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.