Eulogy For My Father

It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. It’s like walking up the stairs in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things. 

Daddy encouraged me to play music, to read, and to follow all my artistic interests. He showed concern when my grades were sub-par, but stressed that actually learning something was more important than a letter grade. He stressed that I should always endeavor to learn everything I could. He taught me dad/son things: fishing, how to work on engines, carpentry, shooting, old cars, boating, how to dissect a cat… Dad also taught me to not let myself be pushed around, to stand up for what I believed in, and though it might seem contradictory, Dad also taught me to remain calm.

Those who knew Daddy are aware of his tendency to “fly off the handle” over inconvenient minutia, But we who were closest to him know well that he possessed a very kind and gentle heart. While small things may have seen him quick to anger, he was immensely patient when it came to important matters. The same man who would scream over me spilling a drink never failed to maintain a reassuring calm when when discussing a large infraction I’d committed. I knew I could always go to my father when I screwed up and that he would support me outwardly, no matter how much he might disagree with what I’d done in private. Albert Pike once wrote “What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.” To me, many of the defining characteristics of who I am embody this statement.

A common past-time with which dad would engage me was to drive all around, showing me the back roads of Lauderdale County. Often, these concluded when he would make his way to a small, redneck bar just across the Tennessee line. I remember one such trip especially well. 

Daddy drank a Miller Lite because he refused to drink Budweiser products due to some political stance I never really tried to understand that somehow involved Jessie Jackson’s son, and I drank the Heineken I’d learned to order once I accepted the futility of inquiring into the darkest beer they carried. It was either a Friday or Saturday because the band was set up on the small stage. It was late afternoon, and Dad called my attention to a woman who’d come in. Her attire, makeup and hair were done up to the nines and Dad pointed out how it was awfully early for someone who’d put so much effort into being attractive at night to already be in a bar. At this, Daddy dispensed what I took at the time as sage advice: “No matter how pretty that woman is, somewhere there’s a man that’s tired of her shit…”

I know now that this is actually the punchline to a joke, but at the time I thought he was serious. It’s a unique quality to be able to impart humor and wisdom and have it be so memorable, and that’s what I remember most about my father.

A Boy and His Dog

Few relationships we form through our lifetimes will have the longevity, co-dependence or love as that we choose to share with a pet dog. The canine has been domesticated by man since before recorded history. There has literally always been a human understanding that a dog makes an appropriate companion. I don’t know why this is, but I can only imagine that those humans through the ages have recognized the same loyal companionship apparent in the species. Great and small alike, it seems the natural state for a canine to be a social creature and to accept man as immediate family.

There are many tales of dogs caring for wounded people or abandoned babies. We read these will understanding and emotion yet we aren’t really surprised by them. Indeed it seems few and far between are those in our society who don’t share an affinity for man’s best friend. 

There are good people and bad people in this world, and most straddle a line somewhere in the middle of the two extremes. But no matter the foulest person there is, I’ll bet there’s a dog who has at some point loved that man above all reproach. 

Dogs don’t need us. There’s plenty of evidence that they can survive in the wild on their own. But they seem to need us. And we need them. There doesn’t exist a truer, more faithful bond than between a boy and his dog. No woman can ever hope to provide that intense level of love and no parent can wholeheartedly express such empathy with that boy’s emotions.

I can be friends with people who are acquainted with those I don’t care for—I can trust them with my life. I don’t think I could ever trust a man (or woman) who didn't like dogs. The mere idea seems inhuman to me. 

I wrote this cradling my crippled, blind, 15-year-old miniature pincher, who has lately been having some gastrointestinal issues. I had to break away somewhere in the fourth paragraph to run her outside in the rain while I was barefoot as she had begun to lose control of her bowels on me. After tending to her and changing my shirt I returned to finish this essay. It strikes me that if any human, even my own daughter, were to poop on me I’d be so disgusted that I’d probably vomit up my dinner. With this poor creature, who’s given me her entire life though, I could only manage mild disgust and limitless pity. That’s the power of a dog.