Ellen's Eulogy

Several years ago, a colleague of mine was taking care of her aging parents. One day she said to her mother, “You’ve changed as you’ve gotten older.” Her mother replied, “We’re just the same as we always were – it’s just that all the topsoil has washed off!”

As Dad got older, the topsoil washed off and you could see his essence. A couple of things stand out to me.

As always, there was his sense of humor. The last time I took him to the hospital, he had just learned that this was it, things couldn’t be fixed. We went through the interminable admissions process, which ended with a woman putting a hospital bracelet on his wrist and saying, “We have to make sure your bracelet has the right name on it, so please read that, sir, and tell me if it’s your name.”

Dad peered at the bracelet for a long moment, and finally said, “By golly, it is!!”

After the topsoil washed off, one thing that stood out about Dad was the pleasure he took in life. Of course, there was the boat. We took a picture of the boat with Mt. Desert Island as background into his hospital room. For a while it was propped up against a lamp, and it would occasionally slip down. When Dad noticed that, he’d say, “Put the boat up properly!”

But he also loved little things, like going to Spring Brook Farm for eggs and milk. The farmer’s name was Fowler (no relation), which Dad enjoyed. And he loved hearing the farmer say, “The girls are layin’ today.”

And Dad loved bugging Mum by watching the weather every night at 6:10 during the cocktail hour. Mum would say, “Why do we have to watch the weather again? We know what the weather is going to be – we heard about it this morning on the radio.” And Dad would say, “You heard about it – I didn’t have my hearing aids in, so I didn’t hear a thing.”

Another thing that stood out was Dad’s love for and delight in people. In the last couple of years, when people were around he missed a lot of what was said. But he would look at you with a smile on his face and in his eyes, as if he knew you were about to say the most interesting thing in the world. He would shine with the pure joy of being with you.

Also in the last couple of years, Dad had a lot of doctor’s appointments – he and Mum joked that they were becoming authorities on Portland’s medical community. Despite the circumstances, Dad really cared about his doctors and their staff, and they cared about him. A couple of months ago, Dad found out that one of his doctors liked action mysteries and had never read anything by Robert B. Tannenbaum. Dad bought a paperback by Tannenbaum, and when he was in the hospital he asked me to take it to the doctor’s office. He said, “Tell him I don’t want him to go through life never having read a Robert B. Tannenbaum.”

Most of all, Dad delighted in his family and friends. Even in the last weeks and days of his life, when someone came in to see him, his face would light up and he’d say, “Hello, so & so!” and reach out to hold a hand.

That’s what I saw in Dad when the topsoil had washed off:

• His joy in life
• His love and delight in friends and family

I’d like to close with a verse from the Bible that reminds me of Dad. It’s a beautiful, vivid image:

And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.
(II Samuel 23:4)