he might answer
a question incompletely or that he was leaving track marks on floor as he paced
back and forth talking to himself.
Sometimes, when I called and asked, “What are you doing?” all I heard
was silence on his end of the phone line.
Once re-engaged with the rest of the world, someone – Mom, one of the
kids, a neighbor, a friend – was going to learn something new.
Like a kid,
my dad had an unvarnished sense of right and wrong. Unlike most adults who protect themselves or
their interests with a flexible perception of right and wrong, my dad always
stood by his beliefs. Charlie Smith
wrote this comment in response to Dad’s obituary:
“Bobby
was and will always be remembered as a man of great character. He never failed
to do the right thing no matter the consequences to himself.” What Charlie wrote is true. As Bob’s daughter, I found his steadfastness sometimes
infuriating. Whining and cheap arguments
rarely changed his views.
I
did get my father to make a concession concerning the cell phone bill,
however. At the time of Dad’s death, I
was thirty and engaged to be married. He
had allowed me to stay on the family cell phone plan for about eight years – a situation
he and my mother found embarrassing and galling. The extra line cost $10 per month, and I paid
him $30. (In actuality, the plan cost
about $15 after taxes.) In recent years,
Dad had tried to foist me off the cell phone plan, but I made an agreement with
him. He would allow me to stay on the
plan until I got a job that paid more money or until I got married. Once I was engaged, Dad told his friends he
couldn’t wait to get my line off the cell phone bill. Of course, I stayed on for five months after
the wedding, but surely he knows now that I am completely and permanently
financially independent.
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| One of my favorite photos of Dad. He was demonstrating his skill as an Olympic gymnast. Sacramento, California. |
The
most brazen of kids, my dad loved to make jokes and laugh. Unlike those kids who grow up to be school
bullies, my dad’s jokes were never the sugar-coating for venom. Some neighbors stopped by to pay their
condolences on Saturday, and they laughed as they recalled Dad rolling down the
window of his car to yell, “Get off the street” as he drove by. He was not one to say “I love you”; instead,
he gave the people he cared about a great deal of heck. This includes having answered the telephone
in hundreds of different voices, and when I was away at camp in high school, telling
a friend I couldn’t come to the phone because I was dead. Dad once hid behind parked cars in a garage,
waiting to jump out, in order to scare a secretary. He reveled in taking photos of strangers
walking in parks while on vacation in San Francisco with my mother, stood on
the table to sing opera, and during one of many impulsive moments, put shoe
polish on his head to mask the spot where he had shaven off too much hair.
After
the funeral, my family informed me that I related the shoe-polish story
inaccurately, so I will amend that story now.
Dad had decided to cut his own hair with an electric razor. My mother had cut her hair before, and my
brother regularly shaved his head. I can
only guess that these facts were encouragement to my father. Dad pulled out the razor and buzzed
away. The guard was not on, and he
shaved off too much hair on one side.
One could clearly see scalp through the hair. The other side soon matched. In an effort to correct his mistake, my
father applied shoe polish to the overly-shorn spots. The shoe polish didn’t help much, except to
add hilarity to the situation. But, like
I said before, I loved Dad’s messy hair.
Despite
working in a profession with a dark side, Dad retained a trusting nature and
was not cynical. He believed, without
fail, in a justice system in which all individuals’ rights are protected – one
in which all judges and attorneys fulfilled their duties honorably. In the midst of making prosecutors scramble in
court, Dad would do something like loan $7 to a homeless man on his way out of
the office, believing he would be repaid but laughing when he was not. Perhaps his greatest success as a criminal
defense attorney was his appeal of Chelsea Richardson’s case. As I understand it, his work on that case was
equal parts defense of Chelsea and a repudiation of prosecutorial negligence.
My
mom once told me that she had asked my dad what he missed most from the
past. This happened after a number of
life-changing events had occurred, and Dad told her that he missed family
dinners. For decades, mom had cooked
meals from scratch, and the five of us would sit down to eat dinner, sometimes
in near silence, sometimes in a noise-filled room. Sitting around the dining room table is the
image that comes to mind when I think of Home.
I
am so grateful that we had many family dinners in the weeks preceding my father’s
death. I am grateful that the day before
my dad died, I told him a story about Cheese Whiz that made him laugh. I am grateful he and Gina last talked to one
another in gangsta voices about gangsta activities. I am grateful that Paul assumed the role of
head of household in the days after Dad disappeared, and I am grateful that Dad
approved of the Christmas decorations mom had put up the last day he was alive.
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| Dad preparing before a bike ride. He later switched to a recumbent. |
More than anything, I am grateful that Dad
died doing what he loved, bicycling. He
and I rode together for a period of time, and he frequently told me that he
felt best physically when he was on the bike.
Dad died knowing we loved him, and I, for one, know that he loved me,
even though he refused to give me a hug upon request.
In
remembrance of my father, I will find moments today and everyday thereafter to
be conscious of life – to feel, to laugh, to acknowledge what I have. Doing that and occasionally dropping an
F-bomb for no good reason are the best Bob Ford tributes there are.
